The plan is simple. Arrive at Oaks by the Bay before dusk (the park closes at sundown), walk the boardwalk out over St. Andrews Bay, then carry the mood a few blocks up Beck Avenue for Gulf seafood and live music. The vehicle question is more interesting than it sounds, because the St. Andrews neighborhood makes parking a real constraint, and your drive back across Panama City gives you a chance to see which powertrain actually earns its keep on a stop-and-go October evening.
The light on St. Andrews Bay around 7 p.m. in late October is genuinely worth planning around.
The Hyundai Venue handles the neighborhood's narrow street parking better than almost anything else on our lot, and that's no trivial advantage on a busy Friday night in historic St. Andrews.
What's the Plan at a Glance?
| Stop | What to Do | Best Time | Parking Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oaks by the Bay Park (2715 W 10th St) | Walk the boardwalk, visit the Old Sentry oak, watch sailboats from the observation platform | Arrive 60-90 min before dusk | Small lot at the park; street parking on W 10th St |
| Beck Avenue (Historic St. Andrews) | Dinner at Hunt's Oyster Bar, Captain's Table, or Uncle Ernie's | 7-9 p.m. | Beck Ave street parking; compact vehicles have the clear edge |
| St. Andrews Bay waterfront | Post-dinner stroll along the marina | After dinner | Walk from Beck Ave restaurants |
The Park Itself Earns the Trip
Oaks by the Bay is a 5-acre city park at the south end of Beck Avenue in historic St. Andrews, and it sits right on St. Andrews Bay, which makes the easy part easy, though what the standard travel-site blurbs skip is the Old Sentry oak, a single live oak the city estimates to be more than 350 years old. That tree was already old when Panama City existed as a settlement. The boardwalk leads past it out over the water to a gazebo and an observation platform with benches (facing west, which matters for sunset). You'll pay no admission, find no crowds that a small parking lot can't absorb on a weekday, and the whole walking loop is short enough to finish comfortably before the gates close at dusk.
The park closes at sundown, and that's a hard stop. Come too late and you're staring at a locked gate. We'd suggest arriving at least an hour before sunset, which in late October means getting there by 6 p.m. or so.
The Tucson Hybrid is the vehicle we keep coming back to for this kind of errand-meets-evening outing. The EPA rates the 2026 Tucson Hybrid at 38 mpg combined on the Blue SE trim (front-wheel and all-wheel drive both hit that number), and the hybrid system recovers energy on every stop through the St. Andrews neighborhood rather than burning it. So much for the functional case. The practical one is that 182.7 inches of length is short enough to fit the street spots on W 10th without a three-point drama.
Beck Avenue After Dark
The St. Andrews dining strip along Beck Avenue sits about two blocks from the park entrance, which makes the sequence work naturally, so you walk, eat, then walk back along the marina. Hunt's Oyster Bar (1150 Beck Ave) has been shucking Apalachicola oysters on that street since 1966. Captain's Table Fish House (1110 Beck Ave) is a family-run seafood house that's been operating since 1967 and catches fish off its own boats. Uncle Ernie's Bayfront Grill (1151 Bayview Ave) runs live music nightly with views straight across the St. Andrews Marina.
None of these restaurants have large parking lots. Beck Avenue fills up on a weekend.
The IONIQ 6 earns its place here for a specific reason that has nothing to do with prestige. The 2026 IONIQ 6 Long Range RWD is EPA-rated for up to 361 miles of range. A round trip from Bay Hyundai to Oaks by the Bay and back, with dinner and a marina walk in between, is probably 20 miles of actual driving. You leave on a full charge and come home with most of it still intact, so no range math is required for an evening like this. The IONIQ 6 is also 191.1 inches long, so it's not a compact car, and Beck Avenue street parking takes more attention. Call it an honest tradeoff, more range for less maneuverability. If you're driving solo or with one other person and want the quietest, most effortless October evening we know how to sell, the IONIQ 6 is the right call.
A few things help in either vehicle on St. Andrews' streets at night.
- Standard rear-view camera (both the Tucson Hybrid and IONIQ 6 include it) makes parallel parking against a tight curb straightforward
- The IONIQ 6's one-pedal driving mode means you're rarely touching the brake pedal in the stop-and-go stretch from the park to the restaurant
- The Tucson Hybrid's standard wireless Apple CarPlay connects your playlist for the drive before you've buckled in
- Ambient lighting in both cabins reads as intentionally calm rather than flashy, which fits the mood of the neighborhood
Matching the Vehicle to Your Evening
The size of your group and how you're traveling shapes this more than any single spec, so the right pick swings between a park-and-walk night for two and a full-cooler run with the whole family. Both are easy to plan for, once you know which end of that range you're on.
Solo or as a couple with a taste for parking efficiency? The Venue's 159.1-inch length makes it genuinely the easiest vehicle to slot into any space that opens up on W 10th or Beck Avenue. The EPA rates it at 31 mpg combined, so the drive from the west end of Panama City costs almost nothing at the pump. It doesn't have the torque of the Tucson Hybrid or the range of the IONIQ 6. What it has is the ability to park in a spot that rules out every other vehicle on this list.
Families, or anyone bringing beach chairs and a cooler to the park beforehand, want more room. The Palisade seats up to eight, carries real cargo, and still navigates surface roads without issue. You won't win any Beck Avenue parallel-parking contests in it. But if the point is getting six people to the same waterfront view at the same time, the Palisade solves that problem in a single trip when two smaller vehicles cannot.
Our plain read runs like this. For most Panama City households doing this evening on a weekday, the Tucson Hybrid is the right vehicle. The Venue is sharper for the solo night out. When you want the drive itself to be as pleasant as the destination, the IONIQ 6 is the choice. The Palisade is for when the headcount makes everything else impractical.
Oaks by the Bay has been part of the St. Andrews neighborhood for over a century, and the Old Sentry oak predates all of it. Get there while the light is still good, eat well on Beck Avenue, and drive home along the bay with a quiet cabin and a battery you never worried about. That's a Panama City evening worth repeating. We're here when you want to talk through which Hyundai makes it work for your household.
