Celebration Life

From July 23 to 25, Celebration becomes a veritable Who’s Who of Survivor stars, with some Amazing Race and Big Brother people sprinkled in there for good measure.

From CelebrationTownCenter.com:

Come meet the stars of the hit reality shows “Survivor” , “The Amazing Race” and “Big Brother” as a part of this year’s Summer Sidewalk Sale in beautiful Celebration Town Center and participate in the “Sales” Survivor Treasure Hunt July 23rd through the 25th.

On Friday, the Sidewalk Sale kicks off with a “Sales Survivor: Treasure Hunt”. Visit the restaurants to get your “treasure map” and use the clues to navigate through Celebration Town Center to uncover the answers. One “Sole Survivor” will walk away with $500 worth in cash and prizes. Continuing on Friday a special VIP sponsor party will take place at The Mona Lisa Suites Hotel with all the cast members’ on-hand for pictures autographs and more.

On Saturday, a special autograph signing will take place in Downtown Celebration from 4:00-6:00 PM and a special “Survivor Party” at the Celebration Town Tavern hosted by comedian Dean Napolitano will be held that evening with all proceeds from the party and autograph signing to benefit Give Kids the World Village. On Sunday, the Sidewalk Sale continues and it will be the last day to return your completed treasure maps to be eligible to win.

That link also has a list of everyone scheduled to appear, including favorites Jerri Manthey and Richard Hatch. This is a great charity event for Give Kids the World, so if you’re a reality TV fan, Celebration appears to be the place to be this weekend!

Article: WSJ.com: A Walker’s Guide to Home Buying

For a few years in the early 2000′s, I lived in South Tampa and worked in central New Jersey (Somerset County). Monday mornings I woke up bright (well…) and early, hopped on a plane, and was to my cube in Raritan by lunchtime. On Fridays I’d head to Newark around lunchtime, catch the 2:50 to Tampa, and be back home in time for happy hour. Rinse, repeat. During the week I was staying in a rented room in Stewartsville, about 35 miles from work, which took anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour each way. Point is, there was a lot of time spent in cars and planes. Enough time to know that I didn’t want to do it any more.

When presented with the opportunity to move to either Tampa or Orlando, there wasn’t much debate. We chose Celebration. Within a 25 minute walk, or 10 minute bike ride, I can visit my choice of banks, grab a Starbucks coffee, drop the son off at the K-8 school, work on an MBA, drop off drycleaning, check my PO box, get a haircut, have pad thai or sushi, see a movie, or visit a friend at our hospital. And most Celebration residents live closer to the downtown than we do.

I’ve lived in Florida for 30+ years, cumulatively. This degree of walkability is not easy to come by. Yes, it’s factored into the real estate prices here in Celebration, but to some degree that investment has been recouped in the form of fewer fillups (and lower dependence on oil), lower auto insurance premiums, reduced chances of getting in an accident, and improved health through increased exercise.

And if it means I spend more time enjoying the outdoors with my family, then it’s priceless. Hopefully others will discover this, too.

I have it on good authority that Shannon’s of Celebration will be opening their new “wing” for Saturday’s World Cup Match Up of USA vs England. For the uninitiated, Shannon’s bought out the lease of the space next door to them several months ago and has been working on expanding their business into that space.

According to a posting on the internal web forum, Shannon’s has negotiated to acquire the space currently occupied by HQ For Men (the haircut place next door). Grats to Ken and Susan. We love Shannon’s and look forward to additional indoor eating space!

I haven’t been there yet, but there’s an article in today’s Orlando Sentinel about Jean Pierre Bistro & Bakery. Looks tasty!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, Celebration residents and visitors!

Things to look forward to in the New Year, in no particular order (‘cept the first one):

• We will move into a house. We’ve been patiently waiting out the purchase of a home via short sale. It’s been a long road, one that started mid-July. I think the end may be in sight, but that may just be an illusion brought on by extreme temperature changes.
• House projects. Related to the above, my list of house projects is officially empty. My expectation is that moving into a 7 year old house vs the 37 year old one we moved out of will translate into a shorter house project list, but maybe that’s hilariously naive?
• Grill! Also related to moving into a house will be bringing the grill out of storage. Not being able to grill despite so many fantastic grilling days here in Florida has been like living in a straightjacket.
• New businesses. The arcade next to Kilwin’s is shuttering its doors, I believe at the end of January. There’s also another spot still available on Market Street where the Village Merc used to be. I’ll be interested to see what kinds of businesses choose to open their doors this year; I’ll be sure to write about them here when they do. I’d love to see a small corner market type store here in Celebration… you know, things like milk, eggs, chips, beers, some staple produce. That, coupled with the produce stand at the Sunday market, would mean we only have to leave the bubble for meat!
• Geocaching. Did you know there are several geocaches stashed away around Celebration? If you don’t know what geocaching is, you should check out geocaching.com. You’ll need a handheld GPS and a sense of adventure. You might even be able to get by with an iPhone 3G or 3GS and the right GPS app. It’s a great family-friendly excuse to get outside for a few hours to see parts of the world you may not otherwise have seen… and get a little exercise, to boot. Our new GPS arrives Wednesday so we can find & log the caches we haven’t found yet.
• Epcot After 4. Looking forward to getting the maximum return on our brand spanking new Epcot After 4 annual passes!
• Meeting neighbors and making friends. Once our five month old is a little older, we’d like to be a bit more social again. “How so?”, one might ask. Good question.
• Tennis! I’ve been trying to take tennis lessons and get to the point where the other person I’m playing with won’t want to slice me with a rusty razor blade after 10 minutes. I’ve had some trouble maintaining a consistent training schedule with my coach but expect to work something out in the next few weeks. If you’re an OK tennis player (or a good tennis player with plenty of patience) and live in Celebration, drop me a note at blogmail at celebrationblog.com.
• GREAT food. Bangers & Mash at Shannon’s. Stackers and Clam Chowder at the Town Tavern (and I’ve been neglecting my beer checklist). Pad Thai (4 star hot) at Thai Thani. That mozzarella/basil/balsamic flatbread thing at Imperium. Lunchtime California Combination at Seito Sushi. Tapas and Cuban bread like I remember from Tampa at Columbia Celebration. And I hope to frequent Cafe D’Antonio, Angelinas, and Jean Pierre’s Bistro more often as we find babysitters. Celebration is truly a place for great food.

What am I missing? What else do Celebration residents have to look forward to in 2010 and beyond?

Catching up on a few random things.

Have I mentioned that I like Thai Thani? This is from the night before their grand opening / open house.

The “ice” is down in front of Shannon’s et al. Better pictures to follow once it cranks up.

Thai Thani will be having their grand opening on November 23, from 4-7pm. According to manager Nat, they will have at least 10 different types of free food to sample, close-up magic, Thai dancers, and more.

Thai Thani is at 600 Market Street in downtown Celebration.

Had the good fortune of attending a lovely wedding this afternoon, followed by a reception at the Town Tavern’s new outdoor bar area.

They did a nice job! I’ll be interested to see it when it’s not set up for an event.

The Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation (FL DBPR) shut down the Market Street Cafe (701 Front St.) today for health code violations. The report is available on the State’s web site. I’ll wait if you want to check it out.

Back? Ok, a few thoughts. Generally wouldn’t post this kind of thing here. As a resident of Celebration, these kinds of things reflect negatively on the community; publishing about them even more so. But it is part of my experience here in Celebration, and perhaps some good will eventually come of it, so I’m letting the filter down for tonight.

First: from what I understand, the bar is kinda high to force a restaurant to close its doors.
Second: there’s a pattern of poor practices, judging from history available on the FL DBPR web site. Inspections this year on 2/11, 4/14, and 6/17 required follow-up inspections.
Third: health-wise, they’re out of their league vs the other eating establishments in Celebration. Some of the other restaurants here have violations, but not with the same frequency as the Cafe, and as far as I’ve been able to research, none that have closed the doors. They’ve been inspected every 2 months since February.
Fourth: food-wise, they’re also out of their league vs Celebration. This is more subject to personal opinion (I’m not a diner person), but there are pages and pages of complaints on the internal Celebration resident message boards about food and service at the Cafe.
Fifth: who are the owners? Do they not know? Do they know and not care? Do they know and care, but not know how to fix it?
Sixth: what of the landlord, Lexin Capital? This casts a shadow on all the other businesses here, which if left unchecked makes the downtown less desirable, thus increasing vacancies and driving down rents.
Seventh: am I hearing the true story? My primary venue for Celebration chatter is the internal forum, which, as I mentioned, is only open to residents. Perhaps tourists think the Cafe is the best thing to happen since the moon landing but aren’t sharing those experiences in places that I’d see them.

So what now? Will Management paint over the problem and go about business as usual, or will fundamental changes be made? Will any heads roll? What can residents do, besides voting with their wallets… the effects of which are unknown because of the tourist element?

I don’t have any answers. But I also don’t run a restaurant.

Update 2009-Oct-28: Reports are that they’re open for business today.