The Villages is #6 by this measure
 

The measurement for the 55+ crowd is rather odd, food. Restaurants, quality of chefs, food clubs and all things food related.

Link to realtor.com, below, works.

Pardon Our Interruption.

Although our restaurants are a factor the food clubs carried weight.

IMHO, there are very few outstanding restaurants here. My favorite is The Chop House. The rest of the restaurants are poor, fair, or average. Spoke with 2 couples last night who both could not name one decent place for pizza.

Great place to live but IMHO restaurant quality is below average

No great restaurants
 

There isn’t really any great cuisine inside the bubble. Most places serving in the villages serve food that tastes like reheated, reseasoned blah. Further it is a struggle to find any place that serves an aged steak, a crowned pork or even a great orange duck. I’m not asking for a good Washuko or even a Wagyu A5 in butter sauce, just some options that don’t seem like they come from Applebees Maybe the occasional something special. Trust me, you won’t find most great dishes inside the villages. If you want over seasoned, poorly prepared and rushed food though, they are here to serve you.

I guess they haven’t tried Sammy Joe’s. It’s a little hole in the wall place in the Mulberry Plaza, but they make a good grease wheel.

IMO Florida in general restaurants quality not that great. Second thing IMO it’s getting way overcrowded here. IMO what makes villages great is well planned out, amenities, and pretty safe, at least in my area.

IMO only pizza I found worth going back for Marco’s pepperoni as long as I don’t have to too often.

IMO Sammy joe’s pizza pretty good as long as you eat in, If takeout it get’s soggy pretty quick and I live just little over mile from Sammy Joe’s.

If ever there was a list of oxymorons, 'Restaurant and Pizza' are among the top ten.

I agree. It always has been so and now restaurant prices are astronomical and you have to wait for ages because they cannot find anyone to employ.

BUT THAT IS EVERYWHERE IN FLORIDA AND THE REST OF THE COUNTRY.

Piesanos is the best we’ve tried out here.

The Chop House, Bonefish, Tap House Social, Mission BBQ, IBBQ, and believe it or not, Olive Garden. All of these are really good, comparatively speaking.

Olive Garden? Soup and salad are good but the rest of the dishes here are mediocre at best. Many better Italian restaurants in and out of the bubble.

Agree 100%! And currently in 2024 the large pepperoni is only $10, and gives us two meals when we bring it home and add a salad.

We have always loved Olive Garden, and were so happy there was one here when we moved from SoCal, though we also love Roberto’s for Italian food. After two years here we have actually never eaten at any of the other places you mentioned.

Agreed

lettuce
 

Olive garden lettuce "good?" it's just iceberg!🫤

Posters are stating that there are no good restaurants in TV, and that post is promoting warmed up left over mediocre pizza as a meal. Anyone sense a slight disconnect???:1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl:

The restaurants within TV with a few exceptions are dismal.

We like Sammy Joe's for pizza.

Tastebuds
 

Some have tastebuds, some don’t.

Piesano’s Lake Deaton is the best you’re going to do…though I’ve heard NYPD on 466 is okay too. If you want NY pizza, go back to NY. We’re originally from SF and there is no good sourdough bread or Chinese food here either. Oh, well. What we have done is learned to love local faire, like shrimp and grits and fried green tomatoes. You’ll never get either of those in NY or SF.

Just returned from a week in Banff, Alberta, Canada where we enjoyed eating at several good restaurants. A very nice break from the restaurants we have inside the bubble. Of course, we paid more than the average tab here. If you want better food, you have to support a restaurant that charges more.

I agree with you, We live about a mile away and tried SammyJoes last night. The place was jampacked. Ordered a Well Done pizza to go and picked it up as soon as it came out of the oven. The top of the pizza was well done but the crust was soft and floppy however the flavor was very good. I have had breakfast here which was delicious. We will try the pizza while dining in next time.

I would not judge a good restaurant by pizza but I agree there are very few good restaurants in The Villages. My faves are Harvest and Lopez.

I agree with the poster, I am back north and the food here is exceptional in high line restaurants. In mid line restaurants the food is tasty and plentiful. TV overall skimpy and overpriced

The problem here is that many of the restaurants are chain restaurants and are more interested in quantity than quality. Then there is the lack of competition, I'm from N.Y.C. and there are restaurants on top of restaurants, if you're not halfway decent you're not going to survive. Finally, restaurants make a bigger return on their investment from alcohol if it be at the bar or the table and Villagers do like to drink so food is almost a secondary to operating their business.
Unfortunately, if you want to have a great meal you're going to have to look outside of The Villages.

Harvest and Lopez are solid, I agree. In my two years here, I believe I have hit up every non-chain restaurant within the bubble, since I eat out dinner probably 5 out of 7 nights each week. My favorites are outside the bubble. But for solid meals within the bubble, in addition to Lopez and Harvest, I’d add Blue Fin, and Coastal Del Mar. OK, but not remarkable, would be Kumo, Prima, Chop House, Thai Lily, Amerikanos, Havana CC, Piesano’s and Booster’s.

Has anyone ever heard of a home-cooked meal? I don't know anyone who eats out for every meal.

Although food is the main attraction for senior citizens, the locations for the top ten appear to be mostly apartments. Only a few were homes/villas like The Villages is made up of. Forget pizza ...... that's only a quick chow down that's IMHO not a meal. Good food, whether it's Chinese, Italian, German, Thai etc., is found outside of The Villages in smaller mom and pop restaurants. There are great places to eat from Ocala, Leesburg, and Orlando. And don't forget those Brazilian steakhouses in Orlando and Ocala. Most of the restaurants in TV are average to mediocre at best.

Restaurants in the bubble
 

Couldn't agree .ore about the poor quality of restaurants I the bubble.

We have a couple of favorites if we're not in a picky mood like Chop House, Toojays, Havana.

Prefer ones outside the Villages such as Prime 3 in Leesburg, one of the few restaurants that serve Prime beef, the Irish Pub across the street from Prime 3, Gio's in Oxford w/authentic Italian fare & fabulous pizza, veal dishes. Several good places in Ocala & some newer Asian places in the area. Variety is the true spice of eating life but have to search a bit more in our area for better restaurants.




QUOTE=Toymeister;2384971]The measurement for the 55+ crowd is rather odd, food. Restaurants, quality of chefs, food clubs and all things food related.

Link to realtor.com, below, works.

Pardon Our Interruption.

Although our restaurants are a factor the food clubs carried weight.[/QUOTE]

Given The Villages' exceptional Amenities, finishing #7 in the nation for Retirement Communities with good local Cuisine is outstanding! ALL of the other places that are listed don't offer Amenities that even come close to those offered by The Villages and most of these places are in areas with much higher Costs of Living.

LOL. . . as we age, we slowly lose sensory abilities. . could be one of the reasons why normal food all tastes the same, and why what we liked when we were younger now takes more seasoning to taste the same.

Personally i do know my taste sensory ability is declining, because the amount of my favorite spices i love i need more and more of to enjoy the taste. I have a hard time tasting most spices in the very small amounts recommended in recipes. .

but we are all built differently

CT actually has the better pizza joints. Says my taste buds and National rankings. But you can’t go wrong in NYC for the HUGE slices!

Retirement communities and low quality food go hand in hand. As most retirees go for their bottom dollar.
It doesn’t help that our American food quality/standards basically suck. What the FDA allows in our food is criminal! Have you noticed the food coloring names have been changed? Gone are Red 40, Blue 5 - in name only. Now they are allowed to use benign names tho the dye didn’t change one bit.
Much of our food can’t be sold in Europe , due to their realistic food quality standards. Even our fast food chains there had to leave out/change the recipe to sell there. GMO is a clear example.
Don’t get me started on our restaurant suppliers. Ever notice the Sysco truck stopping at both high end and low end restaurants?

Judging by the size of stomachs I see here, I'd guess the Villages restaurants are serving decent meals.

What about?
 

The Golden Corral???????

Seriously? OMG!

We like Blue Fin, Chop House, and Prima but after a couple cocktails most of the others are fine. I'm more into the service end of restaurants. Good service and mediocre food is not good and good food with poor service is not good therefore the pre-dinner cocktails.

If I'm not mistaken, 3 of the 7 places listed are assisted or independent living facilities where the facility prepares the food for you. I don't think you can fairly compare the food at restaurants in TV to a facility where you're paying close to $10k/month to live.

BRAVO PIZZA is authentic Italian Pie! Yum!