Bathroom at Long Point Cafe is Friendly and Familiar But also a Bit Bland

Long Point Cafe
100 Long Point Rd.
Melbourne Beach, FL USA
www.longpointcafe.com

Where is it?

This business has two independent storefronts to it. The larger is a convenience store/fish market which caters specifically to fishermen. The smaller is the cafe. This review is about the cafe's toilet, as the convenience store's bathroom was not visited.

To get to this bathroom, enter the cafe. Once you do, you enter the small dining room, which has about 10 - 15 tables at most. To the left is a small bar area. In the back left corner is the entrance to the kitchen. To the far right is a small hallway leading towards the opposite end of the restaurant.

Go down that hallway and you'll find the bathrooms -- men's room first, then the women's.

What's it like?

The restaurant here is a cozy establishment that many will find reminiscent of such home-style eateries as Howard Johnson or the Tamarisk Restaurant in Green River, UT. Green carpeting covers the floor. The tables are all wood with a light stain on them. The walls have some standard seafood restaurant decor on the walls (pics of fish, nets, etc.).

As stated, the store next door is a place that caters specifically to recreational fishermen. The deli counter there sells a lot of sandwiches, which you can take out with you on your boat, as well as other sundries for boaters and such. The fish market there sells some well-priced, and very fresh, catches, much of which is prepared well inside the the cafe's kitchen.

And this place serves some wonderful food that emphasizes the freshness of its ingredients. For breakfast, it prepares the usual diner fare, but with a seafood slant, such as a terrific Grouper Benedict. Lunch and dinner options also make excellent use of the fresh catches next door, including grilled snapper and grouper dishes, as well as some non-fish items (like a recent special that involved smoked pork butt). On occasion, the fish comes out a bit overcooked, but because the fish is this fresh, the flavor is not sacrificed.

Service is friendly and attentive, and prices are reasonable -- it's a great place to visit if you know about it (the restaurant's location is a bit hard to find if you're not familiar with the area -- it sits at the intersection of A1A and Long Point Rd., at the entrance to Long Point Park, a popular camping and boating launch park in the area) -- but it can be a bit hard to find if you don't know the area well.

The bathrooms in the restaurant are pretty standard fare. Clean, private, and functional, with a few touches of humor to extend the vibe of the dining room but not much beyond that. In many ways, my visit here reminded me of the pit stop I made at Sharky's Shrimp Shack in St. Augustine, which had equally clean and functional toilets that lack much in terms of design.

(I should say my companion visited the women's room and said there was some clever touches in there but I did not receive any additional information so I must keep it at that.)

This is a one-bagger with which drywall walls, standard white porcelain toilet, urinal and sink, flat wall-mounted mirror over the sink and off-white tiles on the floor. (Almost identical to Sharky's Shrimp Shack, really.)

There really isn't much else to it, except for a little stool set beside the toilet (which looks like it came from a child's toy kit) and a Billy Bass talking fish, which hangs above the toilet (and yes, I tested it to make sure it worked -- and it did).

Also, the paper towel dispenser had some humorous instructions on it, describing the steps on how to get a towel from it: "1. Push button. 2. Pull lever twice." Amusing enough, I guess.

Other than that, there isn't much else to report here. Just a typical, solidly pieced diner-inspired bathroom, nothing more.

Marks out of 10:

7.

Comments to the Management:

Nice, safe place. I wouldn't mind seeing more decor here. It doesn't have to get crazy (like Bongo Java or the World Famous Coffee Cup), but a little more creativity wouldn't hurt.