Dining 2023

 Another year is coming to a close and it's time to review what new restaurants I visited during the year. First, when I started my retirement, I decided it would be nice to eat at one new place every week. The first year (see graph) I accomplished my goal and the second year I dropped to 47 of 52. But after a few Doctor appointments about weight and other things caused by weight, I realized maybe I should slow down my eating so I dropped to just one new restaurant every two weeks. For the next three years I met that goal.

Then the pandemic hit in 2020 and eating out slowed way down and over the next three years I was averaging one new restaurant every two months. Things are getting back to normal and I said a year ago in this Blog, I would get back to the 26 a year rate. As you can see, I only got yo 14 but that is at least one new place a month. Hopefully, in 2024 I will get back to 26.

Number of NEW restaurants by Year

When I started keeping my dining statistics in a spreadsheet, I tried to categorize each place with a Type. In this day and age, most places are spanning across many different ethnic groups, so I came up with the Eclectic type. Even calling a place American is misleading as there are big differences from state to state. American restaurants in Vermont are a lot different than American places here in Florida.

In 2023, I visited only five Types of restaurants as shown in the graph below.

I should mention that my current spreadsheet has 37 different Types with the most visited being American (76), Seafood (23), Eclectic (18), Mexican (17), Italian (13), and Breakfast (11).

Some of the types I have only visited once are British, Columbian, Ecuadorian, French, Greek, Island, Lebanese, Peruvian, Portuguese, South African, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

The seven American places in 2023 were:

• 7 South Sandwich Co. Middlebury Vermont
• Cadillac Cove Sat Beach Florida (see review below)
• Cheers on the Beach Melbourne Beach Florida
• Jack Lindsey's Hangar Bar Disney Springs Florida
• Salty Sisters Cocoa Beach Florida
• The River Pub & Grill Brandon Vermont
• Tin Whiskey Southern Kitchen Cocoa Village Florida

The four Breakfast places in 2023 were:

• Beachside Café Indiatlantic Florida
• Keke's Breakfast Café West Melbourne Florida
• Lily's Beachside Restaurant Satellite Beach Florida
• Morning Glory Satellite Beach Florida

On December 21, while shopping at the ABC Liquor in Satellite Beach (for gifts of course), I decided to stop at an old place that has been newly opened (again). Many years ago this was the Cove, a very popular hangout for the single crowd and they did have great food. Then it became other things including Whiskey Beach. It is now called Cadillac Cove.

Here is the new sign on A1A,

You can't miss the large tiki hut that is out front along the roadway. On this day it was a little cool, so I decided to go to the inside bar. Normally, when it was Whiskey Beach, we would sit outside.

It was about 2 PM and I had not eaten yet and was happy to see that they had a lunch menu.

They have a full liquor bar and plenty of beers on draft including one of my favorites, Kona Big Wave.

For lunch, I asked what the Chowder was and Ashley, the bartender, said it was New England clam chowder so I went with the pick 2: chowder and a 1/2 smoked turkey sandwich with mayo. It came out within two minutes and was very good.

I am giving the place a 2.5 (Good to Great). There are a few things I want to mention. It appears that Lou, who owned Lou's Blues, is a backer of this new place. It became obvious to me he is because he was in there working on a new game room and even said hi to me. Then the next bartender, Jenn, who is a good friend who previously worked at Lou's and now I see her often at Squid Lips. I heard yesterday that Sabrina, who was a favorite server at Lou's, is now a manager at Cadillac Cove. Interesting times are ahead.

The last place I visited was because I had 13 places for the year, and that just seemed unlucky. So on December 27 I visited The Bat Cave Gastropub in Melbourne. It is just off of Babcock Street on New Haven Avenue. This converted gas station has been too many other things to count (or remember). The local newspaper called it a Craft Beer-centric pub. I had Gastropub as one of my Types but decided to merge it into Eclectic. 

This is the chalk board behind the bar with beers on tap and New arrivals. They have a menu of the beers but most were marked as Out of Stock. The board is Up to Date.

They have a small food menu but I had read online that the food was great. A quick picture of the menu. I ordered a 3 Mavins Amber Lager draft from the board and perused the menu. The bartender was Katie and she said just call when I am ready to order.

I was thinking of getting a sandwich but the two guys at the bar next to me had food delivered and the sandwiches looked huge. More than I was hungry for so I started to check out the Shareables. I took a picture of the bar, it appears that only have a beer and wine license. In the lower corner you can see the fries from the guy next to me.

The 3 Mavins went down quickly so I ordered a Sci-Fi Hamster Wheel from Thin Man Brewery in Buffalo NY. It was a fine India Pale Ale and went scrumptiously with the Baby Boulders appetizer I had ordered.

Just so I do not have to explain the food, here is a close up description of the Baby Boulders.

They were delicious. I give a 3.0 (Great) to the Bat Cave Gastropub. I plan to go back when I am more hungry and order a sandwich. It was a good ending to 2023 and hopefully in 2024, there will be many more places...

Happy New Year to all!!!