I’m going to be passing thru Gainesville in a few days. Basically, if anyone is familiar with the town, where is a decent place to eat?
I’m not interested in any fast-foodish place. I prefer casual sit-down places like the usual chain suspects–but a locally owned place with a decent casual fare would be even better. Must serve alcohol! (I can get all the Thank Olive It’s Ruby Outback fare I want locally.)
I lived in Gainesville for 6 1/2 years, and I’m actually in town now for law school graduation. I loved my time here, and there are plenty of good places to eat. I don’t know what you like, but here are some of my favorites:
Chop Stix Cafe. Pan-Asian restaurant specializing in noodle dishes from Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, as well as more standard Chinese and Japanese fare. Their sushi isn’t bad either. Service is often slow, but they have some of the best Asian food I’ve ever had. It’s also located on beautiful Bivens Arm Lake, and you can look out the back windows to see alligators swimming in the lake. Great date restaurant, and not very expensive. Take 13th Street south past UF, and it’ll be on the right before you come to Williston Road.
Farah’s On the Avenue. This place is on University Avenue just east of 13th Street, past the UF campus. The restaurant is gorgeously decorated, they sometimes have live jazz music at night, and they have a large and diverse menu. Plenty of good bar food like burgers and wings, but they also have great gyros, hummus, and other Middle Eastern and Mediterranean specialties. I love the food here, and this is another good date place, or a place to go with friends. I know they have a full bar.
Gainesville Ale House. The Ale House is a Florida chain, but they feature more good bar food, a full bar, and plenty of drink specials. This is a popular place to watch games on the weekends. Their Cajun chicken pasta, conch fritters, $1 mugs of Foster’s, and Captain Jack’s Buried Treasure (a decadent dessert) are all A-OK in my book. This is on Archer Road right near I-75.
Sonny’s Barbecue. This is definitely a chain, but they may be confined to Florida. Awesome BBQ: sliced beef, turkey, or pork (or you can get the pork pulled, Memphis style), good ribs, chicken is “meh.” Platters come with fries, cole slaw, and kick-ass garlic bread. They have all-you-can-eat specials almost every night, which are one of the best deals in town. The sweet tea is wonderful here as well, and the salad bar is surprisingly good (worth adding on to your meat-filled meal). Almost forgot the sauces–regular, sweet, hot, and sweet-hot. Sonny’s sweet BBQ sauce is so good you’ll want to buy a bottle to bring home with you. It is that damn good. This is also on Archer Road, not far from I-75, on the opposite side of the street from the Ale House.
Latin Cafe. I’m from Miami, so one thing I definitely missed while living in Gainesville was Cuban food. Latin Cafe opened in the last year and filled that void. Great Cuban delicacies–you can’t really go wrong with anything here. The place is small, and can be crowded. It is on 34th Street and 2nd Avenue, across the street from a Publix.
Bento. A hip, cool, trendy Asian cafe with delicious sushi and bento boxes–think of school lunch trays with all the different compartments, but all the food is excellent and exotic. This place, with its blue neon lights, is right near the Royal Park movie theater on Newberry Road, heading west past 34th Street. They also have boba tea (bubble tea), which you MUST sample while in town. These are flavored tea drinks sweetened with milk, and you can get your choice of about 30 flavors. They also have black marble-sized balls of chewy tapioca floating in the cup, and you get big colorful straws to suck up the balls and chew them like candy. They are an odd texture, softer and slimier than gummi bears, but lots of fun to eat as you sip the sweet tea. Best of all, they come in plastic cups with anime characters on them, and a machine heat-seals cellophane lids onto the cups, which you then puncture with the huge straws. I can’t say enough great things about boba tea!
Finally, for late-night munchies, avoid the Denny’s on University and 13th Street like the plague, and go to Steak ‘n’ Shake on 13th Street and 16th Avenue (but only if you don’t have Steak ‘n’ Shake in your home state). The greasy burgers and onion rings are perfect 3 AM after-drinking food, but their milkshakes are the best around.
Any more questions or concerns? Let me know, and I’ll be happy to help!
Many thanks!
Chopstix and Bento’s are great places, go there if you have the chance. Another place to visit is Saigon Cafe… and Gyro Plus, which has gyros and excellent falafels…yummy!
Bumped this back up to see if Earl took any of my advice on Gainesville restaurants, or if he even remembers starting this thread. Damn, I miss Gainesville!
How could anyone talk about food in Gainesville and not mention the Copper Monkey ???
Get the Monkey’s Uncle. Fantastic burger.
Yep. Unfortunately, we were only passing thru Gainesville on our way to Cedar Key, so we had to narrow it down. We chose as our final two Chop Stix and Bento, whichever one seemed to be more on our route. As it turned out, that ended up being Chop Stix. We were not disappointed. It was an excellent tip, and this list has become a part of any future travel plans thru that part of the state. Once again, many thanks.
(Didn’t see any gators, though, and I misunderstood the bathroom directions, and ended up in the ladies’ room, but luckily it was unoccupied.)
Not what the OP was about, but there is an excellent though small natural history museum on the campus of the University, which is IMO worth seeing if you should happen to be in or passing through Gainesville with the time to go there.
The main natural history museum is still on campus, but not in the main part. It is now in a place called Cultural Plaza. It is very good, along with the Harn Museum.
The one time I went to Chopstix, I wasn’t able to see any gators either. I guess they were as cold as we were.
I prefer Gyro’s to Farrah’s, personally.
If you want plain burritos, go to Burrito Bros, in the corner of 13th Street and University Ave. Better than Tijuana Flats, although Tijuana has better sauces.
I remember really enjoying the Famous Alan at Alan’s Cubanas. Is that place still there? As for the Copper Monkey, I only recall being incredibly drunk there, so I don’t recall about the food. I was a fairly poor student way back when, so eating out was not a big thing. Oh, and a place I think was called Mama Low’s which served soul food was tasty and inexpensive. A big treat was Leonardo’s pizza. Maybe none of these places still exist so I’m dating myself. (early 1980s)
As an aside, Sonny’s chain stretches up to the middle of Kentucky at least in the direction of Cincinnati. I doubt that they’d get into the Carolinas since the BBQ there is a bit different. Not a bad place if you get the sandwich on garlic bread. The last couple of times in they’ve had all-you-can-eat specials on chickens and ribs.
Alan’s Cubanas… if that is downtown, I think it is still there. At least, I think I’ve heard of it.
Leonardo’s pizza is still there. They also have Bistro (right next door), Leonardo’s 706, Leonardo’s at Millhopper, and I think there’s some other out there.
We’ve got Sonny’s around here, but I’ll go to Woody’s or Bono’s first. Especially Woody’s - their smoked turkey is the best I’ve ever had! In fact, I don’t think I"ve ever had a bad meal there, even if I had pork or beef.
Dang - now I want Woody’s BBQ.
We didn’t have Woody’s in Gainesville, but I tried Bono’s once and still liked Sonny’s better. Bono’s seemed like North Carolina BBQ to me, with lots of mustard-based sauces. Not bad by any means, but I greatly prefered Sonny’s.
Alan’s Cubana is now the Salty Dog Saloon, but the old sign with both names remains up. It is still nestled in a strip of bars on University Avenue across from UF, right by the Purple Porpoise, the Grog House, Balls, The Copper Monkey right around the corner, and The Swamp across the street. I always found the Salty Dog very tiny and cramped, and full of snooty grad students and hipster “scene kids,” so I never hung out there. But I did hear the food was good.
Aaah, that’s where it is!
Purple Porpoise is now Gator City.
