A few days ago, we started to sight-see in the Daytona Beach area. Let's resume our trip, shall we?
We just passed the Holiday Inn [Now long-gone, torn down to make way for the Adam's Mark]. We're getting to the North end of the Strip, which for the longest while was the Strip. Concentrated around the Seabreeze/A1A corner you'll find a lot of watering holes and clubs. Right there, on the right in the Whitehall Hotel is 600North, and soon to be the Daytona Beach leg of Chuck Penrod's empire (Penrod's On The Beach at the Yankee Trader and the location in Miami being the other two). [I don't believe that 600North is still open as such, and I'm almost certain that it is no longer a Penrod's property]. And, across the street on Seabreeze you'll find a few favorites, including The Oyster Pub. Good food+cheap beer=a lot of traffic! [The Oyster Pub still exists, but is now a few blocks inland.] As we turn left onto Seabreeze, a block or so in on the right is Saporro, a very nice and relatively inexpensive Japanese Hibachi steakhouse. And, across the street is another icon, The Silver Bucket--the name says it all, their claim to fame is buckets of oysters and beer. [The Bucket went out of business in the late 1980's and the building no longer exists.]
[If you take a side trip further north on A1A, you'll wind up in Ormond Beach--off on the left is a small club called the Other Place. The OP was fun--for me, a die-hard Tull fan--because they had a Jethro Tull cover band that was quite good.]
As we head once again to the mainland, let's hang a right on Beach Street. See that sign off to the right, the one with the International logo that says "Smokey's Best Damn Garage in Town"? That, my friends is Henry "Smokey" Yunick's garage, a place that you wish could talk. I can only imagine what went on at that place when Smokey was still building Hudson Hornet, Pontiac, Ford, and Chevy Stock Cars during the 1950's and 1960's. The man is pretty much a self-taught mechanical genius, one who isn't afraid to push the rules to get an edge on the track. He's not doing any racing these days, but he's still there working on one of his many projects, including the adiabatic engine. [Smokey died in 2002. At his request, the contents of the garage were auctioned off to people who would use the equipment--he didn't want the place to turn into a museum and create a burden for his family. By 2008, the place was gone, the land sold and the old garage torn down. It was replaced with a high-rise, and even Smokey admitted that he had prime real estate in Daytona, right on the Halifax River.]
(I'll tell you more about Smokey sometime later--if you want to cheat and read ahead, try to beg, borrow, steal, or buy a copy of his 3-Volume memoir--do a Google search for Carbon Press or Smokey Yunick. The man led an interesting life, and I wish I could have met him. Back then, I knew who he was and what he had done, but to actually meet and talk to the man? Nope, couldn't do that...)
Now that we're on the mainland, Seabreeze has turned into Mason Avenue. The next big intersection is Ridgewood Avenue (remember Ridgewood?). We're going to flip a U-turn and head south on Beach Street. It follows the river, and soon we come to Volusia Avenue. Just past Volusia on Beach is an interesting place--Dunn Brothers Hardware. It is a well-stocked hardware store, if they don't have it, you probably don't need it. The secret, though, is upstairs. See, that's where Dunn Hardware becomes Dunn Brothers Toy and Hobby. For what appears to be an afterthought, they are quite well stocked upstairs, too. They have a great selection of model kits and tools, as well as a huge selection of paints other than Testor's square bottles. I visit as often as I am able. [The two stores split in the early 1990's--Dunn Hardware stayed in the existing location, Dunn Toy and Hobby moved next door. You can read about it here.]
Okay, let's get back on Volusia and head west, then make the right onto Ridgewood. You still with me? Okay, look to the right and you'll see the WESH offices--WESH is the area's NBC facility, they broadcast on Channel 2. We'll cruise on down to Mason Avenue and hang a left--check ot the southwest corner before we do. That's the Cook-Out, Daytona's answer to Char-Hut. [The Cook-Out was looking pretty ratty at one point, and may be closed by now.]
On Mason, off on the right, there's Big John's Car Repair and Muffler shop. Up about a block on the left, there's China Garden. Want lunch? China Garden is one of two Chinese buffets in Daytona, and the cheaper of the two. Claude, the waiter, seems to be there all the time. He greets you with his ususal Brooklyn/Bronx "How youse guys doin'? Youse want some soop? Watcha gonna eat, da buffet?" The food is pretty good as buffets go, and there's plenty of it. Every now and then, this little Chinese face pokes out of the passthrough window fromt he kitchen to the buffet, and once in a while the same Chinese chef will re-stock the food. We never did know his name. [A few years later, some friends goofing around made comments about "Ooh, rook, kitty cat. Ooh, maybe some poodre too!" The same little Chinese face appeared in the window and said (in I'm sure his best English), "No, no, no...no kitty cat on buffet today." One wonders what day the kitty cat *was* on the buffet. In any case, the place no longer exists--it caught fire sometime in the late 1980's, was rebuilt, and closed for good in the early 1990's. It later became some sort of Harley-themed joint, but I don't know if that even exists.]
In order to get the maximum effect, we're going to continue up Mason to Nova Road, and hang a left. Coming up on the left is Jon Hall Chevrolet--you can't miss his touristy licence plates around town. After a quick drive, we're back at Volusia Avenue again. There's the open-closed-open again Quincy's Steakhouse, and the Krispy Kreme Factory Showroom on the corner. [The Krispy Kreme is still there. and so is the building Quincy's occupied although I'm not sure if Quincy's is still occupying it.] As we swing back east on Volusia, on the left you'll see a rather nondescript building with a small sign that says "Central Auto Parts". If you go inside, be sure to chat with Wil--he knows cars. A friend of ours, smitten with all things MOPAR, is given the nickname "Hemi Head" by Wil. Wil's motto is that with enough money and a pocket knife, he can fix anything--and I believe it! [Central was, even then, becoming an anachronism--the big auto parts chains were moving in uickly. I don't know what happened to Central or Wil, but I'll bet if Wil's still kicking, he still fixing cars and wondering what happened to ol' Hemi Head.] Furthr up, be on the lookout for Jim Stephens Pontiac. Jim sponsored a few of Smokey's stock cars back in the day, and still does a brisk business selling cars. [Stephens became Gary Yeoman's in the mid- to late 1990's, then pretty much every car dealership in Daytona Beach moved west, to the Volusia Auto Mall off I-95 by LPGA Boulevard.] A bit further down is the Diner, right next to Buck's Gun Rack. Buck's is a cool place to visit--the proprietor likes to spin yarns and shoot the shit. [Later, the diner would become a Surplus store. Buck's is still there, no surprise.]
We're approaching Ridgewood yet again. Off to the left is Robeson's Harley Davidson, next to the Robeson's Christmas store. Neat places to visit--especially during Bike Week! [This was long before Harleys and Bike Week became popular with the upwardly mobile, and the place then was a bit on the unrefined side, let's say. At last visit, I don't believe that the Robeson family has anything to do with Harleys in Daytona, that business now in the hands of Bruce Rossmeyer.] A quick right onto Ridgewood, then down to Bellevue Road again. Right there on the corner is the Imperial Motor Lodge, aka The Roach Motel. The Lodge is a sort of unofficial overflow dorm for the various institutions of higher learning in Daytona. Bellevue winds through the neighborhoods, then pops out on Nova Road. A right, then you join (what else?) Volusia Avenue. Across the street is the other mall in Daytona Beach, the Daytona Mall. Where the Volusia Mall is like the slick glossy 8X10, the Daytona Mall is more a Polaroid. The big draws in the Daytona Mall are the Zayre's on the north side and the Montgomery Ward on the south end. Inside, there's a small museum of sorts. Touring it s free, although they ask for donations. Kind of quaint. A few doors down is the pilot supply store. You are greeted by the aroma of cured calfskin and cowhide. If you're a budding aviator or seasoned pilot and need something and Embry-Riddle's bookstore doesn't have it, you can most probably find it here. If neither has it, you most probably don't need it. And, around the corner, i the other Chinese buffet, the Peking Garden (did you ever notice that you seldom find a Chinese restaurant without at least one of the following words in the name: Panda, China, Fortune, or Garden). A bit more polished than the China Garden, the prices reflect this. The food is very good, and they're planning to start offering Mongolian Barbecue soon. [I never was able to find out, as the restaurant closed. The mall is largely dead now--the pilot shop moved south to a new plaza on Beville Road at Nova Road. The museum closed. Word has it that that pilot shop finally closed, too--I still have books that I purchased at the mall location, and every now and then I catch a whiff of leather jacket when I open them. The only thing that I think keeps the mall open is the Books-A-Million in the old Montgomery Ward location.]
A block or so up Volusia, on the right, is Daytona Beach Community College, known to most Embry-Riddle students as Daytona Beach County Club. A block further west, on the corner, is the big hospital for the city, Halifax Medical Center. [Both are still there. Halifax Medical Center got 15 minutes of fame twice--the first time when it served as a location for the awful NASCAR movie "Days of Thunder"; the second came 10 years ago when Dale Earnhardt was pronounced dead there.]
We'll continue west, past the Volusia Mall, the Speedway, the Jai-Alai fronton. On the right, just before the entrance ramp to I-95, is a Mobil station. They get a lot of business from me, as I tend to fill up there before heading out of town. {The Mobil is gone now, a victim of the expansion of U.S. 92.] Let's continue west--we'll pass a Days Inn on the west side of I-95, along with another Denny's. About five miles out, on the right, is the other Embry-Riddle apartment complex, known simply as AC1. While AC2 (Pine Lake) is a nice, orderly place to live, AC1 tends ot be the "party" dorm off campus. There are a few Campus Security (aka Riddle Five-0) persons stationed there full time to keep some semblance of law an order. [The Days Inn is still there--we stayed there in 2005 for the Rolex 24. The Denny's is also there--remember my previous comments on Denny's. I'm sure AC1 is still there but I doubt it is still an Embry-Riddle dorm. I could be wrong, I have been in the past...]
Flip a U-turn, and in a few minutes we're back where we started. Fun little trip, no? Well, it was for me...
Thanks for reading. Be good to one another, and I bid you Peace.
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