Mangrove Mama's

The newspaper reported last week that the restaurant at Mile Marker 20 has new owners. Which on the face of it seemed like good news. The retardant was purchased by out of town owners a few years ago and things did not go well at this formerly renowned eatery.

Long time staff left and things bimbled along, more or less okay as seen from the outside. Then the enthusiastic new owners got column inches in the paper with the new owner quoted as saying he was tired of shoveling snow. That comment gained a certain level of unintended irony when the Key West Citizen followed up with a story that the new owner had to go "home" to Wisconsin to serve a 45 day sentence for possession of and dealing cocaine. Shoveling snow indeed.

Rick Ramsey for Sheriff proclaims the election billboard still up at the restaurant. I don't suppose the legal contretemps necessarily bodes ill for the restaurant that I would like to see restored to it's former cheerful glory, but it's well known that addictive personalities don't necessarily do well in the Keys where the culture of excess is carefully cultivated as eccentricity.

I hope Mangrove Mama's becomes a nice place to hang out, especially since Parrotdise is gone, but drink and drugs do not mix well with the hard graft needed to make an eatery work in these trying islands. A successful fresh start for all would be great. Fingers crossed and I hope they get Smithwicks on tap

as well.



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Dead Parrot

It has occurred to me I miss the former Parrotdise Restaurant.

This place filled a gap that has started to gape once again now it is gone, for good apparently.

News of the closure came as a surprise and the asking price for the waterside property came as even more of a surprise when the listing revealed a request for $3.2 million.

It's all as it was when the place was open which made the nostalgia even worse. Why nostalgia you ask? Good question.

Here's the thing: I think the Lower Keys, more specifically Cudjoe Key is home to the best restaurant in the islands, bar none. The Square Grouper never disappoints in food, wine service and decor. I think it is the best, most reliable value for money over any place to eat in Key West.

Parrotdise was no competition, indeed the night they closed my wife and I were tucking in to grouper and smoked pork at the Square Grouper. What worked brilliantly here was the concept of simple decent food without pretensions but with cheerful staff and nice views. They mixed a stiff drink and served draft Smithwick's even at happy hour. Can't fault that.

A nice view of Big Pine Channel made a simple meal delightful.

There are other eateries in the Lower Keys, bars with greasy food, diners with okay food and some less than okay. For the kind of impromptu not elaborate meal on a spur of the moment decision to eat out, nowhere brings the same elements together that Parrotdise had. The breakfast burger - a hamburger with egg- and a Smithwick's and bob was my uncle. No more.

Eating out involves paying for elaborate food with lots of calories as a break from being at home and it's a popular activity in the Keys, especially in winter when the old foges who have retired from cooking for their extended families demand out eating facilities. Sometimes I think they could be more discerning and expect more because too often I come away feeling like that meal was not good value for money.

The pace of change in these islands gets to be wearing especially if you come from a place where families and businesses hardy chance with the passage of generations. Here today gone tomorrow is the way of life so enjoy it while you can. And to lose a place that actually offered value for money is a drag.

The fact is change is inevitable and on that hoary worn out old chestnut I shall end this meditation on change not for the better.

Some other hopeful will come along and give it a go. May be it will be an improvement over Parrotdise.




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AT&T U-Verse

The phone company took away my old fashioned DSL service and held me hostage until I agreed to "upgrade" to the new and improved service which will allow the phone company to offer the equivalent of cable TV to eager little consumers.

I awoke one morning to find my Internet service gone and it wasn't restored until I made an appointment for installers to come to my house and bolt on the "upgrade." They were nice guys, the outside guy in the white shirt sweating a river as he bolted on the new box. The orange shirt was supposed to install the inside box to make it all happen seamlessly.

Unfortunately there is a problem with the network on my street or on my island somewhere so all AT&T's workers and vans cannot install twelve gigabyte U-Verse service for the moment. Unfortunately they cannot restore my dreary old six gigabyte DSL service either so I am cut off from the world. I will have to lurk at MIckey D's or the library for the next few days, or weeks until the glorious new Internet world can be streamed into my house.

I understand that the phone company has to compete with the cable companies and most people want TV service in their homes (I don't and I don't miss cable at all), but this upgrade will double the cost of Internet service to $55 a month and increase the speed to a level which I do not need. This snafu is emblematic of our high tech world where what we want matters less than what the one percent want and their engineers can deliver. I dislike being reminded I am a serf. The corporate slogan ungrammatically delivered as "Think Possible" reeks of irony in my small world.



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The Food Palace On Fleming

Faustino Castilo, a Cuban cigar worker immigrant opened a grocery in Key West in 1926.

There are two food palaces, one on White Street and this one on Fleming just off Duval. It's an odd thing but people who live in Key West dislike traveling between the two halves of the island. Considering it's just four miles long, tip to tip, you'd think it would be no big deal crossing town to shop for groceries.

Yet it is a big deal and I find myself, the inveterate traveler, groaning at the thought of having to go downtown to complete a chore. Weird but true, it's the island effect.

Jimmy Weekly is Fausto's grandson, a former mayor currently sitting on the city commission and can still be seen working in the family business. Fausto's is surviving in a country that reveres chain stores and this week Publix is opening a newer and bigger and better chain grocery in Key Plaza.

This store is in business because it answers the demands of the shoppers. I love the funky Home Depot pots used in the vegetable section. In the cheeses you will find every kind of exotica, Sardinian sheep cheese to name but one. I bought a roundel of mango cheddar and it turned out to be very good. But there again I like almost any cheese except goat.

I remember shopping in New York where wine can't be sold in the supermarket. Eat your heart out New Yorkers. This is what impulse wine shopping looks like. Cartlidge and Brown make a nice merlot which Fausto's happens to sell.

They also have a nice little website which may be of interest if you miss Fausto's check that website which features Jimmy Weekly smiling maniacally, as he should living the dream as he does in his hometown.

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Lobster Mini Chaos

It is a profoundly peculiar institution on the face of it. They call it "Lobster Mini Season" and it sees a sudden influx of people and boats into these fragile little islands.


By land they come and on the water they buzz about like predators inflamed by desire for the kill.


The Overseas Highway is suddenly clogged with long lines of cars, RVs and boats on trailers.


Supermarkets promise to open early and stay open late to accommodate the hunter-gatherers as they arrive dehydrated, burned lobster red by the sun and untrained in the finer arts of diving and surviving. Commerce rules.


Neighbors put their homes, their rental units and their vacation vehicles to good use, doing favors for friends who suddenly are desperate to visit the Florida Keys or making money accommodating lobster hunters in town for Wednesday and Thursday's bloodbath.


Boats are prepared for the running of the lobster for two short days this week, because mini season is just Wednesday and Thursday and hunters will be out before sunrise readying themselves for the hunt. They had better know what they are doing as the lobsters exact their own revenge. Every year one or more divers die in their pursuit of lobster. Unfit, untrained and over enthusiastic they stress their hearts or their equipment or their common sense, and they do die, some of them. You'd be amazed at the lengths sedentary people go to kill lobster.


It is a peculiar Florida tradition that dictates that non commercial anglers may get in the water and by dint of lung capacity and fingers alone may hunt for lobster who are just coming into season. Commercial fishermen have to wait a few more days until the official commercial season begins and they put down their traps in every single nook and cranny of these shallow waters, until the season ends next Spring.


There are a few rules and the Fish and Wildlife officers try to enforce em as much as possible, size and catch limits, no females with eggs, no hunting within 300 feet of shore, no hunting therefore in residential canals, no scuba, no spear guns, no running each other down, no drunk boating and so on and so forth. Most of them violated during the two days at least somewhere by some stupid human or another.


I overheard two locals discussing mini season at the Big Pine Winn Dixie and they were lamenting the crowds, the bad behavior, the lack of respect for our environment and so forth, common laments all of them. But the truth is merchants make tons of money at this slow time of year and commercial fishermen be damned if they lose some of their catch and the waters get trampled in the rush to kill lobsters by amateurs.


It's the usual Keys story, we live by tourism and sometimes tourism bites us back and we have to shut up and put up. How much it worth to preserve our coral reefs and wildlife? Not much apparently, not when it comes to the tourist dollar.


By Friday we will be returning to our summer somnolence and soon, next month in fact, students go back to school and the true quiet season begins for a few short blessed weeks. I can't wait!

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Fleming Under The Sun

Look at that, standing under an awning looking out at an empty summer sidewalk, bright sunlight, dark shadows and not a sound to break the hot still air. Lovely.

The William Fleming House always a rock solid symbol of stability and permanence in a city known for continuous change.

The awning gave cover looking down Fleming Street too, which was nice as the heat was quite severe for a small dog in a thick fur coat.

It's all shadows and light under the palms, as it should be in a tropical summer.


My colleagues at work were looking very hang dog the other night. Conch Republic Liquors on the Boulevard is closing.

Conch Republic has been staffed for as long as I can remember by people who know their booze and love to stock weird brands and off beat alcohol. Want a beer but want to try something bizarre and never previously sampled? Conch Republic was the answer.

New rums become fashionable and at the end of the road my young colleagues like to be fashion conscious. Conch Republic Liquors kept them up to speed.

Change is inevitable, Cheyenne keeps reminding me as she plods her way to a more shapely girlish figure.

Nothing is permanent under the sun, not even Key West we are told if the ocean keeps rising at it's current rate. I expect Cheyenne and I and quite likely you, will be dead by then. Conch Republic Liquors is gone already. Oh well.

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