Space Coast Restaurant Guide, Part II: Return of the Eaters

Well, we've eaten more, so here's additional restaurant reviews!  If you're wondering what "Floridity Factor" means, scroll down two posts for a description.  

Florida's Seafood Bar and Grill

Though the generic name makes this place tough to Google, Florida's Seafood is the cream of the B&G crop in these parts.  Eschewing every extraneous trend of haute cuisine, FSB&G gets straight down to the brass tacks of churning out mounds of delicious seafood in a loud, tacky atmosphere.  The combo boil is simply rapturous.  To make it even more charming, our conscientious waitress made sure we knew that IPA was more bitter than Busch Light, and that, "when it says fish and chips, it actually means fries."  You'll probably have to wait, but who cares?  You're in Xanadu.

Floridity Factor: 🐊🐊🐊 Vaguely tiki decor is supplemented by surfboard-shaped tables and numerous tropical fish tanks.  The outdoor dining area never seems to be open, despite frequent overcrowding.  

Longdoggers

Local chain Longdoggers serves up 12-inch hot dogs, seafood, and various jalapeno-blasted fried shrimp shooter-type seafood-adjacent food stuffs in an inside-outside atmosphere redolent of your classic Florida B&G.  Too new to be ramshackle exactly, but definitely trying hard to be, the 'Dog features a generous kids menu and a very generous Happy Hour(s) menu, meaning it's a real grandparent-grandchild scene between 4-6.  Also a favorite of law enforcement.  You'll likely have to wait, but grab a beer and play some ring toss or cornhole while you do (I recommend Intracoastal's Hatteras Red Lager).  

Floridity Factor: 🐊🐊🐊  The bright atmosphere, good beer selection, and their habit of funding various charitable activities around Brevard County lend Longdoggers a something of a disqualifying sheen.

Sandbar Sports Grill

There's no culinary reason to love this place.  Aside from a pretty good mahi basket, their heavily-advertised fish tacos are extraordinarily Anglo, the beer selection is mediocre, and the drinks lean heavy on sugar mix (they do make a devastating "Level 5 Hurricane," though, with enough booze to punch through the sweet). But far from being a black mark, this all just means ol' Sandy's clicking off those Floridity boxes.  Here the clientele runs the gamut between unruly, sunburnt families fresh off the nearby beach, drunk young retirees dancing to cover bands, and hard-bitten Florida Mans and Womans congregated at an outdoor bar built so close to the property line you can lean back in your stool and smoke without breaking the law. The building's interior is a warren of uncoordinated curios, broken surfboards, beer signs, brightly-painted scraps of 2x4, cancelled license plates, and old-timey nautical gear, with stickers filling in the gaps between items. If you were to ask me for a quintessential, 1-day Cocoa Beach itinerary, I'd say this: stop in and get some beach gear from Ron Jons, park at Shepard Beach Park and grab a roadie from the Sandbar to take to the beach, frolic in the waves for a while, head back to the Sandbar for a long lunch, then walk to the Cocoa Beach Pier for ice cream.  Late dinner at the Port (see below).  You could do a lot worse.

Floridity Factor: 🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊 Merits the full 5 gators.  Accept no substitutes.

Sunset Cafe Waterfront Bar and Grill
Sunset Cafe has no excuse to be as bad as its consistently poor reviews given its heavenly setting right on the back bay (the Yelp page is a real murder scene).  Dolphins and stingrays cruise the shallow waters off the bar deck, and there'll usually be a live musician serenading the dinner crowd as the sun goes down.  But the poor quality food is way overpriced and service is consistently rated as slow.  It's next door to the magisterial, though sadly landlocked, Florida's Seafood (see above), and you really wish they could somehow switch kitchens.  Dang it, really wanted to love this place.  

Floridity Factor: 🐊🐊 Nails the location, and not much else.

SUBCATEGORY: RESTAURANTS AT THE PORT

Port Canaveral, at the north end of the city, is a major shipping a cruise port. Built up along the south side of the canal is a series of fresh fish markets, bar & grills, and party boat fishing companies. Can get very crowded out here when a cruise ship or two is in port.

Fishlips
Yes!  Fishlips is a family favorite, partly because the fish is fresh (try the mango mahi), and partly because they serve your food in these delightfully efficient, stackable bamboo trays, which the waitstaff really seems to appreciate.  It's had a glow up in recent years, so the décor inside is more "we're a serious restaurant, guys" than it used to be, but the upstairs outdoor deck is a ton of fun, and it offers great views of the canal and the adjacent cement factory.  If you're coming to the port to eat, come here first.

Floridity Factor: 🐊🐊🐊 If you can watch dolphins and pelicans while you wait for a table, that's pretty Florida. Too classy for a fourth alligator, though.  

Grills Seafood Deck

Alas, poor Grills, I knew it well.  

A quintessential example of the Florida Bar & Grill, Grills was a must for our family for years until the owner outed himself as an anti-vaxxing MAGA bigot. After Bud Light did a minor, one-off social media promotion with a trans influencer, eyewitnesses claim this clown pulled the beer from his menus, and then proceeded to spoil his entire supply--kegs n' all--by setting it out in the sun in an attempt to swindle Budweiser into free credit.  When confronted, he claimed in the press he did it for religious reasons. Did he pull all Budweiser products from his lineup, you ask, in a display of ethical consistency?  Of course not. That would mean actually risking something for his wretched beliefs. Naturally, he's just another unserious, vice-signaling poser peddling bad theology. Don't eat here.

Floridity Factor: 🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊 Sad, but true.

Rusty's Seafood and Oyster Bar

Another classic port pick, big ol' Rusty's is sandwiched between Fishlips and the Orlando Princess (which fastidious readers will remember from previous entries).  While the interior is somewhat dark and somber, the massive back deck overlooks the canal and is a great place to watch cruise ships embark.  There's usually some live music, too.  I secretly like it more than Fishlips, but don't tell.

Floridity Factor: 🐊🐊🐊🐊 They're trying to smash a Cape Cod theme and like a reggae theme together here, and I don't know if it's working.  But that makes it all the more Floridian, if you ask me.

Gator's

Ugh, a chain that tries too hard and ends up as parody.  Basically a Floridified Chilis. It's good location can't make up for the sloooow service.  

Floridity Factor: 🐊🐊🐊🐊 It's got most of the necessary ingredients, but is too "just so," like when an amusement park dedicates a section to looking like the French Quarter.  No authentic grime, just fake grime.

Update from Vacationland

With Part I of the Restaurant Guide out of the way, let's have an update on what we've been up to.  It's hard to overstate the sense in which most of our days have blended together, so this is going to be pretty general.  

Weather forecasting is exceedingly dumb down here; southern Florida has been blanketed by rainstorms all week, and we keep catching afternoon strays from that system, or at least being told that we will.  Then, it doesn't happen.  Or, it's supposed to be sunny, but rains?  We've spent most of the mornings and early afternoons at the pool (only one true beach day so far, and lotsa rip current).  The Miner fam rented a same condo on the beach they did last summer--only this year they're in Florida until basically August.  We're doing most things with them.  It's been great!, and mostly relaxing, if not stuff worthy of a blogging Pulitzer.  See some pics:

Not pictured: a sad Luke Miner, who dropped his cone

James catches a crab in his sandals

Uncle Mike comes to visit!

James catches a teeny baby scrub lizard with his bare hands

This past Thursday, we hit up Aquatica, one our nation's many waterparks billing itself as "America's Largest."  (The theme there is Polynesian, which is why the announcements were all done with an Australian voice actor?)  It's a Sea World property; we had good luck with Sea World over Spring Break, they seem to have grown up quite a bit since the Blackfish days.  Besides the excellent animal shows--including the walrus show where James got call down to feed the walrus in front of 3,000 people-- they are making a pivot to capture the thrill ride sector of the Orlando theme park world, which weirdly doesn't otherwise already exist.  They have some legit coasters, per James.  Anyway, we took the three Miner children with us to Aquatica, and aside from some whining about wait times, and a fraught early-morning period stemming from some obnoxious behavior in the car, we had a great time.  Parking, locker, and food costs were extortionate ($35 for parking, $50 for a locker, and $114 for an execrable cafeteria hotdog luncheon), but offset by the half-priced Memorial Day admission sale.  Pics!

They built a pretty convincing beach, tbf

Shave ice break at Aquatica

Saturday was a memorable day, at least for Dad and James, who took Paige on the Orlando Princess half-day party boat fishing trip.  Erica and Juliet stayed with the remaining Miners and enjoyed a lovely pool day, whereas we caught MONSTER FISH on a reef about 10 miles from the Cape.  The way out to the fishing grounds was rough, with folks puking overboard, and Paige turned a distinct shade of green (she didn't barf though, tough kid).  Paige pulled in the first fish of our little group, a good-sized red snapper.  James and I had to wait for our catches.  With about 30 minutes left, I pulled in the largest fish of my life, a big ol' hoary red snapper, which absolutely exhausted me and my arms and back are still aching.  Check it:

James was distraught with 15 minutes left and no fish, but managed to reel in this cool little shark just before time was called.  The stupid thing bit through the line just as it was being dragged overboard, but that counts as a catch!  We think it counts, anyway, so it does.  Check it:

We've taken two rainy afternoons to see Inside Out 2 (great!) and If (meh).  Our obligatory visit to Golf n' Gator was a success, with James pulling no punches this time around, and almost beating his old man.  Also, here's a fun pair of pictures from Longdoggers:

This photo and the one below were taken almost exactly a year apart in the same spot.

2023 version

Today we're looking at another pool day, maybe the beach?  Maybe end the day with a mai tai and some blackened mahi?  Ah, well.

Space Coast Restaurant Guide, Part I: What is Floridity?

In lieu of the expected Vacation Content®, I give you Part 1 of our Space Coast Restaurant Guide.  Not that anyone suspects otherwise, but our reviews are always objective and impartial and we never benefit from them.  Well, we haven't yet, but who's to say?  Each review concludes with a gator-rater out of 5 gators, reflecting the Floridity of the establishment (which is really--beyond the prospect of fresh fish--what you're here for.)  What is Floridity?

(To be clear from the outset, Floridity, as a idea, shares some conceptual overlap with, but is not contiguous with, the "Florida Man" mythos--that skinny, chain-smoking methhead who's been arrested for strapping a live alligator to the hood of his truck, or the tattooed, weed-dealing sex criminal discovered to be hording a suspiciously huge number of taxidermied racoons in his trailer. Florida Man is normally found in the interior of the state, not necessarily at the beach, where we are.)

Back to my original point: what makes a Florida place great in a specifically Florida kind of way?  This is a non-exhaustive list:          

1.)  Fresh fish on the menu. There'll be a posted menu of rotating species, which may or may not actually be available, but they've always got some mahi.       

2.) Live music--classic rock or country--or at least a stage that suggests live music is sometimes played there.  When the band isn't playing, it's modern country over the PA.

3.) Ample outdoor, covered seating, and at least one large outdoor bar.  

4.) Some combination of corrugated metal sheeting and dried palm fronds acting (superficially) as roofing, usually above the bar areas.

5.) A whole bunch of crazy crap on the walls. Often an uncoordinated collection of curios, broken surfboards, beer signs, brightly-colored scraps of 2x4, cancelled license plates, and old-timey nautical gear, with stickers filling in the gaps between items.  The edifice may actually appear to be made of this stuff, but no, no one would ever insure it. (If you actually want to go to a place that's literally like this, check out Bomba's Shack in Tortola, BVI.  Actually, Google just now tells me it's permanently closed.  RIP Bomba's.  A Real One if ever one existed.)

6.) Clientele: a few Florida Mans posted up at the bar; youngish retirees with tobacco-stained goatees here for the daily happy hour; tattooed, somehow rich, blue collar guys in their 40s and 50s (also with goatees) wearing trucker hats, sunglasses with neoprene straps to keep them from flying off, and pastel t-shirts with big, technicolor logos on the back featuring swordfish or mahi mahi jumping out of the water above a punny, vaguely sexual slogan (e.g., "Sinkers Bar & Grill, Vero Beach, FL - We've Got Big Cans," etc.). Bonus points if they're wearing crocks, jorts, a braided belt, or a cell phone holster; tons of unsupervised kids running around.  Out in the parking lot is likely to be a succession of Real Big Trucks adorned with threatening, seditious messaging.  

7.) Boring beer selection.  And, in fact, a pretty bad drinks menus overall.  Taps will be Bud products, though not always Bud Light because of politics, and Yuengling for some reason.  Occasionally a local craft brew sneaks in.  Mixed drinks will be brightly-colored and treacle-sweet.  

8.) The waitstaff uses terms of endearment with customers.  Northerners may find it condescending or simply "not done" for some other poorly-grounded reason of contemporary petit bourgeois morality, but they do not care about that down here.  You're "hun" or "darling," and since they're the ones working hard for you, you keep your trap shut and enjoy the mothering.  

The more of the above you have the more authentic Floridity you've captured, though this raises the question of from whence authentic Floridity comes. If we carve out St. Augustine and maybe Miami Beach, most of Florida--the part below the Dixie panhandle bit, at least--is still pretty much just a recently-settled swamp.  And you sense that its manifold Bar & Grills, as highly curated spaces, have been assembled according to a pre-fabbed notion of what such an establishment ought to be, one that has itself been cobbled together from all manner of bits and bobs of pop-culture flotsam and stray Jimmy Buffet lyrics.  Hence, we get a lot of incongruous Polynesian tiki décor, Beach Boy-era surfing paraphernalia (surfing is not really a Florida pastime, Cocoa Beach excepted), and of course the mandatory neon It's Five O'Clock Somewhere sign, with accompanying parrot (not native to Florida).  As there exists neither a parent culinary culture nor aesthetic to speak of, these places don't so much express said concepts (as would, say, a pizzeria in Napoli or even a German restaurant in Milwaukee) as they do invent and perpetuate them.  So on one level it's mostly faked, yet it is nevertheless authentic insofar as it's faked, because that's its essence, built as it is around a hollow core.  A copy with no original, Baudrillard's simulacrum.  And in that sense, Floritidy is a highly American sensibility.  I love all of it so much.

Yada, yada, anyway, on with the reviews!

Coconuts on the Beach 

A beach bar glown up into a full service restaurant, Coconut's is right on the beach, so there's no false advertising here.  Its seating is mostly outdoor on a giant, covered deck, and it's usually hopping, so it feels like you're part of the party.  Sadly, the food is mostly pretty meh (stick with the mahi sandwich), avoid the pastas (wtf?). They hawk branded, novelty booze glassware: once upon a time, that meant big, heavy glass tiki cups, but today you get cheesy, branded light-up plastic mugs.  Clientele during the day is a mixed bag of families, young retirees, Florida Mans, and hard-bodied industry workers.  Turns more clubby the later it gets.  Love it here.

Florida Factor: 🐊🐊🐊 Spot on food and drink menu, and that location(!), trends more South Beach than Daytona Beach.

Fish Camp Bar & Grill 

You'll hardly know you're inside a Best Western when you step into Fish Camp, a sprawling Cajun-themed joint that feels like a redneck Rainforest Cafe.  They were selling beers for $2 a pint, so that's where it's at. They also had a Harry Potter trivia contest going on when we visited (we finished second), which was a lot of fun, if thematically disorienting.  A WHOLE BUNCH of crazy crap of the walls, and various gator dishes on the menu.  The rice in my jambalaya was dry.  Love it here.

Floridity Factor: 🐊🐊 Nails the swamp theme, but feels a lot more bayou than Everglades.

Dolphins Waterfront Bar & Grill

Ooh la la...you've driven out to Merritt Island to the Cadillac of Space Coast Bar & Grills.  Set way back on a canal amidst sailboat docks, Dolphins is a classy, upscale version of the B&G's at the cruise port.  The canal is actually lousy with dolphins.  We saw a bunch just lazing around right off the deck.  Bills itself as the largest tiki bar and restaurant on the Space Coast, which seems legit, as they've built a truly massive Polynesian-style longhouse here.  Both the grub and its corresponding bill are a step or two above the average.  I had an incredibly delicious and inventive fish curry stew, and everyone else in our party ate real good, too.  They even had fish on the kid's menu--quite a welcome change from the normal fatty fried fare our kids have to choose from.  Love it here.

Floridity Factor: 🐊🐊🐊 Large, outdoor, dockside, and tremendously inauthentically Hawaiian (and thereby pretty Floridian).  You'll need plenty of shekels to hang, though, so don't expect many Florida Mans livening up the joint.

Coasters Taphouse

In the strip Mall with the Publix, this was a Beef O'Brady's until it reinvented itself as a beer and gourmet burger bar.  They do have a much more interesting selection of beers than you normally get out here on our barrier island, even a Gose, if I'm not mistaken.  The dropped fiberglass ceiling tiles make you feel a bit like you're at work, though likely helped dampen the sound of 5 rowdy children in our party.  Service, like the retirees next to us, seemed chagrined to see the 5 children, and no one called us "hun."  Cheers for the inventiveness of the menu special that combined mahi, artichokes, and capers, jeers to overcooking the mahi.  

Floridity Factor: 🐊 Kind of an upscale, burger-centric Chilis, but could be anywhere, and not necessarily on a coast, either.

Ellie Mae's Tiki Bar

Now we're talking.  Ellie Mae's opened up four years and a half ago, and does a tidy trade up in Cape Canaveral.  Lots of interesting clientele, like the extraordinarily drunk Florida Man evangelizing the patrons, who stayed at our table arguing theology (poorly) for 15 minutes.  The outdoor tiki deck has live music and even live sand to sink your feet into.  Drinks aren't altogether expensive, and you're almost guaranteed to be called something endearing by the extremely extroverted waitstaff.  If Joanie's Beachside Cafe (see next series of reviews) was a bar, this would be it.  Chef recommends the peel and eat shrimp; pairs well with the mai tai.  Not yet entirely ramshackle, and the peppy logo looks like something free off the Vistaprint site.  Maybe someday it'll degenerate enough to get that 5th alligator! Love it here. 

Floridity Factor: 🐊🐊🐊🐊 

The Wendy's Next to Sea World

Not in Cocoa Beach, but we did go here after a day at Sea World's Aquatica waterpark in Orlando.  The kids were hungry, and it was a stop of desperation.  It's a lot like the Wendy's by your house.

Floridity Factor: No gators.  Frosties are as delicious as you remember them, however.

Stay tuned for the next installment of this series, which comes out when we eat at enough other places to make reviews for them.  Toodles!

Whirlwind Week

One week ago, having lately thrown out my back and so cancelled a long-awaited fishing trip with Grandpa and James, we left Evanston for Danville to kick off the summer in earnest (Erica stayed home to greet her new niece, Luna).  I spent several of the next few days on muscle relaxers and on my back, while James turned full Tom Sawyer in the woods and around the lake, and Juliet followed in his wake. The days always run together in Danville in a good way.  TV, boating, fishing, grilling, repeat.  It's never too exciting, and that's perfect.  It's important for the kids to spend time with their grandparents, but just as importantly, to get out of the city and away from their heavily-managed schedules. 

[Sidebar: my parents really did do it right.  Stick with one job for three decades so that you can retire young in a place where the dollar goes farther than practically anywhere else in America, travel a bunch on an increasing income that comes at the taxpayers' expense, and buy a swanky house you couldn't afford anywhere not named Gary or Detroit, which sits on grounds that abut a big lake you usually have to yourself.  I mean, geez.  Sure they were lucky enough to have be born at a time of enormous political stability where market conditions made wealth accumulation much easier than it is for young people today (though that's mainly down to their generation basically pulling the ladder up behind themselves), but still.  Geez.  There are worse ways to go about things.] 

On Thursday, we attended a Danville Dans game (they play in the Prospect League--a wooden bat summer league for top college players hoping to get scouted by a professional team). In typical James fashion, he got sidelined the moment he walked in by an usher who invited him to throw out the first pitch (Juliet also got asked, but chickened out at the last minute).  

 

Erica got down on Friday and worked the day while we did some last rounds of boating and fishing, and then we piled in the car and headed to the Red Roof Inn in Cave City, KY (don't recommend) for the night, so as to be ready for our morning tour of Mammoth Cave National Park.  Everyone else fell asleep by 10:30pm, but I just could not drop off, and I waited...and waited...and...didn't sleep at all.  Like, no hours of sleep.  Just lying there in my bed for 8 hours listening to everyone else sleeping, but not being able to turn on a light or watch tv or move to a different room.  

In the morning, I abused caffeine just to get me through the tour.  We met up with the Bondi family, who were, as the fates would have it, also passing through on their way to Hilton Head.  We did the 10am "Historic Tour," which is basically the main tour of the largest sections of the cave.  If you don't know, Mammoth Cave is the world's longest cave system (over 400 mapped miles!), and has been hosting curious surface dwellers for over 200 years.  In the early days, it was basically just hucksters taking rubes on, frankly, dangerous, torchlit explorations, but the Civilian Conservations Corps fitted it with lights and proper pathways decades ago, and today just about anyone can waltz their way through two hours of caving with only some minor bending and squeezing required.  It's super boss and you should go.  Cheers to the cave, jeers to the loud family behind us on the tour who not only incessantly talked over the docent, but who outfitted their children with glow sticks, and so ruined the famous "total darkness" lights out bit everyone had been looking forward to.  Here are some snappers:

Uncle Tony feelin' the squeeze of "Tall Man's Misery"

The 190 ft. vertical shaft, "Mammoth Dome" 

Our longsuffering tour guide trying to talk over the rude, noisy family behind us

After our tour we drove to Atlanta, to a pretty meh LaQuinta Inn (also don't recommend) in some faceless business corridor.  The kids hit the pool (which smelled suspiciously like natural gas--Erica reported it) before collapsing into bed.  On Sunday, we dropped Erica off at Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport--the world's busies airport!--did you know?  And I kept on driving south to Jacksonville to spend a lovely evening with my Uncle Mike at his new home.  The kids were happy to go swimming and fishing in the cool lake in his backyard (confession: I did worry about gators being in the lake, but there were lots of people swimming about, so safety in numbers?), where James and Juliet both caught fish, and Juliet--after a 2+minute ordeal--managed to take her little fish off the hook and throw it back all by herself!  

I hardly slept again for no reason, but I did get enough sleep to get us through the last leg of the journey.  We spent a few boiling-hot, 100+ - degree hours in the lovely and lovingly-preserved St. Augustine, FL, American's oldest European-founded city.  It's got a 16th century castle and everything.  The real highlight, IMHO, is the Flager College main building, which was built in the 1880s in the Spanish Renaissance Revival Style.  Wowee zowee, check the pic below.  Granted, St. Augustine mines the tourist dollar very obviously and effectively, but they do have some legit gems, and even an oven-hot afternoon passes quickly for the historically-minded tourist.

Seriously, it was so hot. Juju definitely got in that fountain.

[Sidebar #2: the city is apparently pronounced Saint AUGUS-teen, although the saint himself is Saint Au-GUS-tin.  He remains a giant in the Western theological and philosophical tradition, and basically invented both the Western conception of the self (see his Confessions), and the separation of the church and state (see his City of God Against the Pagans).  I don't think I'm out of line to suggest that the city ought to look into why it doesn't pronounce itself correctly.]

Geez, this is a long entry.  Anyway, we finally drove to Cape Canaveral and got into the condo.  I'll write about our time here later (preview: days here are like days in Danville.  They are all great and blend together.)   

Welcome to the Gholson Family Vacations blog!

Hello!  Thanks for finding your way here.  This will be the blog for Gholson family vacations going forward.

We love to travel!  For years we kept a very sparse and occasional record of our travels, which you can find here: https://gholsontravels.blogspot.com/.  We loved the writing, but found it hard to keep up with daily records on the road.  

But looking back through those old entries helped us remember all kinds of things we would have otherwise forgotten.  So, on the precipice of another summer of adventure, we've recommitted to the practice of regularly keeping tabs on our comings and (mostly) goings.  You can also catch up with us on our new Instagram account @gholsonfamilyvacations.  Most the best pics will be posted there, but we may save some choice morsels for this space, too.

This isn't about influencing or building readership or monetizing our lives.  It's about creating a monument of our travels, so we can always look back on where we've been, and get inspired to go somewhere new in the future!

#VacationAllIEverWanted

Only three days!