Better a crust of bread with a real friend than a prime rib with a whiner.

Carrabba's has a delicious lunch menu, great prices and the best servers. Love the ambiance.

I totally agree !!! :BigApplause:

I agree also. If you're used to paying $10 for a single drink and $25 to $50 for an entree in the big metropolitan areas, you're not going to find that kind of restaurant here because TV folks would not go for it and the place would go out of business in 2 days. Not even one such restaurant could survive here.

I guess we will never see a Ruth's Chris or Morton's here...to bad!

The difference is the rents and services in central Florida are not anywhere near those of Manhattan, etc. I would think you could find a quality restaurant that could serve a quality meal without charging Manhattan prices.

You will have to get in your car and drive to the Orlando area, I believe. Getting around to different areas now and then is fun.

That makes sense. And when you look at the large number of homes that are being sold now in the $500,000 and up range, there appear to be people who have the money to spend at high end restaurants.

But they are not in the majority. AND even those folks, with the more expensive homes, most of them, are still mindful of the bottom line. I know a quite a few who live in Premier neighborhoods who still keep their frugal ways and that may be how they got there.


Business will come if business can be supported.


There is nothing terrible wrong with the restaurants here.

Had dinner last night at Ruth's Chris in Manhattan. Great meal (great tree in Rockefeller Center too). We had a very special evening but it was also very expensive. I also enjoy most of the restaurants in TV and because they are more reasonably priced I can go out more often.

We were at The Lighthouse Restaurant LSL last night. Excellent piece of fish and the other half had scallops.

Would I prefer to have a Legal Seafood, of course, but it 'aint going to happen so we make the best of it.

It is beyond me why people move here and continually complain about things they cannot change ................. life is too short!:ohdear:

I echo what you said above.

Also, one gets what they pay for, as another gentleman stated earlier........if discounted food is what one is looking for, that's what they shouldn't complain about, when they get it.

Obviously, food is perishable and if they don't have a steady stream of customers walking in the door.....the quality suffers.......or else they rely on frozen foods and just nuke them. To expect made from scratch fresh for you on order , at discount prices, is not a reasonable expectation.

Anyone who still shops for food in quantity will understand that.

Most of these "chains" use the same pre packaged frozen food you can find in your freezer aisle at the supermarket.........to nuke.

If fine dining is what one is after......then check around first.

When we visited, we ate at Bob Evans once, early on, and everything was over SALTY, as another poster stated, in general. Bob Evans used to be a good "home cooked" type of establishment that we'd stop at enroute across the country, years ago, so that was the only reason we stopped in the T.V. place. The other locations were not overly salty. This place in T.V. out on the highway, was ultra salty. Don't have high blood pressure, but neither do I use table salt.......so it was extreme. And, the food looked old and reheated.

We did like the Lighthouse Restaurant very very much and went there often. The fish was always fresh and fried fresh.

Ditto for the Waterfront Inn, which no one ever mentions. The food was always good. The staff always friendly and polite. The view out back very nice, the patio a nice place to sit or bring guests after eating. Whether inside or out on the deck, it was a nice relaxing informal place to eat; reminded us of a Maine restaurant.

Gators was good for a quick lunch.....nothing wrong with the service there. Whatever we had was always fine. Can't remember all the names of the luncheon places we stopped at. Ditto , they were all fine.

Hope to experience more of the country club dining places once we relocate. The Nancy Lopez Legacy Country Club restaurant across from Calumet Grove was always bustling and the grilled steaks, etc. smelled great "on the wind" across Buena Vista........will definitely return.

We also liked the Sicilian style pizza, etc. from Toscani's in Mulberry Grove.......they make their own Buffalo mozzarella cheese fresh......
Whatever we had from them was always fresh, at least when we were there. A few other lunch spots in Mulberry grove, ditto.....can't recall the names. For people used to Pizza Hunt and Domino's , they wouldn't like Sicilian style cooking, but we remember it from New York and New Jersey.

Loved all the fresh stuff at Sweetbay......sorry it is gone or replaced by another chain.......as I do like to cook for the two of us or our families.
It far surpassed Publix.....but that will have to do. Sweetbay was a subsidiary of Hannaford, the same supermarket chain we are used to in Maine and Vermont..........they have a huge organic produce section up here, etc., etc. Their bakery section (at Sweetbay) was a million times better than Publix. Hope the new place is good as well. We shall see.

That all said, everyone has a different frame of reference for what good food should taste like.......and a different "palate"........I'm sure with all of those 60 or more restaurants, there has to be some outstanding ones.
Again, we shall see.

In your opinion there is nothing wrong with the restaurants here, but looking at the posts, many of them agreed with the OP. We all know people who are well off that are also cheap. And we all know people who don't have tons of money that will spend it on a good meal at a nice restaurant. Who cares if wealthy people are in the majority or not. That is not the point of the thread. The point is, as one of the posters commented, food in the Villages is a hit or miss affair, and many of us go outside The Villages for a good meal. The food tends to be better, cheaper, and restaurants not as overcrowded.

Frugal sounds better than cheap and there is a big difference between the 2.

Yes, frugal does sound better than cheap. I know some wealthy people that are frugal, and I know some that are downright cheap. But we digress.