An Encounter with Elvis

Florida in the winter is really quite wonderful. While we grumble when the overnight temperatures drop below 40 and we have to cover plants (or, in our case, take our little “herb garden” in for the night), by 9 or 10 AM, we’re typically back to the mid 70’s with bright sunny skies. This winter, in particular, we’ve appreciated this amazing weather as we watch the rest of the country pummeled by snow and freezing weather. We watch the stories of snow dumped in the Northeast and remember a few of those winters in Boston where we couldn’t even see our car for days – completely covered with snow – and then, when you finally shoveled it out, you’d put a chair or bucket in “your spot” on the street. The rule was, “you shovel it, you own it” and beware taking someone’s shoveled spot. You could end up with 4 flat tires!
While we don’t miss the weather “up north”, we do miss all of the eating options. The most exotic option for dining out here in Florida is the local Thai restaurant – or our newly discovered Cajun hot spot. So, when we saw the huge article in the paper about opening of a new “Swiss German” restaurant/bakery (owned by a Swiss baker who is also an Elvis impersonator), we made reservations for Friday night. Hidden in the “Central Motel”—a old 60’s style motel on U.S. 41, we approached with caution. They opened for dinner at 5:00 and when we got there (a few minutes before 5), it was already packed with senior citizens. (The rush for dinner from 4:30 – 6:00 is a truely Florida experience. Throngs of seniors line up for those early bird specials. If you can push your dinner time to 7:00, you’ll typically find a completely empty restaurant).

We sat down….and waited….and waited….for anyone to give us a menu or offer us a drink. Out of sheer frustration, John flagged down the owner and discovered that they don’t have a liquor license. But, you could bring your own, so John set out to find some wine and beer. He returned with cold beer and two bottles of white wine. You could feel the wistful stares of all of the men in the room as they looked at John and E.D. swilling Budweisers. One of the two waitresses found a corkscrew for us and Mom and I used our coffee mugs as wine glasses. The evening was looking up. But,we still didn’t have menus. John snagged the owner again – and we heard the news – It was their first “Elvis Night” so there was no menu – our options: 1. Schnitzel, 2. All you can eat Fish and Chips , 3. Peanut butter and banana sandwich (Elvis’s favorite). It certainly made ordering easy- 4 schnitzel dinners. The good news- with BYO Beer and Wine and $6.95 dinners, it was a cheap evening. The not so good news—undercooked fries and what John called a “Schnitzel Impersonator”. It was edible, but not exactly fine dining. They were obviously on the shake-down cruise for the restaurant. By the time we were half way through our meal, the “all you can eat fish” was changed to just “fish and chips”. They were running out of fish—and it was only 6:00!

The best was yet to come. As we finished our meal, the owner arrived dressed in what I’d call “late Elvis”….a stretchy white pantsuit with gold appliqués and a huge gold belt. He started up the karaoke machine and we were in for an hour of “Elvis Live”. The guy was good….for an Elvis impersonator. John was in agony- he never did like 50’s and 60’s music and he was in a room filled with seniors singing along to “In the Ghetto”, “Jail House Rock” and “Can’t help falling in love”.
A few of the diners even brought video cameras to record the entire “concert”. Thank god we don’t know those people—a re-run would have been unbearable. Well, so much for the new restaurant in town. We’ll keep searching for that next hot spot…