The final chapter for this trip. Yes, it’s about food (and possibly some beer). 🙂

A (Darden) fan favorite is Seafood Seller Café. It has been a recent find and every trip to Crystal River we stop here – multiple times if we can!

It’s a colorful, New Orleans-themed eatery featuring Cajun-style seafood. The crawfish draw Eric. This is 5 lbs.

There’s almost always a wait so we usually eat at the bar. The tray of crawfish always draws comments and a crowd. Eric shares with whoever will try a taste – after he gives instructions for the proper way to eat them. It’s an art and a science. Next visit, I’ll share details.

Me, I’m drawn by these ‘tomato chips’. Seems innocent enough, they don’t look like anything special. but OMG! They are little bits of tasty heaven.

During our State Park travels, we got hungry. Googled nearby restaurants and found this place called The Freezer.

It was a little casual…………………..

And very popular. There were no tables available inside and had an interesting ‘decor’. Yes, those are real dollar bills.

We wandered outside and found a tiki table available.

As I said, things were a bit casual. Since we were sitting outside, ordering was done in a designated space at the inside bar and brought to you outside. A variety of things were ordered to appeal to all of our appetites: fish dip, smoked mullet peel & eat shrimp.

When we left, it was now obvious why this place was called The Freezer. Okay, looking at the photo, maybe it’s not so obvious, but this used to be an actual freezer for their daily catches and now it is a ‘casual’ restaurant.

Another local stop we made was The Plantation Inn. Years past we stayed here and have enjoyed eating at the bar. Once again, we began our meal with fish dip, along with crab bisque.

I had this tasty tune & advocado poke dish.

Adrienne was ready for something green and got the wedge salad – it looked great!

So I mentioned ‘beer’. There is one brewery in Crystal River.

Oops, actually it’s a Winery and Brewery. Something a bit unusual is their tanks are outside and therefore brewing is subject to Florida’s weather. They do have plans to move to another location, possibly opening this Fall.