Dockside Restaurants
4/21/2006 11:11:58 AM by Mike Petrovsky
Favorite places for boaters to strap on the feedbag
The galley is empty and you’re out of beer. You’ve been on the boat far too long and your shipmates are getting restless. All are good reasons to change course and head to one or more of the eight dockside restaurants Wave has selected this month.
When it comes to dining near the dock, a boater can’t find friendlier waters in which to tie up and strap on the feedbag than those beside the bastions of seaside sustenance that dot the Florida peninsula’s coastlines. Pier-side eateries are so prevalent throughout the state that The Palm Beach Post newspaper website ranks 25 of them – in Palm Beach County alone. Suffice it say that if your float plan takes you anywhere along or near the Intracoastal Waterway between Boca Raton and Fort Pierce, you won’t starve.
Farther south, Coconut Grove restaurateur Monty Trainer has found the float-through dining concept so lucrative he has franchised Monty’s, which features its famous raw seafood bar, to Miami Beach, Boca Raton and Key West.
So it should come as no surprises that five of Wave’s selections, counting the four Monty’s as one, are among Florida’s plethora of dockside diners.
Shooters Waterfront Café USA
We begin our culinary voyage in Fort Lauderdale at perhaps the coastal city’s most popular hangout – a place called Shooters. There is not a better spot in South Florida for people and boat watching with a panoramic view of bay and the surrounding marinas. The waterfront bar has been described as quintessential Fort Lauderdale. The place has a mixed crowd of seafarers, families, tourists and local businesspeople – all looking to unwind. Live bands play in styles ranging from rock to reggae, jazz to, of course, Jimmy Buffett for you Parrotheads.
Open since 1982, Shooters has indoor and outdoor dining, boat docking with valet assistance, daily specials, live entertainment, catering and banquets – and a dockside swimming pool and patio next door at the bar next door, Bootleggers. Shooter also has a happy hour buffet on Fridays.
Laura Cromarty Rose is the marketing director for both Shooters and Bootleggers.
“Shooters Waterfront Cafe USA has become South Florida’s landmark waterfront restaurant to hundreds of thousands of residents and visitors each year,” reports Cromarty Rose. “Shooters is more than great casual waterfront dining – it’s an eating and drinking experience that personifies the Florida lifestyle.” She describes the food as “great-tasting, freshly prepared, generously portioned and affordably priced.”
Among Shooters’ 52 menu items are the restaurant’s signature pasta and salad dishes, homemade soups, a spinach dip, Southwestern wraps, a Portobello mushroom pasta and daily specials.
On what the restaurant staff calls “Wonderful Wednesdays!” special menu items appear such as mango barbecued swordfish, Cajun egg rolls and chocolate lava cake.
Access to Fort Lauderdale’s water taxi system is another plus for Shooters. The taxi takes you the downtown hotels and other points of interest. Guides are friendly and will even offer commentary on yachts and canal-side mansions the taxi passes along the city’s millionaire row.
Monty’s Raw Bar & Outdoors Restaurant Coconut Grove
Les Smith will tell you he has been property manager at Monty’s “since I was 6-foot and had hair.”
Now, at “5-5 and not much hair” Smith says the restaurant has become a chain. Yet, he says, going corporate has changed little at the flagship eatery, which is still a “fun place featuring reggae music and spectacular sunsets.”
There are about 150 slips near restaurant, the staff monitors the two-way radio for who wants to make reservations.
Monty’s was established in 1967. An outdoor casual restaurant and bar – Monty’s Raw Bar – was added later. The addition sits next to the marina and Monty’s Stone Crab Restaurant. According to the eatery’s website: “With these two great venues at one location, Monty’s in the Grove became a popular dining and gathering place for locals and tourists alike.”
Monty’s opened a third restaurant
– Monty’s Stone Crab in Boca Raton – in 1991, followed in 1996 with a copy of its Coconut Grove location at the Miami Beach Marina. Monty’s then opened its Key West location in 2003. All-you-can-eat Florida stone crabs (medium, large or jumbo) are the highlight of Monty’s menu of more than 40 items. Both Monty’s raw bars in Coconut Grove and Miami each hold up to 600 diners.
Among the restaurant’s other offerings are She crab soup, Bahamian conch chowder, conch fritters, steamed garlic clams in white wine, pan-fried crab cakes, fried calamari with marinara sauce, chilled Gulf oysters on the half shell, shrimp dishes, seared Mahi with crabmeat stuffing, sautéed snapper with grilled cilantro swordfish, mango barbecued salmon, sautéed lobster fettuccine, broiled Florida lobster tail, Maine lobster, chicken, New York steak and filet mignon. After dinner, choose between a slice of key lime pie and New York cheesecake, or, if you’re feeling naughty, try something called “Monty’s Mortal Sin.”
Monty’s also has happy hours each weekday.
Sugarloaf Lodge (Sugarloaf Key, FL)
When you hear “Sugarloaf Lodge” you might think of mountain peaks sprinkled with white power snow near someplace like Aspen, Colorado. And boy, would you be far off.
The only white powder you’ll find near Sugarloaf Lodge are the sugar-sand beaches revealed at low tide on the many boat-only-accessible atolls off the Gulf side of Sugarloaf Key, which is one of Florida’s Lower Keys.
If you’re looking for a place where the locals go, Sugarloaf is it. Residents of the Lower Keys have used it as an outpost for decades. The place once had a general store/post office the remnants of which were destroyed last fall by Hurricane Wilma – but not to worry, says Miriam Good, the lodge’s owner for 33 years, the tiki bar survived the storm unscathed. “It’s been the tail that’s been wagging the dog,” she says.
And what a dog it is. In addition to the tiki bar, the property has a full-service marina with kayak rentals, a restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, a two-story hotel and, about an eighth of mile down the road, an airstrip offering plane rides and skydiving.
That said the cast of characters found in the tiki bar off U.S. 1, especially on when there is a live band and dancing on weekends, consists of a diverse mix of locals, boaters, bikers, tourists and pilots.
“I spent one whole day driving folks back and forth from the airport,’’ Good says.
The restaurant and tiki bar dock has shower accommodations, but to fuel your vessel you’ll have to go the marina, also a part of the complex, next store. The pumps on the restaurant dock were lost to Wilma.
Good says she is reprinting the lodge’s brochure to include a new dinner menu. “We have a seafood cheesecake appetizer, tuna, conch fitters, almond dolphin fingers, cracked conch, London broil, prime rib, lamb shops and seafood risotto,’’ she says.
Mar Vista (Longboat Key, FL)
At the previously mentioned dockside restaurants in addition to fellow boaters you can meet business executives, tourists, bikers and even airplane pilots. So at this point you might be wondering: “But where can I meet a millionaire?”
Marylou Whitney has been described as a New York socialite who frequently cavorts with politicians and celebrities half her age. She married herself into the prestigious Vanderbilt family and, in 2002, teamed up with USA Today to come up with “10 Great Places to Meet a Millionaire.”
No. 10 on the list? Mar Vista dockside restaurant on Florida’s West Coast not too far from Sarasota and the Tampa Bay area. It’s south of Anna Maria Island on the Sarasota Bay side of northern Long Boat Key. Boaters on the Intracoastal Waterway should look for Marker 39. The restaurant’s dock has 10 slips.
Whitney and USA Today said of the place, “You have to know it to find it. The former bait shack is on the Intracoastal Waterway. You sit out under the stars and watch the boats come in. The eatery, favored by dressed-down plutocrats, for decades is simple – paper napkins and peel-and-eat shrimp.”
“It was an old Florida fish camp and bait shop in the 1940s,” says Anthony Pucci, the restaurant’s general manager. “I’m sitting in what originally was an old rooming house. It’s an Old Florida funky restaurant.’’
And not only can you find a millionaire at Mar Vista, Pucci says you can sometimes find a professional wrestler.
Terry Hogan, who lives in the St. Petersburg area, frequents the place. He often leaves his kayak on a nearby sandbar and swims in, Pucci says. What did you expect? He is “The Hulk.”
The place opened as a restaurant and bar in 1950, when it was called, and still is by some locals, The Pub.
Now at least 40 percent of the restaurant’s patrons navigate the deep-water channel to get to there, Pucci says. Most of the boaters come on the weekend but for some reason you can find a big boating crowd there on Wednesdays, when kayakers are added to the clientele mix.
The restaurant has inside and outside seating. Its menu lists steaks, grouper (the place is famous for its grouper sandwich) and Mahi. Also on the menu are fired calamari, Capt. Fogarty’s Fritters (filled with vegetables and ground conch), oysters Rockefeller (of course), scallops Rumaki, crab cakes, garlic fried shrimp, scallops, snapper, tuna, salmon, Delmonico and sirloin steaks, and chicken.
Pucci describes the restaurant’s interior as “an old Florida-style restaurant. Nothing really matches in its décor.”
Pucci adds the restaurant’s dock area is leftover from the 1940s fishing camp, which had a bait shop and some cottages adjacent to the restaurant.
The restaurant itself was built in the 1910s by developer Rufus Jordan, is one of the 12 oldest structures on Longboat Key and it survived a hurricane in 1921. It was also used as lodging for out-of-town fishermen in the 1940s.
Sea Ranch (South Padre Island, Texas)
When boatin’ down Texas way, padna, you best git to a dockside restaurant with the word “ranch” in its name.
“We have an outside boat deck and 130 feet of dock with a seven-foot draft,’’ says David Friedman, owner of the Sea Ranch Restaurant for 25 years. “(The restaurant’s) part of a marina and has shower facilities.’’
Sea Ranch is on the southernmost tip of South Padre Island, and it’s paired with Dirty Dave’s Deck. Both establishments offer a waterside view of fishing and sailing vessels in the adjacent dock.
“Basically, we offer steak and pasta,” Friedman says.
Also on the menu are red snapper, king crab legs, grouper, lobster tail, tuna, shrimp and Laguna Madre oysters.
The restaurant has been consistently ranked as one of America’s Top 500 for at least a decade by Restaurant and Hospitality Magazine.
So bon appetite y’all!
Captain Dave’s Dockside Restaurant and Creek Ratz (Murrells Inlet, S.C.)
For Georgina Mance nothing beats “shaggin on the deck.”
Mance is an administrative assistant with Capt. Dave’s Dockside Restaurant and Creek Ratz, another dockside restaurant and bar next door. The restaurant/bar is about 12 miles south of Myrtle Beach. She differentiates the two by saying that Creek Ratz, as the name obviously implies, is a little more casual.
“Creek Ratz is more of a seafood raw bar where bands play and there is dancing on the deck,” Mance says.
In business for 28 years, Captain Dave’s has undergone a major renovation and was set to reopen this month (April).
The renovated restaurant still has a fireplace, Mance says, adding both establishments offer accommodations for boaters.
Captain Dave’s website says: “With our enclosed deck overlooking the marsh and fireside dining, the same great view can be enjoyed during cooler times of the year.
“Chef Richard, who has won numerous local and regional culinary awards, prepares mouth-watering dinner specials nightly with the freshest seafood.”
The restaurant’s featured menu items are the Captains Filet, beef tenderloin topped with shrimp, scallops and béarnaise sauce; garlic grilled chicken breast with pancetta, sweet peas and parmesan cheese over pasta; pancetta wrapped scallops; Shrimp Sophia or sautéed shrimp with mushrooms, sweet peas and sherry wine, and Zupa Di Pesce (shrimp, scallops, lobster and mussels in tomato sauce over linguini).
For those with a craving for southern hospitality, the menu also has fried green tomatoes and, for dessert, New Orleans bread pudding with Jack Daniels sauce.
The restaurant’s waterfront gazebo bar has live music during the late spring, summer and fall.
After dinner, diners are invited to stroll along the Murrells Inlet Marshwalk.
As for Creek Rats, its menu has two notable Southern cuisine-inspired appetizers – the barbecue pork egg roll and something called McClellanville Caviar described as spicy shrimp and black bean salsa with tri-colored chips.
Among the other menu items are blackened dolphin, shrimp, catfish, oysters and ribs.
As for entertainment, Creek Ratz has “Shagging on the Creek” each Sunday afternoon from 5-8 p.m. Happy hour is 4-7 p.m. daily and Pabst Blue ribbon beer costs $1.25 all the time.
Incidentally, the term “creek rats” describes the children who grew up on Murrells Inlet, as the Creek Ratz website says, playing, fishing and swimming. The kids ended up being covered in mud from head to toe.
Oakland’s Restaurant & Marina (Hampton Bays, N.Y.)
Dinner in the Hamptons, anyone?
If ever you’re boating in the deep waters of Shinnecock Inlet off New York’s Long Island coast, Christine Hill says there is not a better place than the adjacent Oakland’s Restaurant & Marina, which her family has owned for 15 years.
The restaurant’s marina has 42 slips with lunch and dinner slips for transient dockage, which is available at hourly or daily rates.
There is a dockside bathroom and shower facility and a state-of-the-art 1,200-pound weigh station and diesel and regular fuel. At the marina you can buy bait, ice and tackle and there are full inshore and offshore charter boats available. The restaurant staff monitors two-way radio Channel 68, Hill says, so that boaters can call ahead and reserve a slip.
Oakland’s is a seasonal restaurant. It opens, depending on the weather, in late March or by April 1 and closes in late October.
As for the food, it specializes in New England-style cuisine. Among the menu items prepared by John Hill, the executive chef, are clams on the half shell, shrimp, oysters, clam chowder, yellow fin tuna, Prince Edward Island mussels, ribs, sautéed flounder, salmon, swordfish, lobster, a vegetarian shepherd’s pie, pasta, chicken, filet mignon and, of course, New York sirloin steak.
For dessert, try Oakland’s Tiramisu, which is a pastry shell filled with chocolate ganache and whipped, coffee-flavored Marscapone cheese.
For entertainment, Hill says there is live music – “a one or two-piece combo” – at the outdoor tiki bar, which opens around Memorial Day and continues through Labor Day.
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quicksplash FAVORITE DOCKSIDE RESTAURANTS
Shooters
Monty’s
Sugarloaf Lodge
MarVista
Sea Ranch
Capt. Dave’s Dockside Restaurant and Creek Ratz
Oakland’s Restaurant & Marina
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