Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Diners, Drive-in’s and Dives…Oh MY!!! ...Singleton’s Seafood Shack…Jacksonville FL

Well as you read in my last post, we were in Daytona for bike week and decided to try out another Dive, so off to Jacksonville we went. We took hwy 1A instead of the interstate due to hwy 1A runs right along side the beach (must ride for bikers…beautiful). Now I know we were in beautiful, Sunny Florida BUT it was cold this morning and the ride was somewhere around 80 miles, so needless to say we had quite the chill by the time we pulled into... 
Singleton's Seafood Shack

We were a little early somewhere around 11:00am so there were only a few cars in the parking lot, we had the only motorcycles.


The Shack was just like I had imagined, right on the water,


with the smell of salt in the air, my kind of place. As you walked up on the small front deck it had an old wooden cable reel turned on it side for a table with old boats in the background.



Once in the door we were greeted as we walked by a table covered in ice with the fresh catch of the day laid out for all to see…fresh seafood, you can’t get much fresher than that.



We were seated  by a large windows right on the water, the outside deck was being remodeled but I have to admit I was happy to be inside where it was warm, we had a bad case of the chills. Soon we were greeted by our waitress, what a sweetheart…we order our food with a side order of coffee;


she even went to the trouble to make my buddy Dave a pot of decaff. Service, service…we were expecting a couple of small cups, but to our surprise out came to extra large cups,


a welcome site to cold bikers.



Now that the coffee had done its job and warmed us up I had a chance to look around a little while waiting on lunch. The place was decorated in a nautical theme, fitting since the shack is sitting only feet from the water.



Then out came the food, it was lunch so we had both decided on po-boys…the waitress suggested that we split an order of fries the po-boys came dressed with shoe-string onion rings that were so deep on top of the po-boy that honestly you could not even see the sandwich.

Once I ate my way through the rings there it was in all it glory, lightly batter fresh, fresh shrimp on top of most excellent bread. Once I was able to squeeze the sandwich together, I had my first bite…heaven, true heaven. Man, that po-boy was good bite after bite, it’s the kind of food that truly makes you shed a tear once it gone…sniff, sniff.


Well the meal was over, we left a generous tip (well dissevered tip I might add) and headed to the counter to pay our bill, they sold many different kinds of hot sauce; I snapped a photo of my favorite.


Disturbing...Ha-ha.

Normally this would be the end of my story but once in the parking lot we noticed our two motorcycles had multiplied into four and a new story begins.


We as I was saying it was a little cold that day so we were unpacking our bags to get our warm gear on and this guy came out of the shack and walked over to us. He started tell us a story of how he and his buddy had just ridden from Daytona to eat at the shack, here comes the cool part, he reaches into his saddle bag and pulls out the book “Diners, Drive-in’s and Dives”

and starts telling me how he plans on going around to all the TV shows Dives and writing about them. I could tell he almost fell out when I told him I had been doing the same thing. Ha-ha. Small world.


Well we said our farewell to our new friends and off we went on our 500 mile ride back home, we did catch a ferry


(no not that kind of ferry. Ha-ha) an automotive ferry


about a block from the shack, a perfect ended to a perfect meal. Three cheers for Singleton’s Seafood Shack!!!


I got to say this place gave my # 1 Diner pick "Darwell’s of LongBeach Ms"
DARWELL'S
A run for the money, I give The Shack five stars all the way around, so if you are looking for a place to eat on the water, with great seafood, service, and just a great laid back atmosphere, then Singleton’s Seafood Shack is the place for you!!! Tell them Big Al sent you…they want have a clue who I am…but tell them anyway. Ha-ha.


Till next time


Big Al

7 comments:

ME said...

Awesome!

Netherland said...

I'm completely honored to see this,,,:)

Belgie said...

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Herrad said...

Hi Bg Al,
Great post, I could almost taste the sandwich, loved the photo of the hot sauce.
I just passed by to say hello.
I hope you are doing well.
Love,
Herrad

Anonymous said...

awesome and informative..so loving it

italia said...

this post is so much fantastic

Doug Parker said...

Awesome seeing this review. I used to eat there growing up -- great to see it's still around get was on triple D -- thanks for posting.

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