Tag Archives: restaurant

Cap’s Place, Lighthouse Point, Broward County, Florida

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Just north of Fort Lauderdale is one of the most unique historic restaurant experiences in the country. What makes Cap’s Place so unique, other than its history, is that to reach the restaurant you need to take a boat. You can use your own boat to get there, or you can drive to their dock in the middle of a suburban neighborhood and take their ferry over to the restaurant. It is a lovely ride on the inland waterways, especially at night when it’s quite romantic.

Cap's boat 1

the arrival of Cap’s ferry

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image by Capsplace.com

Cap’s Place originally opened as Club Unique, a supper club, casino, and speakeasy built on a beached barge in 1928, and run by Captain Theodore “Cap” Knight, a local rum runner, with his wife Lola. Many celebrities and important figures dined there over the years, including Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt during WWII, when they were having secret war meetings at a nearby estate. The bar and dining rooms were filled with nautical artifacts collected by Cap, including a carved wooden bowsprit from a Spanish galleon (in photo below and still in the bar today). The bartender in the photo is Al Hasis, Cap’s friend and business partner since the beginning. The gambling was stopped in 1951, Cap passed in 1964 at ninety-three, Lola passed in 1989, and since then the Hasis family are the current owners. The restaurant was listed on the National Register of Historic Sites in 1990.

image by Capsplace.com

Upon arrival you walk up Cap’s dock onto their private island where there is a patio dining area, a bar, a restaurant, some smaller buildings, and some cats roaming around.

image by Capsplace.com

The history is apparent inside, with the original wooden floors and the wooden walls covered with old photographs and nautical decor.

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Cap's photo

Cap's dining room

Cap’s dining room

One of their specialties since the beginning is hearts of palm salad, which is made with Sabal Palms grown near Lake Okeechobee. Their menu is focused on local seafood.

hearts of palm salad

hearts of palm salad

The next time you are in Fort Lauderdale, check out Cap’s Place for a unique and historic dining experience. Just be sure and get precise directions from the restaurant’s web site (or call first) because it can be hard to find the ferry dock (and don’t expect a taxi driver to be able to find it – something I learned the hard way!).

Cap’s Place
Cap’s Dock is at 2765 N.E. 28th Court, Lighthouse Point, FL
Phone (954) 941-0418
Open Sun – Thurs 5:30pm – close (call first)

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Postcard Panorama

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Hawaiian001

The Hawaiian
4645 E Pacific Coast Highway
Long Beach, California

The Hawaiian invites you to enjoy an Hawaiian Holiday of Fine Food, Tropical Drink, and Good Hospitality.

Postcard from The Jab’s collection.

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Johnny Harris, Savannah, Georgia – CLOSED & DEMOLISHED

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Recently someone asked me if I had been to Savannah, and I answered with a hearty “YES!”. I stayed there on my Georgia road trip in 2005 (also see earlier posts here and here) and was quickly charmed by the town, with its lovely tree-filled streets of historic homes, its riverfront setting, and with my lodging choice, the Thunderbird Inn, which was restored by the Savannah College of Arts and Design (SCAD).

Thunderbird Inn 1
Thunderbird Inn 2

 

Johnny Harris restaurant is located in Savannah on old U.S. Highway 80, which before the Interstate Highway System traversed the entire country from San Diego, California, to Tybee Island, Georgia (much of the old highway still exists in San Diego County and is a great time-warp drive that I highly recommend). Named after the founder who opened a small barbeque shack in 1924, the restaurant opened at its current location in 1936. Johnny Harris passed away in 1942, but his partner Red Donaldson took over the restaurant and it’s still run by the same family.

Johnny Harris 2

The main dining room is a large circular space with a high domed ceiling with illuminated “stars”, a bar in the center (above photo), gorgeous partitioned wooden booths below a mural around the outer wall, and tables and chairs in the space between. A lot of people could eat in this room, but when I went for dinner it was pretty quiet.

Johnny Harris 3

plenty of privacy in the wooden booths

The restaurant has a diverse menu but it specializes in barbeque. I had their “famous” fried chicken & BBQ pork combination plate. The meal was served with a small bowl of a South coastal specialty, Brunswick Stew, a traditional tomato-based meat and vegetable stew, wedge fries, homemade dark bread, and coleslaw. The highlight was their tangy barbecue sauce. It was so good that I brought home a bottle of the stuff.

Johnny Harris meal

If you are ever in Georgia, a visit to Savannah is a must. It has some of the charms of New Orleans but without the party atmosphere. And when you go you should visit Johnny Harris. The BBQ isn’t the best in Georgia, but eating good food in such a beautiful, classic dining room makes it worth a visit.

Why not do a U.S. Highway 80 road trip across the country from San Diego to the Atlantic coast in Georgia? I pretty much guarantee you will have a better time warp experience than you would driving most of Route 66 (mostly swallowed up by I-40). Take out your road atlas and look it up. US 80 is pretty much intact across the eastern half of its route across the country. In Georgia and Alabama it exists far from any interstate highway, which I have found helps to preserve old places (restaurants, motels, etc.) because they don’t have the competition they would near an interstate where chain motels and restaurants pop up like weeds. In Mississippi, Louisiana, and east Texas it closely parallels I-20 but it still exists separately. West of Dallas it was merged into I-20, though it probably exists in most towns and cities as “Old Highway 80”. Road trip! Let’s go!

Johnny Harris
1651 E Victory Dr, Savannah, GA 31404
(912) 354-7810
Open Sun-Thu 11:30am – 9:30pm, Fri-Sat 11:30am – 10:30pm

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Canlis, Seattle, Washington

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One of the most beautiful modernist restaurants in the country, Canlis still retains many features from its original late 40s design by architectural firms Wimberly & Cook and
Tucker, Shields & Terry for restaurateur Peter Canlis (who had previously opened the Canlis’ Charcoal Broiler in Waikiki, Hawaii, in 1947). Opened in 1950, Canlis’ Charcoal Broiler (now just Canlis) in Seattle was the ultimate in swank, with a soaring roofline, rock walls, and a porte-cochère, de rigueur in the 1950s for arriving in style in your Cadillac.

 

Canlis' Restaurant Seattle WA

postcard by hmdavid on Flickr.com

 

At one time there was even a small illuminated tiki to greet you as you drove up, and other tikis in the restaurant and on the grounds.

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image by Dustycajun on Tiki Central (tikiroom.com)

 

In the 1950s Canlis featured an open kitchen, charcoal broiled steaks, mahi-mahi flown in from Hawaii, and fresh local oysters served by Kimono-wearing Japanese waitresses in a dining room filled with rock walls, an open beamed ceiling and massive plate-glass windows overlooking Lake Union.

 

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image by Dustycajun on Tiki Central (tikiroom.com)

 

In the late 1990s I visited Canlis. Although I was impressed by the building, the contemporary decor from a 1996 remodel didn’t go well with the modern design of the building. We were on a budget which didn’t allow for dining there (it was perhaps the most expensive restaurant in Seattle), so we just had a cocktail in the lounge and vowed to return another time for dinner. Alas, it was before digital cameras so I don’t have pictures. The good news is that a few years later they remodeled again and the redesign is much more appropriate for the space. The decor is simple, highlighting the incredible rock walls, wooden beams, and expansive windows. They honor the amazing building by showcasing a vintage photo and a recent one on the restaurant’s web site. It’s still owned by the Canlis family, who seem to really care about their history, food, service, and customers. Reports are that the food (Pacific Northwest cuisine) is better than ever, though still very expensive, so save your money for a special night out “old style” when you are visiting Seattle. Oh, be warned: there is a dress code. Gents, wear a jacket (but why not wear a suit and tie?); ladies, wear a dress. Personally, I love that they still have a dress code.

 

Entrance, image by Canlis.com

 

Canlis
2576 Aurora Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98109
(206) 283-3313
Open for dinner only, Mon – Fri, 5:30pm – close, Sat 5:00pm – close, closed Sundays

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