Celebration Life

I had no idea Halloween was such an event in Celebration. Cops directing traffic, tons of people, lots of hoopla. Some people in the Main Village report 1000+ trick-or-treaters! Not to mention some of the decorating that goes on.

It’s a strange thing. Judging by the traffic, most of the trick-or-treaters are from outside Celebration. So why do they choose to load up in the car, costumes and all, and trek over to Celebration instead of going door-to-door wherever they live? This is not me complaining, mind you. In fact, the downtown stores & eateries were doing brisk business tonight (even the Market Street Cafe and those overpriced shops), which is a welcome thing. But how do so many people decide that this is where they want to be on this night? Is the candy better here? Is it perceived to be safer for children than the alternatives? A combination?

On a personal level, Halloween wasn’t much to write about for us. We live in a condo, so no visitors. Our son is only 12 weeks old, so no dressing up for him. We never get invited to parties or anything, probably because of me, so no fun socializing. Instead we wandered downtown for a bit to people watch, then back home to put the baby to bed and watch the World Series.

Next year we should be in a house (<diety> help us if not) so I expect we’ll be drinking and handing out candy and drinking and eating candy.

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.

An assortment of photos I took here in Celebration. Click for larger size or more details.

(click in and see original size)