We love Gulf Shores, Alabama. The motto for the town is “small town, big beach” and while it is a tourist town, it also has a small town feel. Since we have a house here, we thought it might be helpful to write about our favorite dinner places.
Most of the places on my lunch list are also open for dinner although Kitty’s is not – they only do breakfast and lunch. So I am only going to list restaurants that I did not mention on the lunch post here.
Villaggio’s at the Wharf is one of our favorites. It is technically an Italian restaurant and has amazing brick oven pizzas and – my husband’s favorite – the seafood pasta. Everything here is good including the salads. My favorite salad is the scallop and arugula. So good! This restaurant is at the Wharf so you can go shopping or to the movies or just walk the marina before or after your meal.
We love Gulf Shores, Alabama. It is part of an island off the southern coast of Alabama extending into the Gulf of Mexico with beautiful white sand beaches. It is a tourist town but with small town hospitality. “Small town, Big beach” is our tag line. Chip and I have a house in this town, and since we are here fairly often, we decided it was a good place to blog about so that our friends that have never been could enjoy some of our favorite places to eat. This page is about lunch places.
Key West has become one of our favorite quick trips in the last few years. For one thing 2020 has been crazy and we have not been able to travel much outside the country. Key West is still pretty close and very tropical. It is nice to have really pleasant weather and plenty of water activities. This blog will list our favorite places to stay and then I will follow up with places to eat and things to do on separate blogs (and there are a lot of both.)
Part of deciding where to stay is how much you want to spend and you certainly can stay in anything from a rented room to a 5 star resort. The places listed here are in the middle of that range.
We have now been to Hawaii three times. The first two times we stayed on Maui and Kaua’i and the last time we stayed on Oahu and Kaua’i. All three of the islands are beautiful and part of the problem is deciding which islands to stay on and for how long. Each island is different. We love Maui and Kaua’i because they are more laid back and very lush and green. Oahu is much more populated and busy but also has wonderful places to visit and see. It would be great if you could visit all of the islands and stay for a week on each but that might be too long to be gone from home. We did choose to visit two islands each time and split our time between the two. I am going to list the places that we chose to stay on each island and give you some tips for finding your perfect vacation home away from home.
Since we have a house on the canal in Gulf Shores, we drive down quite often. Most times just for the weekend but we do have quite a few favorite restaurants and are constantly finding new ones.
Morning on the canal
Breakfast Places
Our two favorites are still Kitty’s Kafe and Duck’s Diner. They are both local favorites. Kitty’s is in Gulf Shores next to Target and Duck’s is in Orange Beach on canal road. They are great family places and you will probably have to wait for a seat in the summer time unless you go early or late. There is outdoor seating available at Kitty’s. Kitty’s has the regular eggs and meat with sides options and also has great oatmeal with all of the fixings. They also serve a really good turkey sausage. Duck’s has the egg and meat choices with an excellent smoked sausage. Duck’s also has a decadent banana stuffed french toast. Both have great omelet choices also. Friendly, quick service at both places make these our go to’s for breakfast.
Kitty’s eggs, toast, and turkey sausage with oatmeal (served with raisins and brown sugar)
Duck’s Diner – Eggs, hashbrowns, smoked sausage with biscuits and gravy
There are quite a few other breakfast places in Orange Beach including, Another Broken Egg Cafe and Brick & Spoon. We also like The Ruby Slipper Cafe. Our first time visiting this restaurant was in New Orleans and it was excellent. It is great here as well. It is usually very crowded – go early or sit at the bar. They have a menu full of specialty breakfast items especially omelets, pancakes and french toast.
In Gulf Shores, Tacky Jack’s on the canal has a good breakfast and a fantastic view of the canal. The Diner at the end of canal road also has a good breakfast. And of course there is Hazel’s Nook which is still serving breakfast since their opening in 1957. This is a fun little diner to visit for breakfast. It is reminiscent of the old diners and it is buffet style so you get a ton of food. They also have an omelet station for made-to-order omelets.
These are a few of our favorite places to eat breakfast. I will be adding a lunch & dinner page and then a to do list.
