VERO BEACH — When someone mentions the Riverside Café, the first thing I generally think of is Sunday football and my husband heading there to catch a game.
No bar on the beach has more big screen TVs – and simultaneously shows more out-of-town NFL games – than Riverside, and the bar area is generally packed on fall Sundays with die-hard fans.
But this restaurant – located on the Indian River lagoon under the Merrill Barber Bridge – is not just a beer, wings, big screen sports and bands place.
For casual dining, it is probably the best beachside option (though a rather noisy option) to longtime favorite Bobby’s.
On a visit last week, we found the main area with the bar already overflowing, and even the front room of the restaurant was rapidly filling up at 6 p.m.
For starters, we decided to share two of the appetizers – the calamari ($12.99) and the bang-bang shrimp ($11.99).
The basket of deep fried rings and tentacles of squid, served with a light marinara sauce, was a perfectly fine rendering of this dish. But we thought the battered shrimp, served with a spicy Thai chili sauce, the better of the two starters.
We then moved on to salads, which are included with all meals. I opted for the house salad with a vinaigrette dressing; my husband and our companion upgraded to Caesar salads ($1 extra each), and then agreed to another $1 extra for some anchovies.
For the main event, I ordered the Southern fried lobster ($26.99 for a single tail; $34.99 for two), my husband chose the bay scallop scampi ($22.99), and our companion picked the crab cake entrée ($24.99).
The fried lobster, served with a key lime butter sauce atop rice and a medley of vegetables, was crunchy on the outside, tender and tasty on the inside.
A good fried dish.
The sweetness of the bay scallops, however, was overpowered by the very rich sauce of the angel hair pasta. The crab cakes, handmade from jumbo lump crab meat were perfectly seared, but would have benefited from more seasoning.
On previous visits here, we have enjoyed the Danish baby back ribs ($20.99) – a large slab of slow roasted baby backs basted with the café’s own cattleman’s BBQ sauce – and an occasional special, marinated pork chops with a pineapple mango salsa ($19).
While we did not have room for dessert on this visit, the Riverside Café has a very nice Key Lime pie ($5.99) with a graham cracker crust.
If you order from the entrée menu, dinner for two here with beer or wine is likely to run around $60 before tax and tip.
The Riverside Café has a number of attractions beyond food. There are DJs, bands, contests, and overall, the ambiance is a bit frenetic.
The main room looking out over the lagoon is not a place you would seek out for a quiet dinner; the front room, which has regular tables instead of hightops, is a bit quieter.
Gourmet dining this is not.
But as a place to grab a casual dinner, or perhaps a bite before visiting the nearby Riverside Theatre, the Riverside Café is an option to consider.
I welcome your comments, and encourage you to send feedback to me at tina@verobeach32963.com.
The reviewer is a beachside resident who dines anonymously at restaurants at the expense of Vero Beach 32963.