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The Melting Pot

Here’s the crew from The Melting Pot — a happy and very helpful bunch. If you’ve never tried The Melting Pot, you definitely should. They offer meat and cheese fondue dishes, as well as out-of-this-world chocolate fondue dessert specialties, to name just a few. The company operates 85 restaurants around the country, but the one that should interest you is at 25822 US19N, on the west side of the road just south of Enterprise.

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Tags: Palm Harbor, restaurants

Taste of Palm Harbor

I mentioned a day or two ago that the annual Taste of Palm Harbor event would be held today (Sunday). Bill and I stopped by, walked around, and sampled some of the food that was made available by a number of local participating restaurants. We had a great time and enjoyed the food.

The above picture looks up Florida Avenue, which usually gets blocked off to traffic whenever events are held in Old Palm Harbor.

Tags: Palm Harbor, restaurants

Try Peggy O’Neill’s in old Palm Harbor

I’m not a huge fan of the Irish pub/pub food concept, but there are times when nothing but a good burger or some fish and chips will do. And when that moment strikes, Peggy O’Neill’s in old downtown Palm Harbor really fits the bill.

Peggy O'Neill's Irish pub

There’s a few important items to mention about Peggy O’Neill’s:

First, Peggy O’Neill was supposedly a young Irish woman who immigrated from Ireland to America in 1912, expecting to reunite with her fiance and get married. Unfortunately, the ship she chose for her trip was the Titanic. More than 1,000 survived the sinking of the Titanic, but Peggy wasn’t one of them.

Another item of interest: Peggy O’Neill’s is located in the old Sutherland building at 1026 Florida Ave. in old Palm Harbor, close to Alt. 19. That old building is pretty interesting from an architectural viewpoint, and the old post office trappings have been left alone in what is now the dining room.

The corned beef and cabbage is worth trying; so is the fish & chips. I had a reuben sandwich on a recent trip, and that was excellent, as well. One of our companions tried the Shepard’s Pie, and said it was great.

Like most Irish pubs, Peggy O’Neill’s is casual and fun. The waitpeople are friendly and helpful, and kids seem to be welcome. There’s live entertainment on Fridays and Saturdays, and Wednesday night is open jam night.

Did you know there is a whole page of restaurant reviews on my website? Take a look — go to www.bethfrederick.com and click on “restaurant reviews.”

Tags: Palm Harbor, restaurants

Strachan’s Ice Cream

I want to tell you about the “Local Partners” section of my web site, where you can go to read about good businesses in the North Pinellas area. But before I do, let me tell you about one of those good local businesses, Strachan’s Desserts. If you like ice cream and good desserts as much as I do, you’ll probably want to give them a try.

Back in 1999, Bill and Susan Strachan probably should have been thinking about retiring from their long-time corporate jobs. Bill worked for an airline, and Susan worked for a large insurance company.

But instead of thinking about leisure time, they were thinking about opening an ice cream and dessert business — something that they had been dreaming about for more than 15 years. So they quit their jobs, sold a lot of their assets, and sunk the money into a new business.

The Strachans admit that they didn’t know the first thing about running a business, and they knew just as much (or as little) about making ice cream. So they took courses, bought an ice cream maker, and starting experimenting in their suburban garage.

And then they opened Strachan’s Desserts on Alt. 19 at Tampa Road in Palm Harbor. The business didn’t make money for three years, but then things started moving in a good direction, and the company is doing very well today.

Besides making and selling desserts and ice cream, the Strachans also run a “school” on making ice cream and desserts as well as on running a dessert business. They say that no one was available to teach then the things they needed to know, so they offer their knowledge to people from around the country who may want to get into a similar business.

So try them out — it’s worth the trip.

Oh… I started out saying that I wanted to tell you about the “Local Partners” section of my web site.

Go to www.bethfrederick.com, scroll down on the front page almost all the way down at the bottom, and on the left side of the page you will see a little rectangular box with two hands shaking and the words “Local Partners.” Click on that, and you will find an entry for Strachan’s Ice Cream, as well as entries for other local businesses that we like and feel good about recommending.

If you have any favorite local businesses that you’d like to see featured, give me a call at 727-643-7100.

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Tags: ice cream, Palm Harbor, restaurants