Shooters Waterfront Cafe may or may not float your boat!

I was picked up at the airport in Fort Lauderdale at around 6:45PM after having left home in Ottawa at 11AM that same morning. Air travel now being as minimalistic as it now is, I was offered nothing on either flight (Ottawa – O’Hare, O’Hare – Ft. Lauderdale) other than a spectacularly uninspiring package of pretzels. Although my American Express Platinum card gave me access to the Presidents Lounges, I was unable to take advantage of this since de-icing in Ottawa meant that I had to run from gate to gate at O’Hare and only just made the connection.
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All of this back-story is given to explain why, when given the option of eating either in Fort Lauderdale or waiting 90 mins until we reached Stuart, our final destination, I opted for the former, since all I had eaten  since early that morning was a couple of mouthfuls of trail mix. Mike claimed to know exactly where he was going, since we were returning to an old haunt of his. I had experienced this same certitude once before in New York,  where he took me the wrong way down a one-way street and stopped in the middle of an intersection of two major highways while he collected his bearings. To be fair though, after only a slight detour, we did find Shooters (I think maybe he was REALLY looking for Hooters though).

From the outside, the place looks fine, even if pre-paid valet parking does not really sit well with me. However, once we hit the reception desk, things started to go South. We were looking at a 45 minute wait and I was already quite hungry.

A helpful hostess explained that if we were prepared to eat outside, we would not need to wait. It was a cool evening  but we both had jackets and besides, there would be space heaters, we were told. We decided to explore this option and thus were escorted to a second desk. Now we were told that there would be a 15 minute wait?! In addition, on the entire spacious patio, there were only two space heaters and they were already well populated. We expressed our displeasure at having been mislead and accepted the ubiquitous and slightly obnoxious miniature flying saucer that would  annoyingly flash and beep when our table was ready. We headed to the bar to drown our sorrows and dull our hunger.

I chose a rye and ginger and Mike a very dry martini. After an admittedly generous tip, there was no change from a $20 bill, which struck me as rather steep.

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