I was asked if I would accompany my colleague John to a conference/trade show in Florida in early March. Given that much of the Midwest was in the throes of an icy grip when he asked me, I didn't hesitate to say yes. On our first night in the Orlando area, we asked the concierge at the Marriott World Center where a good place to get seafood and/or a steak would be - outside of the hotel property (they always suggest the restaurants IN the hotel first). He immediately suggested Johnnie's Hideaway that was not far from the hotel. John made reservations and we went there for what we hoped would be a good dinner.
Johnnie's Hideaway is under the umbrella of restaurants owned by Talk of the Town Restaurant group, an Orlando-based corporation that also owns and operates nine other area restaurants such as Charley's Steak House, FishBones, Vito's Chop House and Texas Cattle Company. Talk of the Town was founded in 1974 by the father and son duo of Charley and Ron Woodsby. Charley Woodsby had been involved as a partner in Gary's Duck Inn, a landmark restaurant in the Orlando area famous for selling as much as 12 tons of shrimp annually.
Also involved as a partner in Gary's Duck Inn was William Darden who recognized that a smaller, no-frills seafood house could be something that could catch on - not only in Central Florida, but across the nation. In 1968, Darden and Woodsby started the first Red Lobster in Lakeland, FL. They soon expanded Red Lobster to five restaurants with franchises in South Carolina and Georgia.
In 1970, Darden and Woodsby sold Red Lobster to General Foods with Woodsby staying on to help open more franchises while Darden went on to start Olive Garden restaurants a few years later. (The Darden Restaurant Group had reacquired Red Lobster a number of years later before selling off the chain to an investment group in 2014. The company also owns the Capital Grille, LongHorn Steakhouse, and Yard House restaurant chains in addition to a handful of other national and regional chains across America.)
In 1973, Charley and Ron Woodsby left the employ of General Foods/Red Lobster and started a steakhouse in Lakeland called Talk of the Town. They expanded to four other locations in Florida and in 1984 they changed the name of the restaurants to the Texas Cattle Company, with the exception of the one in Orlando/Kissimmee that was renamed Charley's Steak House. (Look for an upcoming entry on Charley's Steak House.) All the Talk of the Town restaurants that Charley and Ron Woodsby oversee have won numerous restaurant industry awards. When it opened in 2008, Clark Woodsby joined his father and grandfather in the corporation as the executive chef in charge of Johnny's Hideaway.
Pictured at right - Charley Woodsby (seated), Clark Woodsby (standing left) and Ron Woodsby (standing right). Photo courtesy Orlando Sentinel.
Now, I hardly ever identify myself as a food blogger when I go to restaurants. I'd rather them treat me like any other customer than having out of the norm service. But my colleague John thinks it's pretty cool that I have a pretty well-read blog and when he was having the concierge at the hotel make reservations for us he casually mentioned that his dining partner was one of the "most popular restaurant bloggers on Google." Well, that wasn't quite right, but as of right now Road Tips is one of the Top Ten most popular blogs on Urbanspoon. Anyway, the concierge mentioned that to the person at Johnnie's Hideaway. I had no idea that he had done that.
Johnnie's Hideaway is located just off Interstate 4 at the Kissimmee Vineland Road exit in southwest Orlando. (see map) It's tucked into an area that has a number of different restaurants to choose from. It was a humid night in Central Florida and it felt good to feel something other than the temperatures we'd endured up north for the previous six weeks. (When I left Moline that particular morning at 6 a.m., the temperature was -12 F. It was 71 F that evening with a mist falling in the area.)
After having the valet park our rental car (it's complementary at Johnnie's Hideaway), we walked through a small grove of trees surrounding the building and into the restaurant to check in with the hostess. As you come into the main entry way of the restaurant there's a case full of raw steaks on display. My colleague John had literally picked out his steak before he even checked in with the hostess.
We had an 8:30 p.m. reservation, but we were told that it would probably be closer to 9 p.m. before we'd get seated, so we were invited to sit in the bar area. We found a couple chairs at the bar and I got a Widmer Brothers Upheaval IPA that was on tap. It was a wait of about 20 minutes before a hostess came over to let us know that our table was ready.
As we were walking back toward the dining room, I saw John lean forward and have a word with the hostess. She turned back to him and say, "Oh, yes. We know."
I asked him what that was all about and he said, "I mentioned that you were a popular food and restaurant blogger on Google." No, John. It's Urbanspoon, but that and a buck would barely get you a burger from the dollar menu at McDonalds. I told him that I didn't like to have people at restaurants know that I have a blog - it's not a big deal to me.
The dining room was very elegant, heavy on the dark wood paneling with padded bench seats in the booths. The lighting was muted and the walls were adorned with nautical and fishing pictures. This was a pretty fancy place.
Our server for the evening, a pleasant woman by the name of Dee, came over to great us and she dropped off a small bowl of what she called "Fire and Ice" pickles. They were cold dill pickles that had been marinated in something that was damn hot. And they were damn good. In fact, they were excellent. I wish I could have had more than the ones they brought out initially. But, then again, I didn't ask for any more.
It was about that time when the manager came over to welcome us to Johnny's Hideaway. I didn't catch his name, but he was cordial in his greeting and hoped that we'd have a fine meal with them that evening - and if there was anything that he could do for us, do not hesitate to ask. When he walked away I said to John, "Well, that certainly doesn't happen at most restaurants..."
"I'm tellin' ya," John said. "You need an agent to get you set up!"
The menu at Johnnie's Hideaway features - of course - steaks and seafood, but one can also find a chicken entree that is fried and pressed in a cast iron grill, a bone-in veal parmesan, and a 2" thick bone-in Duroc pork chop. Appetizers include a stone crab bisque, deep fried calamari, barbecued shrimp with fresh rosemary, and deep-fried Florida gator meat.
They also offered oysters on the half shell that evening and John suggested that we get three each of the Malpeque oysters from Prince Edward Island and the Blue Point oysters from Long Island. Our colleague Todd is originally from P.E.I. and I have to say that the Malpeques stomped on the Blue Points that evening in both taste, meatiness and consistency.
I also wanted to get a shrimp cocktail to go along with the oysters. Like the oysters, the shrimp were served on bed of ice in a metal bowl. They were large, substantial and very good. Fresh horseradish laid on top of a cup of shrimp sauce to give the shrimp a nice screaming taste.
After we ordered our food for the evening, we each got a salad. John went with the basic house salad - lettuce greens topped with chick peas and sliced marinated beets with a light house dressing.
I went with the wedge salad - a romaine wedge cut in half topped with a ranch/blue cheese dressing along with chopped tomatoes and real bacon bits. It was an all right salad - I've had better wedge salads, but it wasn't bad. Along with our salads, Dee served us some of Johnnie's Hideaway's fresh baked garlic cheese butter bread. The bread alone was worth the price of admission. Crispy on the outside, it was light and fluffy inside and tore apart very easily. It went very well with the salad I had.
For our main entrees, John went with a steak and seafood special that evening. It was a small filet topped with a creamy seafood sauce. The steaks at Johnnie's Hideaway are dry-aged on the bone for 15 days, then their wet-aged for three more weeks after. Most of the beef they use are either USDA prime or choice cuts. The steaks are then cooked at 1800 (F) to seal in the juices. John said his steak with the sauce on top was absolutely fabulous.
I went both ways - steak and seafood. I got the 8 oz. filet - rare - along with an order of stone crab claws. Like John's steak, it came with garlic mashed potatoes. We also ordered up some of sautéed mushrooms to go along with our steaks.
The stone crab claws came with some of Johnnie's Hideaway's housemade mustard dipping sauce. I didn't use much of the sauce because I liked the taste of the stone crab claws on their own. They were sort of a hassle to crack open, but the work was worth it. It had been a long time since I'd had stone crab claws and I was very satisfied with what I got.
The steak I had was also very good. Tender, flavorful and juicy, the filet was a fine accompaniment to the stone crab claws. It's tough to do good "surf and turf" in the Midwest, but both the beef and the stone crab claws were superb.
I was stuffed as we were winding down our meal. The manager came over again to check on us, making sure that we were happy with our meal. We couldn't lie - it was a great meal. It was also interesting because I noticed that he checked with only us and not any of the other diners who were still there later in the evening.
Well, we weren't finished yet. Dee brought out the dessert tray and what I saw just made me do jumping jacks. They had fresh housemade key lime pie on the tray and I had to get me a piece, even though I was tremendously full from the rich and tasty dinner.
The key lime pie was sweet, sour and tangy all at the same time. The graham cracker crust was outstanding and the pie filling very creamy and very rich. It had also been a long time since I last had key lime pie and this was very good. I wouldn't have expected anything less than that from Johnnie's Hideaway.
Now, John went with a flourless chocolate cake with a marshmallow creme flambé. And it was quite the production that went into the making of the dessert table side. First, Dee poured cognac over the top of the marshmallow creme.
She then ignited the cognac to flambé the whipped marshmallow creme on the outside of the flourless chocolate cake. It was quite the spectacle and presentation. Once the cognac burned off it caramelized the marshmallow creme giving it a charred outer shell. Well, John over did it with the dessert. He had about a quarter of it before he said, "There's no f---ing way that I'm going to be able to finish this. Help me, would you?" But I declined. The richness of the key lime pie along with all the great food I'd consumed earlier was just about enough to make me pop. John - maybe - finished about half the dessert before he threw in the towel.
As we were finishing up and settling the bill, Dee came over with some coupons and handouts that she gave us. She asked if we would give Johnnie's Hideaway a good write up on Yelp (Yelp doesn't support bloggers like Urbanspoon does) and gave us a coupon that was good at any of the other Talk of the Town restaurants in the area. But the other gift that she gave us was our desserts - she didn't charge us for them.
Now I don't know if she gave us the desserts because of John's previous lobbying or if she decided that we were two nice guys enjoying a nice meal. I'm hoping it was the latter because I don't look for any special favors when I go to a restaurant. (Although, after this experience, I probably should!) But I would like to think that even though we were visited by the manager not once, but twice, and Dee's overall service was stellar, that anyone should expect that type of service from Johnny's Hideaway. It was a great meal - one of the more memorable meals I've had. And I'm glad I could share the experience with you. Thanks for looking in and staying through this entry!
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