Winter Park Farmer’s Market on a recent Saturday morning, Winter Park, FL
Photo: Diane Dobry
Weekend Warrior:
Winter Park--Park and Shop Saturday
If I have a favorite Florida town to shop in, eat in, walk through, and just enjoy the sights in, it is Winter Park, with its brick lined streets, flower-trimmed businesses, several parks, and lots of tempting restaurants, many that line Park Avenue across from the green open space of Central Park. And, the shops are a nice mix of unique boutiques and bistros with a local flavor alongside the bigger, high-end shops like Williams-Sonoma and Chico’s. This is the route that hosts the parades, like the Christmas Parade, hosts open-air concerts and film events, and that invites visitors and locals alike to stroll through a town that has curiosities, visual charm and culinary enticement on almost every corner.
Photo: Diane Dobry--samples of quesadillas from Cocina 214 being offered to passersby on Park Avenue.
Winter Park Farmers Market
Photo: Diane Dobry -- Some of the dip samples at the Simply Savory table. If you stop at this booth in the market, you get a cup of small pretzel stix you can use to try out various dips. Unique and quite tasty. I especially liked the horseradish dip, though the cilantro/lime dip is popular.
Photo: Diane Dobry--Mannix Family Premium Vanilla--Organically grown vanilla products--natural cold extraction process with no chemicals or additives. Also vanilla salt, vanilla sugar, ground vanilla beans, vanilla flavored with other oils, and vanilla beans.
Photo: Diane Dobry--Don’t miss the Kombucha Wagon, also serving cold brew coffee. I saw people bringing their own jugs to be filled from the tap. Find them on Facebook to see their various flavors, and videos showing their products and their Kombucha wagon.
There are a few other food trucks,including a popular tamale truck, a popcorn truck, crepes and more. Fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, fresh herbs, local honey--including the soon-to-be-no-more Tupelo honey from Winter Park Honey. And at the entrance/exit, when you’ve walked around in the sun, enjoy some fresh pure or mixed-fruit lemonade. I love the Raspberry Lemonade.
Photo: Diane Dobry
As you walk along W. New England Avenue over the train tracks toward Park Avenue, you might want to stop to enjoy the pergola and fountain in Central Park, or take a peek in the Winter Park History Museum.
Photo: Diane Dobry--Winter Park, Florida
Specialty Shops
Park Avenue is just overflowing with lovely shops and eateries. At the corner of W. New England and Park Avenue is Peterbrooke Chocolatier, serving hand-dipped, enrobed,and molded chocolates and gift baskets and boxes filled with truffles, cordial cherries, toffee and other confectionary items (like macarons). They make 18-24 flavors of creamy Italian gelato, and prepare milk shakes, floats and cups to go. Book a party or enjoy a chocolate camp experience, too.
Photo: Diane Dobry--Outside Peterbrooke Chocolatier in Winter Park
Photo: Diane Dobry--inside Peterbrooke Chocolatier Winter Park
Head north on Park Avenue for a selection of restaurants, wine bars, coffee shops, boutiques and specialty stores. Al fresco dining on the sidewalk gives a view of Central Park (the Winter Park one, not the famous one further north).
New and Old Favorite Food Stores
Once I’ve filled my bags with goodies from the farmer’s market, stopped for some sweet treats from Peterbrooke,a quesadilla sample from Cocina 214, and a peek inside Williams Sonoma and Chico’s I hop in my car wherever I was lucky enough to find a space on the street (they do have some larger parking lots and garages in town, too) and I head down to Orlando Avenue where shopping centers are with more restaurants like Bulla on Morse Avenue and Orlando Avenue. Right behind Bulla, just off of Morse Avenue, is a larger parking area, and slightly hidden away, but very popular Fitlife Foods--which sells different sizes of freshly prepared meals, snacks, desserts, soup--that are all-natural, chef-created and nutritionally balanced meals with and without meat or fish, and ready to be picked up or delivered. They recycle the used containers that you bring back and give a $10 credit for 20 containers--which they keep track of so you don’t have to let them pile up at home. The meals are quite good--I highly recommend the bison ravioli and the chicken with tortellini. They even have breakfast foods, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and vegan options.
Very clean store, by the way, and even the rest room is clean.
Across Orlando Avenue is a small shopping center -- too small sometimes on weekends because the parking has to accommodate fans of both Trader Joe’s and Shake Shack, as well as Jillycakes (custom cupcakes and cakes) and Spa 810. I try to be strategic about when I shop here, weekdays being a bit easier to find parking.
Photo: Diane Dobry -- Trader Joe’s with its very crowded parking area.
But this location is really quite lovely. Shake Shack overlooks Lake Killarney, and there are some lovely fountains to sit near and enjoy a cupcake or a shake.
Photo: Diane Dobry--Shake Shack, Winter Park
Photo: Diane Dobry--fountain near Shake Shack overlooking Lake Killarney, Winter Park.
There’s so much to see and do in Winter Park--boat tours, movie theaters, restaurants, markets, golf courses, concerts, museums, parks, parades and more. One Saturday is not enough time to see and enjoy it all. So there is always something new to look forward to.
