Quick Stop: Calico Jacks

I’ve liked Calico Jacks from the first time we ate there. Besides the oysters, there’s something refreshing about eating in a place that looks like it was a mechanic’s garage in a former life. People will say there’s better seafood somewhere else, and that may be true. But for the value, I still don’t think anyplace can beat CJ’s. On Cap Circle in the Restaurant Triangle (Reanthai, Marinated Mushroom, CJ’s), you can get really fresh Apalachicola Bay oysters for $7.99 per dozen. And let me tell you what, right now they are MONSTERS!

Uh, something like that.

Normally I’ll dress them up even just a little bit with hot sauce and crackers, but Sara and I were shoving them down as fast as our server turned them out with little more than some horse radish. And fortunately they can’t count because a dozen turned out to be 16 oysters. A trio of carpenters grabbed a seat next to us at the bar and, after asking us how they were, I offered up three. No surprise they each ordered a dozen raw. Three of the nicest, funniest guys you could meet at a garage-cum-restaurant, they ended up buying Sara and I beers. If you see three guys working outside the McDonald’s on Appalachia Pkwy next to the Circle K, give them a honk and tell ‘em they’re doing a great job! AND DON’T FORGET TO EAT LOCAL!