More Florida Nostalgia: The Prawnbroker Has Closed!

I read in the newspaper (the online version, of course) that the Prawnbroker, one of my favorite restaurants in Stuart, Florida, has closed permanently due to the coronavirus.  This restaurant has been a fixture in Stuart for 35 years. Whenever I visited Stuart, my mother Mary and I would always dine there, preferably sitting in the bar area on a Friday night, when it was at it's liveliest (for Stuart, that is).  I took the photograph on the left of my mother - with eyes closed, unfortunately -  on one of those visits years ago.

One of the nice things about the Prawnbroker was that they had a complimentary buffet table in the bar area, which is a feature not too many restaurants have anymore.  After my mother moved up to Colorado to stay with me, we would still go down to her condo three times a year for eye appointments and to check on the place. On one of those visits we took Elaine, my mother's next door neighbor, to dinner there, and I took the photograph on the right of Elaine (on the left) and my mother at the bar as we waited for a table (in the bar area, of course - it was, after all, Friday night).

The Prawnbroker was located right next to the St. Lucie River, only a stone's throw from the ocean, and so after dinner we would usually head to the House of Refuge, built in 1876 as a shipwreck life-saving station, to take a few photographs around sunset, which is where I took the photo on the left. My parents moved down to Stuart in 1976, and since that time many of our favorite restaurants in Stuart have closed. In addition to the Prawnbroker, Casablanca, Two Guys Pizza, the Flashback Diner, The Ashley, Huckleberry's, the Island Reef, the Admiral's Table, and Jack Baker's Lobster Shanty have all closed, the last two destroyed by hurricanes.  I once thought I would like to live along the ocean down in Stuart, but after seeing the damage that three hurricanes caused to condos and beach houses, not to mention waterside restaurants, in just a one year period, I have changed my mind. Better safe than sorry has always been my motto, for better or worse.