There's nothing worse than getting a bug while you're on vacation. That happened to me during the last portion of our vacation to Florida's Emerald Coast. I don't know if it was bad seafood - or maybe too MUCH seafood - but one day I had stomach problems that just wouldn't quit. We had planned on trying a seafood place for dinner that night, but I wasn't really up for it. We decided that maybe a sandwich or something like that would be what I needed. Looking through Urbanspoon and a few other local websites we found Callahan's Restaurant and Deli in Destin. Overall online reviews seemed to be positive, so we took off to find Callahan's.
Established in 1992, Callahan's has long been a favorite of locals and tourists alike. It's topped the "best of" lists for deli's and comfort food in both local magazine and newspaper polls a number of years. Suzanne Chesbro is the current owner of Callahan's.
Callahan's is located off the main drag in Destin - Harbor Boulevard - near the Target store. (see map) If you're not familiar with the area, you can drive right past the road that takes you to Callahan's, like we did. After figuring out that we'd passed it, we pulled into the next opening of a strip mall and doubled back.
A large group of people were milling about the entry way waiting for tables. We both thought, "Oh, no. Wonder how long of a wait this will be?" When we went to the hostess stand, we found out that the group of people were all together and waiting for tables to be placed together in the dining room. The hostess said that she could seat us right away. She dropped off a couple of menus for us and our server, Luis (pronounced Lewis) came over to greet us.
The dining room at Callahan's is well-lit and sort of spacious. The windows were covered with wooden shutter doors and were still closed well after the sun went down. Most of the tables were four-seaters that could be easily moved around to accommodate larger groups.
They have an old fashioned meat counter up front in the restaurant. Meats and cheeses were available for sale out of the refrigerated cases. Maybe a good ol' deli-style sandwich is what I needed.
The dinner menu at Callahan's was quite extensive, and that sort of worried us. We've found that a restaurant that has such a long menu of different items, they usually do everything just all right, but not very good. They featured a wide assortment of salads, pasta dishes, seafood, steaks, chicken entrees and sandwiches. The menu is also quite kid friendly, as well. It was almost too much to choose from.
Cindy had pretty much decided on the pot roast - it came with mashed potatoes and gravy with a selected vegetable. Cindy asked Luis what the vegetable was and he told her carrots. She sort of said, "Oh...OK."
Luis said, "I can get you something else. I know we have a zucchini and squash medley in the kitchen tonight." Cindy perked up and said she'd take that. She also got her choice of a salad or soup. She asked what the soup was that evening and Luis told her it was a potato ham soup. She went with that.
I ended up with just getting the grilled pastrami and Swiss sandwich. Potato chips came with the sandwich and I told Luis that would be fine, even though I probably wouldn't be eating many - if any - of the potato chips.
After Cindy finished her cup of the potato ham soup, Luis brought our dinners out to us. Cindy's eyes got big. There was a lot of food on her plate. Both the pot roast and the mashed potatoes were covered with a brown beef gravy. Luis apologized for the carrots on the plate, but Cindy said, "Oh, gosh, that's all right. I like carrots, but I just wondered if there was anything else other than carrots that you had to offer."
My pastrami and Swiss sandwich was pretty basic. It was oozing with a generous amount of Swiss cheese on top of a bed of pastrami. Tomato slices and lettuce usually come on the sandwich, but I had Luis tell the cook to leave them off. The sandwich had a nice crunchy outer shell from the grill and the flavor of the Swiss cheese and pastrami was a great combination. With a little yellow mustard to give it a little more flavor, it was a good sandwich.
Cindy thoroughly liked her pot roast. She offered me a couple bites of the roast beef and gravy. The gravy was a bit salty, but it was thick and flavorful. The roast beef was tender and cut easily with a fork. It was probably the comfort food meal that I needed more than a pastrami and Swiss sandwich. But that would have been way too much food for my somewhat uneasy stomach at that point.
While we have some trepidation with a restaurant that tries to do to much with their menu, we couldn't come up with any negatives with our meal at Callahan's. The food was fine and basic, Luis' service was impeccable, the place was clean and bright, it hit us just right on a night where we needed to step away from rich seafood or Cajun food. If you're hungry and can't figure out exactly what you want - or if you're in a large group who can't make up their minds what to have for dinner - Callahan's is good place to go.
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