Marriott lobby bar - Come see the jellyfish tank at Korals

The Marriott is giving their lobby bar a little makeover.

Well, it’s not that little. The hotel has dropped $2.5 million into the effort, including $100K for the dumbwaiter (a miniature elevator, not a reflection on the I.Q. of the hotel’s wait staff), soaring ceiling beams, an internally lit onyx bar top, and a floor-to-ceiling fish tank stocked with live jellyfish.

The revamped facility was scheduled to open Sept. 16, and one day earlier, a myriad of details were still being fussed over by riggers, aquarium technicians, and electricians, with the controlled chaos orchestrated by Steve Lipschutz, food and beverage director for the Marco Island Marriott Resort, Golf Club & Spa. But this day he seemed somewhere between a construction foreman and “Q” from the James Bond movies.

The motorized shades weren’t behaving. The water in the 36-foot diameter, 10-foot tall jellyfish tank was clouded from the ammonia emitted by the fish. But having seen the amazing amount that can be accomplished in the final 24 hours before a grand opening, all systems are a go.

The bar has twin flat screen TVs that descend from the ceiling and pivot to show the big game, then retract back into recessed niches so as not to detract from the modernistic, freeform wooden ceiling beams designed to evoke mangrove roots.

Just behind the glowing onyx bar surface, a stainless steel ice trough will be chilled, said Lipschutz, to the point where snow forms on it, the better to keep the customers’ drinks cold. Even the floor is high tech, consisting of 47,000 individual pieces of end-grain hardwood coated with four coats of sealer. Expanded seating — they went from 55 seats to 119 —includes several “communal tables,” six-tops at bar height, to give more customers the feel of being at the bar. Wi-fi and outlets for your laptop are available too.

Called Korals, the lobby bar is just upstairs from the kitchen of the hotel’s premier dining room, Kurrents. “I got a special on the letter K,” said Lipschutz. The aforementioned dumbwaiter will bring plates of food up in 15 seconds from the kitchen below, allowing bar patrons to enjoy a sampling of light fare from below. Selections include grilled Gulf shrimp with peanut Asian slaw and tomato-ginger chutney, crab cakes with grain mustard sauce, leeks, roasted corn and peppers, and flatbread pizza from the brick oven at Kurrents.

In addition, the lobby bar will offer a complete lineup of sushi, including sashimi, nigiri and rolls, prepared right at Korals’ new sushi bar.

Specialty drinks will include the X-rated martini, with blood orange and mango-infused vodka, and the classic whiskey sour, with Maker’s Mark, fresh lemon and simple syrup. This drink, said Lipschutz, represents the “back to basics trend. It’s fantastic when you make it the old-fashioned way.”

In one more gee-whiz touch, all the liquor bottles disappear behind a screen when Korals is not open for business. Hours are from 4 p.m. to midnight, seven days a week.

Korals joins Kurrents, Tropiks, Quinn’s on the Beach, Pazzi’s, the Tiki Bar, and the Café San Marco coffee shop to provide a variety of options for eating and drinking at the Marriott.