It's been a very long time coming but the old Fishcutters Restaurant has finally returned and is now called The Wharf, on Summerland Key:
Fishcutters was rather rough and ready restaurant in it's original incarnation. Fishing boats came by the canal and sold fish to the ice house that made them available to the public, raw on one side of the room or cooked on the other. There were a few tables and eventually they got a license to sell beer and wine. Then the owner wanted to sell the place so it got tarted up and it languished for a long while as the boom had passed and the place sat empty. 
After months of rehabilitation the place is back and we've eaten there twice. My wife pronounces it good. She spent the last several years continuing to lament Fishcutters disappearance almost every time we drove by and she has watched the construction work progress slowly. Then one day we got to have dinner there and she finally tasted her favorite BLT sandwich once again. BLT stands for Bacon Lobster and Tomato and it was quite well known in the Lower Keys. She pronounced it as good as ever.
The new Wharf is clean bright and cheerful and seems to be supporting some metal artist as fish sculptures are everywhere. Meat is on the menu, which is focused on fish as one might expect. We went for Sunday brunch, a rare treat for us, because we wanted a chance to hang out with Robert and Dolly who live close by. Benedicts seemed to be the thing to order for brunch so we did. I had shrimp:
My wife and Dolly had lobster, complete with body parts:
While Robert, the former commercial fisherman who only likes to eat seafood that he catches, contented himself with a ham and cheese omelette. He wasn't exactly sacrificing himself:
The food really was quite good. I am no expert on hollandaise sauce but the one they turn out at the Wharf was excellent spiced up we believed, with some key lime juice. They don't have an espresso machine at the wharf but the coffee suited me just fine, sweet and lots of it in huge mugs. I liked the attention to detail at the Wharf too, from the linen napkins to the full service bar.
The owners also seem to be keen to join the 21st century in terms of technology. I found it odd that a two button toilet needed instructions but I guess the rest of the world caught on to this innovation first:
The reduce water consumption button:
We hung out for some considerable time talking and there was quite an ebb and flow of customers in the cheery restaurant. I expect this place will be popular in winter when the snowbirds and their deep pockets come back to the Keys and discover that this strategically placed restaurant is serving excellent fish right off the Highway on Summerland Key.
We spent $58 plus tip for the four of us which seemed reasonable for the high quality meal. We are looking forward to returning, perhaps for some outdoor seating amongst the art work:
Sirugo Avenue is hard to find, but it's a block east of White Street, south of Laird Street, if that helps. I was riding around town on my bicycle for a change. I brought the bike to town on my car rack, left the Nissan Maxima at the Police station and made my rounds of a few streets I'd planned to photograph.
This resident was out picking up trash that someone had dumped in defiance of the sign. His t-shirt read "Save the Planet, Ride Old Wood" which it seems is the motto of a longboard manufacturer in Key West...building surfing longboards from salvaged wood. Who knew?
Sirugo is just a block long and it is lined by homes covered with greenery: 
All these palms take work to look after, I sympathize as I had three bins of fronds at my own home this week with lots more to come:
It was a breezy afternoon and the palm trees were waving back and forth:
In a different vein I saw a manufactured home, pink in color, high upon stilts. Large areas of New Town (the area east of White Street) was subject to flooding in Hurricane Wilma in 2005 resulting in a great deal of damage. Stilts suddenly started to look good to people who could afford them. A banana plant provides nice color contrast to the startling pink:
This is recycling of a different order, surplus coconuts are easy to find when you have just a few mature trees:
Sirugo Avenue dead ends, but there is a street to turn off onto, called Atlantic Drive, much less lush than Sirugo:
This house is for sale for anyone who wants some greenery and a nice high wall.
And it's right next to Indigenous Park which I wrote about here: http://conchscooter.blogspot.com/search?q=Indigenous+park .
A bird sanctuary for a neighbor on street filled with trees and no Historic Architecture Review to deal with. Sounds perfect.
A ground level porch wouldn't be bad either, except that none of them were in use on a lovely breezy, cool, overcast afternoon.By cool I mean 80 degrees (27C) but the wind was quite refreshing.
Winter has much of the country in it's grasp but down here we are eying one more tropical storm, Ida which is currently ravaging the mosquito coast of Nicaragua. Hurricane season doesn't officially end until the 30th of November and not even then on some rare years when a storm can develop in December. This late in the season it's the warm waters of the Western Caribbean that has the energy to spawn tropical storms. Meanwhile in Key West, it's business as usual, warm and muggy and cooled by breezes.
So, the question is, what to do with those left over Fantasy Fest beads:
Hunt's Lane is quite delightful for lots of little reasons:
I have mentioned previously that homes in Old Town Key West are of modest proportions and don't have much in the way of offsets from their neighbors. By way of illustration:
And I like random pictures...randomly while I wander looking for things to photograph:
And looks like this toward Southard Street:
The best of Key West living, a quiet leafy alley.
The end of the Pier is quite well illuminated and lacks benches and dark corners in which to snooze comfortably. The main length of the pier is where the log sawing action takes place. Here, looking north toward White Street in the distance:
In the weak light it looks like a bundle of clothes but there are a couple of residentially challenged cyclists dossing down for the night:
And another one next to them, this one listening to a baseball game on a radio.
How one sleeps comfortably on a bench with an armrest in the middle is a mystery to me, and I tried it in my well traveled youth and it didn't work. This one appeared fast asleep curled up, like a dog,into a ball. The funny thing (if you can call it that) is the city of Key West, working with the county and social service agencies provides free sleeping accommodations in air conditioned tents next to the Sheriff's headquarters on Stock Island. However many homeless people don't want to live by the strictures of communal living and prefer to take their chances sleeping rough.
If I were a cop the business of "moving along" these homeless bundles would not be pleasant. I've seen the weary packing up and silent groans of people awoken from a deep sleep and told sleeping isn't allowed. The shuffling of the destitute seems pointless but there again it is legal because the city does offer them an alternative place to sleep. And let's face it, it is unsightly:
One of the things about poverty in the US that has always struck a discordant note for me is the notion that being poor is somehow a moral failing. To be dispossessed is a repudiation of the American Dream and shows a lack of moral fiber in the poor.
That sort of attitude has made it easy to ignore the sleepers and made it possible to blame them for their destitution. Madness, illness, divorce, job loss are frequently proximate causes of homelessness and we learn that nowadays there are more and more of "them," the people a colleague of mine is pleased to call the "residentially challenged." 
Ironically enough two more candidates for sleeping accommodation pedaled their bicycles onto the pier as I left to go back to work. Funny that, they get to sleep for free, while I sit up all night to pay the mortgage. A bargain with the devil I dare say, either for them or for me.