Galleries, shops and a great beach make for relaxed vibe.
I’m in South Florida at 10 p.m. on a Monday night in January, standing outside a packed bar-restaurant called Johnnie Brown’s. It’s an open air place and I’m maybe 10 feet away from a slightly rotund Elvis impersonator who’s belting out a fast version of the Three Dog Night hit, “Never Been to Spain.”
The crowd likes the music. A group of four older women are bopping with each other on the small dance floor, putting on some impressive moves. A few feet away, a group of lithe, young women in their 20s are tapping their open-toed sandals and singing along.
The crowd isn’t nearly as big or noisy down the street at the Sky Buddha Bar. A young couple in white is leaning out over the sidewalk, and is engaged in a long, smoldering kiss and oblivious to the passing throng of folks out on this perfect Florida night.
Downtown Delray Beach is most definitely a happening place.
And it’s got more than a lot going for it during the day, too: cool galleries, fun shops and a great beach that marches on forever.
All reasons, I suspect, that Rand McNally/USA Today named Delray Beach “THE MOST FUN SMALL TOWN IN AMERICA.”
At the Arts Garage, which is in the refurbished and colourful Pineapple Grove Arts District, I find beautiful works that look like painted photographs showing bright yellow taxis in New York and busy streets in Prague with red and cream-coloured streetcars. I wander around a corner of the airy, bright display space and spot a black-and-white photo of well-dressed women passing through the Sherbourne subway station in Toronto.
A few feet away, I run into Elvis for the second time in as many days. The Delray Center for the Arts at Old School Square features a theatre complex, art school and museum, partly housed in a beautiful old school built in 1925. The old school auditorium has been given a glorious restoration and puts on concerts and shows with folks flown in from New York.
When I had my tour in January, the museum portion of the centre is showing a wonderful series of photos of Elvis Presley appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, when he was in full glory and not yet hooked on peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. Exhibits change, and Elvis was due to leave the building earlier this month.
There’s fun to be had nearby.
“I came by the museum the other night and there was a free concert in the open space out back,” a fellow travel-writer tells me. “They had an awesome R.-and-B. band.”
Unlike many Florida cities, Delray Beach is a place where you can park your car at your hotel and forget about it. Most of the restaurants and top shops are strung along the main street, Atlantic Ave.
The beach is within walking distance of several fine hotels.
One day, during my visit, I get a tour of the fascinating Morikami Gardens, west of downtown. The gardens are beautiful, with large ponds and tiny, gnarly bonsai trees and towering palms and rustling groves of bamboo. There are turtles sunning themselves on rocks. Very tame, bright green iguanas rest on the grass.
It’s the history that stays with me. There’s a small museum inside what looks like a Japanese teahouse on the gardens property. It explains how, back in 1906, a group of Japanese emigrants tried to make a living in south Florida by growing pineapples and other fruits. The Yamato colony, as it was known, never really took hold, and the museum displays are filled with achingly sad accounts of local men waiting for Japanese women to arrive from their homeland.
The photos of workers and the families that managed to make it here are both melancholy and beautiful to see, and there are displays of proud Japanese-Americans waving the Stars and Stripes in a Delray Beach Fourth of July parade. Just a few feet away are old newspaper stories talking about how Japanese residents weren’t allowed to buy land in the area.
Back downtown, I hitch a ride in a small, open-air electric cart with a company called The Delray Downtowner. There’s no charge for rides around the downtown area, but drivers work on tips, so a few bucks is a nice thing to give them at the end of your ride.
I stop at Café Martier on Atlantic Ave. for good cappuccino and fabulous people-watching from their sidewalk patio. The streets are clean and the sidewalks are lined with beds of flowering red and white begonias and towering palm trees with tiny pin lights.
It’s enough to make a northerner consider making a trip to the local real estate office.
Just the Facts
ARRIVING: Delray Beach is about 25 minutes north of Ft. Lauderdale Airport and less than an hour from Miami, and about 20 minutes south of West Palm Beach Airport.
DINING: Max’s Harvest is so focused on fresh food that they don’t even have a freezer. Try the beef short rib or the excellent seafood. maxsharvest.com, 169 Northeast 2nd Ave., 1 (561) 381-9970. Deck 84 makes wonderful fish tacos and has tables just a few yards from the Intracoastal Waterway. deck84.com. 840 E. Atlantic Ave. 1 (561) 665-8484. 13 American Table in nearby Boca Raton does a good job on steak and shrimp and makes a fabulous corn off the cob with cheese and spices. 451 East Palmetto Park Rd., Boca Raton, 1 (561) 409-2061
SLEEPING: The Hyatt Place is centrally located, just a block from Atlantic Ave. There’s a lovely, boutique feel to the place, with cool colours and a great lobby to go along with good-sized rooms and a nice pool. hyattplace.hyatt.com. 104 N.E. 2nd Ave. 1 (561) 330-3530. Rooms in March from about $300. The Seagate is a fabulous hotel downtown, with enormous fish tanks in the lobby and main restaurant, a great spa and old-world charm to spare. It’s only a few blocks to the beach, and they’ll also run you down to their nearby private beach house facility and restaurant. theseagatehotel.com. 1000 East Atlantic Ave., 1 (877) 57-SEAGATE. Rooms in March from about $495. Sundy House has a series of units surrounded by awesome gardens, ponds, flowering wild ginger and palm trees. All rooms are different; some with wild paintings of monkeys and others with beds suspended from the ceiling. sundyhouse.com. 106 S. Swinton Ave, 1 (87) 439-9601. Rooms in March from about $330.
