Sunday on Memorial Day Weekend

It is Memorial Weekend and I was just sitting around the house after doing some chores and errands. I decided I would take a trip up to Port Canaveral and stop for a Holiday beer. My plan was to go to Junkanoo, but my plans usually fail. Luckily, my car is trained well and it took me to Jetty Park. It was Sunday afternoon and it was packed. It was nice to see that the lifeguards had a US Flag flying for the holiday,


Upon entering the Park, there was a large sign claiming the beaches were full of seaweed. I guess they wanted to allow them to turn around before paying the park fee which is $5 for a Brevard County car, and $15 for a non-Brevard car. The sign did not lie, there was tons of seaweed and the people just set up between the piles!

A view of the crowds from the Jetty fishing pier....

It was very hot and there was no wildlife to photograph. I saw a very few birds and no turtles or fish. So I headed to one of my favorite places, Rising Tide. I ordered a beer, the Orange Blossom Pilsner, and the bartender Matt asked if I would be eating. He mentioned they had a special, a 1/2 pound bowl of mussels cooked in a wine sauce with some bread tips. I actually have been searching for mussels and escargot. They are harder to find then they use to be...

 There were about 16-20 mussels and they were great as was the sauce and bread. I had a few left in the sauce so I ordered a second beer, a Fat Tire.

I watched a girl put up this sign in chalk, I am assuming it is for a Father's day dinner although the sign does not say that.

Across the way from Rising Tide, there is a new place that recently opened called Junkanoo. Here are two of the signs on the building...


If the building looks familiar it is the location where Baja Tavern & Eats was. My first visit to that place was my third visit on my bucket list to try one new place every week in 2015. Now I am back again and it is a new place. I was told at Rising Tide it was good because they are a sister restaurant to Rising Tide. I love how they have open the deck on the water...

I went in the side door where they had a sign telling me I needed to see the hostess before being seated. There were two bartenders at the outside bar, so I asked them if It was okay for me to sit at the bar without talking to the hostess. They said "But of course!" It looks very similar in shape to the Baja bar, but there was lots of new woodwork... I a;so included the food menu, front & back...



From the deck, you can see across where SpaceX stores their ships. On the left is the large net ship that is going to try and catch a fairing. There were two recovery ships and two capsule mock-ups. These are planned to carry astronauts...

The bathrooms are located inside near the front entrance. I took a few photos of the cool island decor. The inside bar looks great, completely redone from the old days.



I decided I wanted to try some food so I ordered the wings. They have three flavours and I choose the Catalina Red, described as a Caribbean red sauce with jerk marinade. The wings are jumbo size and breaded and are served a house made parsley cream. You can also choose ranch or bleu cheese. The house sauce had a taste of coconut. Since I was eating island food, I ordered an island beer, Presidente from the Dominican.

The bartender Nathan was new to the area so we talked about places he had been to so far. Pleasant fellow, here he is with Summer working the outside (on the deck) bar.

I saw that they had a menu of island drinks including a Painkiller, one of my favorites when I was in St John. I ordered one as dessert.

Since Junkanoo was a new place, I give it a 3.5 (Great to Excellent). Although I only ate an appetiser, I saw plenty of the food being served around me. It all looked great. The people were very friendly too, I almost felt like I was in the islands.

After 6 hours at the port, I decided to drive back home. At the Eau Gallie Causeway I saw that there were not many cars at the new Beachfly Brewing company, located where the Purple Porpoise use to be many years ago. I decided to stop and see what they have.

They are a sister micro-brewery to a place in Colorado, they opened on Thanksgiving day in 2018. There beers are listed on a column near the bar...

Of course, they have t shirts...

And they serve flights, 5 4-ounce glasses, served in a cool star shaped tray. You fill out the list from B to E to A to C to H...and the beers are placed in the appropriate letter...

Some creative photography by BJ...

My choices and scores were:

  • B - Falcon Smash - Blonde Ale - B+
  • E - Purple Porpoise - Pale Ale - A-
  • A - Canova Sunrise - Red Ale - A
  • C - Shake Your Bruty Vol 2 - IPA/Brut - B+
  • H - Bramble On - Saison (Farmhouse Ale) - A
Although I did not get any food, I plan to go back here to try some. I give the place a 3.0 (Great) on the merits of their beers only. The place is bigger than it looks from the outside and holds 80 inside with 20 more on the front deck. The web page has some photos of food which also looks great!

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