Burger Fi

 I don't think I would make a very good retailer, not least  because I just can't get that excited about consuming for the sake of consuming. Even with things I enjoy, take motorcycles, I can see the good and the bad, the benefits and drawbacks not only of different models but of the whole concept of riding a motorcycle as daily transportation. So any effort to make a sale would be tempered by my own sense of reality...which successful merchants seem not to worry about. BurgerFi exudes enthusiasm on its website about its plan to "change the way we think about a burger." They use "natural beef" which is good for us, and one hopes good for the animals though free range is not part of the enthusiasm for these new style burgers which are antibiotic-free, we are told. I'd like to think better burgers come from American animals grazed on open fields but maybe that is too much to ask for ten bucks. Maybe one day a veggie burger worth writing home about? These people seem like they could pull that off.

It was part of an evening out, Robert suggested BurgerFi, and it was a good suggestion. This place at 221 Duval has been well received and I can see why, after one visit. They have a welcoming dining room, the staff are cheerful and attentive and they offer lots of places to sit, upstairs, outside in back and outside in front where you can watch Duval Street walk by. We took seating at a table in the middle of the restaurant after we placed our various orders.

 

BurgerFi is just brimming with corporate enthusiasm as I found on their website, herewith a brief superlative-laced excerpt:  More than just great food, dining at BurgerFi® is a unique experience- one you can feel good about. Each BurgerFi® store is built according to environmentally sustainable best practices, and includes earth-friendly elements, like chairs that are made from recycled Coke bottles, tables made out of compressed recycled wood, and large fans that use 66% less electricity. BurgerFi® maintains a low carbon footprint, and maintains strict recycling programs for oil, cardboard, bottles and cans. The thing is, none of what they do requires compromise on the customer's part. The furniture is comfortable, the air is cool on a hot day and the Coke machine is a piece of 21st century wizardry that I am embarrassed to say I found entrancing. I knew right away what I wanted from the menu.

The coke fountain machine is apparently going to be seen everywhere but this is the first place I saw it and I forgot to take a close up picture so I got one off the web. The mix and match of flavors is astonishing though I took a plain coke zero because I am a creature of habit. My wife tried coke zero with lemon mixed in and then went wild with some weird root beer concoction on a  refill. I guess old fashioned simple dispensing has to got the way of the Ford Model T and two stroke Vespas...The fountain drinks cost  just under three bucks and you can essentially do what you like with all the buttons and permutations and fizzy water and ice. Its pretty astonishing.

They cooked our food in this exemplary kitchen so while they worked we retired to our table and played with the coke fountain while we talked.  You have one of those Outback-style buzzing things that light up like a ballistic missile warning system when your food's ready. Trays are metal and reusable, Styrofoam doesn't exist  here and  recycle bins take up more space than trash. All in all not a  bad example for other Duval businesses to follow.

This is also a full bar which makes sense in Key West where alcohol lubricates most social interactions. They also have a decent list of draft and bottled beers which were off limits as I had overtime later.

 

The odd thing about all this franchising going on in Key West is that the town seems to have been discovered...Checkers closed recently but Five Guys has two locations and the newest burger franchise is something called Johnny Rockets, further up Duval. That one I have yet to visit as it promises some peculiar nostalgia trip, a cross between Leave It To Beaver and the Fonz "... the belief that everyone deserves a place where they can escape from today’s complicated world and experience the uncomplicated goodness of classic Americana." It sounds a little too much like Disney-on-a-burger for my taste but perhaps one day...after I get cable and spend some time with the nostalgia channel learning how the past was less complicated than the present. 

So after all the kerfuffle about lifestyles and antibiotics how was the grub? That's the real question and I have to say it was pretty good. If the idea of a ten dollar burger meal is too much you will have to stick with Mickey Ds and have it your way, but this was a decent sandwich and as such BurgerFi enters my pantheon of affordable eats in Key West. It's not Badboy Burrito or Yebo's or White Street Station, but it's a franchise that delivers. And the fries were excellent and far too abundant. Dolly and Robert had onion rings and they looked excellent too, coming in different diameters which gives one the idea that they are in fact off a real vegetable! I had the breakfast burger which is rather over the top with bacon cheese potato egg and I don't know what. I will have it again next time.

I have no idea if I am re-thinking the burger, whatever the hyperbole means, but we went to the play well fortified and free of harmful antibiotics and stuff. And I don't think bobby socks would have made the food taste better.

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Trash, The Judge, And Trashing His Member

They do love their stickers in Key West and the latest I noticed advertises a blog I Conch Key West, purportedly, but in fact the blog seems to advertise a Facebook page  where all the activity seems to take place. I enjoy having a page to myself, a place wher I can think out loud and take as much or as little time as I like to express a thought. Facebook feels too hurried to me and life in Paradise is more than sunsets and webcams to me. More interesting too.

I suppose I should do a better job of advertising this page and start selling t-shirts and stuff but I am evading living in a world where the basis of everything is making a buck. I was approached recently to review motorcycle accessories on my page and allow them to post their own blog entries here; entries that more closely resembled ads than anything I write. Their representative got quite offended when I refused. This might as well be Cheyenne's page as I actually quite like her, as uncommercial as she is. She doesn't even mind sharing her lawn with a couple of bums, and she never panhandles.

Speaking of bums, this one (below) was passed out while the two visitors struggling with the map were looking for the place where you apply for a marriage license. Lucky for them I knew where the Lester building is. They were close but not quite there yet. Which is what the city pretty much told the would-be developers of Peary Court on White Street. They want to tear down the crappy Navy housing and replace it with "Key West style" housing that they promise will blend in with the neighborhood. However the Historic Architectural Review Committee nixed the latest proposals Peary Court developers reveal new designs | KeysNews.com. And the redevelopment struggle continues. Personally I think anything would be better than what is there now, but I suspect the developers, who p[aid  $35 million, will have to struggle a good bit more, or else get connected. I hope, perhaps in vain, that in the end Peary Court will look good and be livable, if it cant revert to being open space.

The city commission made a few people unhappy last week too when they fixed an application for trash service in the city and awarded the more expensive waste contract to the manager who has been in the rotary and chamber of commerce (please note Peary Court developers) while at the same time restoring twice-a-week pick up of trash. The irony is the recently enacted once-a-week schedule is credited with forcing city residents to recycle more stuff. So the city is rolling back the changes that increased the recycling rate from 7% to fully twenty one percent of the waste stream. And paying more to accomplish this improvement! So much so the city employee in charge promptly announced his resignation citing a coincidental family obligation across the continent in Seattle, while David Lybrand a member of the Sustainabilty Advisory Board, the group of volunteers trying to make Key West more Eco-conscious, also quit, accusing the majority of commissioners voted yes because of cronyism. All very ugly I'm sure.

In the realm of the law something notable happened last week. For the first time in years a Monroe County judge did not serve out his term but quit early, saying he wanted to restore his constitutional right to privacy by giving up his elected office. I suppose I should point out he was the judge who ruled against me in my civil foreclosure case, and even though I was expecting it as I am not after all too big to fail in the world of finance, I was still disappointed Florida constitutional law didn't  get invoked by the Justice in his ruling. Audlin was famous for ruling against a gay adoption ban in Florida but not at all well known for derring-do in foreclosure!   

Imagine my surprise when the announcement was made that chief Judge Audlin was abruptly stepping down last Friday with years left to run on his term. He has a reputation as a good and thoughtful judge and well respected inside and outside the courtroom. His disappearance from the bench has passed with nary a comment in the local press.

No one has stepped up to defend him publicly which I find extraordinary. His crime? Putting an advertisement on a gay sex site per the Miami Herald . As far as I can tell that has nothing to do with his ability to be a judge but when his photo and his most vital statistic were noticed the ad disappeared and so did his career with a prompt letter of resignation. The one human family was nowhere to be seen wondering why being gay and lonely is a prerequisite to judicial stewardship. I asked around and pretty much everyone gay and straight thinks resignation was appropriate, for a variety of reasons, not least because the web site in question wasn't about relationships but about sex. I disagree but clearly I'm in the minority, I don't see how exactly it matters.

We are told that America is not a racist nation and opponents of Barack Hussain Obama recoil in horror when the suggestion is made that they hate the Kenyan Marxist because of the color of his skin. I think they are transparently full of shit, but at the same time it seems to me we haven't progressed that far on gay rights just yet either. Judge Audlin is known in Key West to be "openly" gay, so what's the deal? Funnily enough the Florida Republican party just elevated a local attorney to the Appeals Court, but I guess he had better stay well closeted following the genteel lynching of Judge Audlin. Them poofs need to know their place, but I'm going to vote for Charlie Crist for governor whether or not he stays in his hetero-marriage closet.

I don't feel greatly encouraged by recent Supreme Court rulings allowing money to flow more freely and openly buy elections and the Republican Party is continuing to press for more relaxation of the rules. President Obama is hardly proving himself to be very effective in the role of Constitutional defender and his likely successor, the dynastic Hilary Clinton is calling ever louder for more powers to be given to government wire tappers and snoops. Meanwhile the great debate across the country is slowly shifting from gay marriage, kinda, mostly yes, to a return to the other great distraction of whether or not abortion really should be legal. Against such issues the rather dreary debate about the rule of law fades into a discussion of who killed whom in Benghazi and where to buy ammunition to defend yourself against the goons of government.

I think this summer really needs to be the year I get out on the water more, and our new home has a fabulous dock with davits and easy canal access.

Now that, and the presence of two loos in the house is really good news.

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From The Archives

From four years ago, a summer thunderstorm threatening.

Summer rains should be on us soon once again.

 

The Key West Cemetery is always photogenic.

And here we see the Eurostyle cubicle burial plots.

Yesterday's tour of Casa Marina did not include the coral rock house.

Four years have passed since this picture but not much changes for Cheyenne.

I used to spend a lot more time in the Old Town lanes.

If you use the search function at the top of the page you will find essays on all of them. Or at least most...

My outdoor pictures are inspired by the great Clyde Butcher who came to Key West.

I was at work but my wife got me an autographed copy of his book.

This summer we may get to go to North Carolina to see my sister in law.

The house and moving shenanigans prevent us from going to Italy to see my family.

Which is okay as I like Asheville.

And the inimitable Blue Ridge mountains.

Cheyenne loves the mountains but she doesn't much care for the Keys back country anymore.

She's seen all the trails she cares to and enjoys urban walks much more.

So we end this brief retrospective where we started, among the dead.

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Casa Marina

I admit I was surprised to see a pedicab in the Casa Marina district of Key West. It's not that you don't see working stiffs in this upper class neighborhood, after all lawns don't mow themselves and trees want trimming from time to time. But pedicabs normally lurk in the Duval-Simonton corridor with occasional forays up Truman, cheerfully blocking traffic as they go.

Casa Marina is where you see normal sized houses planted on normal sized lots at Key West abnormal prices.

But even here the tone drops sharply from lot to lot, and next to a multi million dollar mansion you may find a home of normal proportions, even perhaps a little run down. "Not Apartment 21" - what an intriguing inscription.

Lovely isn't it, wide avenues, trimmed lawns and swaying palms under a perfect summer sky... And within pedicab distance of Duval Street!

This place has been closed and mouldering for as long as I can remember. A healthy reminder to all the perfect homes nearby that we are all bound to return to dust one day.

I like Casa Marina even though you'll find more tourists wandering here than you might expect. It is far from off the path beaten by visitors to Key West. Certainly part of the charm is the variety of housing and the abundance of greenery, but there are hotels and guest houses as well which bring the world outside to the broad shady streets.

Not that the current heat wave encourages pedestrians this time of year. A quiet Casa Marina, a bonus.

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Dog Beach

There is a beach dedicated to dogs in Key West. It's neither vast nor spacious. Here it is in it's entirety:

Cheyenne is the world's only Labrador that hates to swim, a product no doubt of life with her previous, grievously messed up family. That would be the asses who gave her up to the pound. My best efforts to teach her the joy of swimming haven't worked.

So why bring her here? I don't as there are plenty of other places where we can go together. The beach east of the Higgs Beach Martello Tower is open for dogs, which is convenient as its across the street from the actual dog park. Access to the water is limited by a cement sea wall, so Dog Beach is good for dogs that play in the water.

Like so much of Key West the very expensive sits right next to the very least among us...on the other hand this contemplative dude was not planning anything as strenuous as a day at work, so even though he isn't welcome at Louie's Backyard for a sunset cocktail priced close to the national debt of a small third world country, he isn't trying to earn the price of admission either.

Vernon and Waddell Streets intersect here and in winter parking is not so great.

Cheyenne feels about Louie's pretty mug asi do. I've been a couple of times. And the staff worked hard to make sure I didn't feel welcome. So I'd rather go elsewhere for sunset drinks. A friend bought me dinner there once as a thank you for a favor. He went a bit green when he got the bill.

I read complaints about trash littering the street in front of this landmark, it's the sort of neighborliness one comes to expect in a small town when you're doing well. I don't spend money at Louie's but I dont begrudge other people that do. Hold your friends tight and take care of your trash. I couldn't see anything to bitch about, but that doesn't stop people.

Dog Beach reminded me of the time I took an acquaintance to Simonton Beach after she had read about it. We got out of the car and she looked one way then the other and asked "Is this all?" Well yes, and all her fantasies of walking a long sunset strand with her husband vaporized. The charm of Key West is also its size, which does sometimes work against it.

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