PFT Media

Orlando Opinions 33 Transcript

Written By Mark Baratelli

Hollywood actress Lupita Nyong’o snuck into Orlando last week to see her brother perform at Orlando Shakespeare Theatre in its production of Twelfth Night. She’s famous. He’s not.

We told you on Episode 31 the City could get its very own apple orchard if the City of Orlando Parks & Rec department if they won a $20,000 grant from the “Meet Me at the Park” Earth Month campaign. They won! Now here’s the rub. The orchard is one of the three options the city had to present to get the grant. Now it’s up to locals to vote for the orchard so it gets built and not the other two choices. To vote, text PARKS to 31279 and choose the orchard! Voting ends April 30th. 

The property at 925 S. Orlando Ave in Winter Park, recently scraped clean of the Seacoast Bank building and about to be topped with a 2,782 sq ft PDQ fast food restaurant, is for sale for $3,600,00! The PDQ has a corporately-backed lease and whoever buys the property would make $15,000 a month in rent. According to the offering memorandum the Chik-Fil-A killer will open around August 15th. PDQ’s menu includes chicken tenders, nuggets, sandwiches and salad, very much in the vein of Chick Fil A.

We told you in November the Greenery Creamery, a new small-batch ice cream and vegan ice cream shop, was coming to Thornton Park in downtown Orlando at 420 East Church Street (Unit 112). Now it’s open! The ice cream shop offers dairy and non dairy options, vegan and gluten free as well. They make their own black ash waffle cones. The ice cream is handcrafted in small batches, each flavor includes locally sourced and organic ingredients and milk from local Florida grass fed cows.

A new hotpot restaurant is coming to East Orlando. TopTop Hotpot is under construction in a shopping center across from Waterford Lakes Town Center next door to Bonchon at 504 N Alafaya Trail. Hot pot is a Chinese soup prepared with a simmering pot of soup stock at the dining table. Diners place a variety of East Asian foodstuffs and ingredients into the pot to cook including meat, leaf vegetables, mushrooms, dumplings, and seafood.

Construction of the new Agave Azul in Winter Park at 900 S. Orlando Ave has begun. The restaurant is taking over the the space formerly occupied by Square 1 Burgers which got evicted in 2017. New signage went up on the front, rear and side of the building. The restaurant’s sign has also been added to the pylon in front of the building facing oncoming traffic. The interior has some wall framing up, askew blinds in the windows and theatrical wallpaper on one wall. Two other locations will be opening in addition to this Winter Park location in Maitland in 2019 and Windermere in late 2018.