For years we’ve heard about a hot dog place on Federal Highway in East Boca. Lucky for us Hotdog Opolis just opened a West Boca branch on the north side of Glades Road just west of the Turnpike.
It’s next to the former Grill Time, which closed recently. This is the same plaza as Bagelworks and Party City, and just east of our friends at the International Jewelry Exchange.
The interior is nothing special. You walk up front, order your food, and sit down at some simple tables. This was a “soft opening” and the drinks machine on the left wasn’t working yet. There were cans and bottles in the cooler on the right.
The menu has a lot of choices, with various kinds of hot dogs and sausages, as well as burgers, salads and more. If you click on the image below you should be able to see more detail.
You can order your hot dogs boiled or grilled. We tried a few items, including a large hot dog with Korean toppings, a regular dog with mustard, and onion rings.
The hot dogs themselves were good. We would not do the Korean style again. We just like to experiment and this one wasn’t right for us. The onion rings were nothing special and we wouldn’t order them again, especially not with a $5 price tag.
But that’s just us being picky. We’re glad they’re here and will definitely come back and try some other items.
Here’s a closer look at the Korean dog:
Tag: glades
Now Open: Lime Fresh in Shadowood.
There are two new restaurants up and running in West Boca. First up, as we reported last year the new Lime Fresh Mexican Grill has finally opened in Shadowood, next to Sybarite Pig. Back in 2012 we reviewed the Lime Fresh in Promenade and we liked it.
We like the new one too. We’ll start with the interior and more importantly, the exterior. They have a large outdoor seating area that is covered and should be particularly nice once the heat of summer has passed.
Inside it has a similar color scheme and seating as the one in Promenade.
A bit like Tijuana Flats in Mission Bay, there is a sauce bar but it’s noticeably different. There are fewer choices but it’s not just sauces. We especially like the bean thing, and the fresh cilantro is another nice option. Warning: The habanero sauce is very hot.
We only tried a couple dishes. First up was the steak and cheese taco.
Next we tried the steak “Nudie Burrito”, which is basically the inside of a burrito without the tortilla, similar to the Norrito Bowl at Tijuana Flats.
Overall we like Lime Fresh. You might get more food for your money at Tijuana Flats. But you get enough at Lime Fresh. Quantity isn’t everything and we like the quality of the meat at Lime Fresh just a little better. That could be a matter of taste. Chipotle is also nearby and has its fans as well.
Lime Fresh prides themselves on getting the food out fast and they delivered on that. The service is very quick. Overall West Boca is lucky to have three good Mexican options at Glades and 441.
Rollover on Riverside Near Glades
Early this afternoon Palm Beach County Fire Rescue reported a rollover accident at Glades and Riverside.
We were able to get to the scene, which was actually 100 to 200 yards south of Glades.
When we first arrived at the scene there were quite a few people standing on the east side of the roadway amidst a few rescue vehicles. Looking from the north (Glades Road), the rollover was not visible.
We were able to get to the scene a bit later coming from the south and got a better view of the vehicle. A crane was getting ready to “right” what appeared to be a large Ford pickup or SUV. Our best guess is a full size pickup with a crew cab, possibly an F-250.
There was a repair team available at the scene trying their best to do more to help the truck. It looked like they were working on draining fluids from the vehicle before bringing the truck back onto its wheels.
With a close-up look, you can see severe damage to the windshield. There were no other vehicles involved and no injuries were reported which is very lucky with a truck this size.
Unfortunately, we do not have more details at this time and we don’t expect to get any. Florida’s law on accident reports prevents us from getting a copy of any report for 60 days because we are not a print publication. If that bothers you please tell your state representatives that the world of news has changed. We have already contacted the State Rep. Kevin Rader, but it wouldn’t hurt if some readers contacted him as well. So that means it is not known if the driver caused the accident themselves or it was because of a fault with the truck. Either way, fleet management software from companies such as Lytx should be installed to help prevent this from happening again, taking into account driver and vehicle safety.
New Items at Sweet Dewey's BBQ: Spatchcock?
A loaded sweet potato? What the heck is a Spatchcock chicken? Chef Dwayne Hooper and friends are cooking up some great new dishes at Sweet Dewey’s BBQ on Glades Road.
Sweet Dewey’s has been one of our favorite places to eat since they opened last year. The prices are reasonable and it’s the best barbecue in the area. Recently we were invited to try some of the new dishes.
The highlight for me was the loaded sweet potato (top). I’m not sure where they got the idea to put pork on a sweet potato but it works. The potato is huge and together it’s easily a full meal. We took about half of it home.
The other new item is Spatchcock chicken. We’d never heard of it before but it must be a thing if Martha Stewart does it. The short idea as we understand it is you split the chicken so you can flatten it and that allows it to cook better and get more flavor from the smoker. We had a half chicken, white meat. The meat was excellent. We have a feeling the dark meat might be even better.
Speaking of the smoker, we got a look at it in action with the chef:
That’s pork smoking in there.
The other thing worth noting is the soups. They now have five of them. We had some of the new corn chowder, which was so good we ate it before we could take a picture.
They wanted us to let readers know that they cater events. Sometimes the chef himself comes out and serves.
Sweet Dewey’s BBQ is on the north side of Glades Road just west of Lyons, in the same plaza with two of our other favorites, Bamboo Wok and Stallone’s Italian.
Disclosure: Our meal was on the house. But we eat here regularly on our own dime.
Real Estate Analysis: Boca Falls
We’ve been doing real estate reports for a while now, but to help our readers better understand the market, we’re starting a new series of reports analyzing real estate data to get a better sense of market trends specifically for West Boca.
We’re starting with Boca Falls. We looked at closed real estate transactions in the first half of 2015, and compared them with the second half of 2014 and the first half of 2014 as well. Our spreadsheets are at the bottom of the article for those who want to get into the nitty gritty.
Average transaction prices were up compared to a year ago, but on a $/sq.ft. basis there was not much change. Houses do seem to be selling more quickly.
Overall prices seem steady with some hints of increases. The average transaction price of non-REO* sales in Boca Falls in the first half of 2015 was $556,990, just a few hundred dollars less than the second half of 2015. This is significantly higher than the first half of 2014, which was $495,763.
*REO (generally meaning bank-owned) transactions tend to be lower prices and of less interest to readers thinking of selling their house.
The average price in per square foot hasn’t changed much, staying pretty close to $177/sq.ft. For the more recent two data sets we broke them down by number of floors. Single-story homes sold for roughly $10-20 more per square foot but there is still plenty of variability.
Non-REO homes did move more quickly in the first half of the year, selling on average in 53 days, 23 days quicker than in the previous six-month period. Transaction prices are nearly 95% of the original list price, with a few sales at the listing price. Back in the first half of 2014 we saw houses selling for closer to original list price, suggesting that sellers are asking for more now but not getting much more.
REO homes are selling for closer to 90% of the original list price, and that actually declined in the first half of 2015.
We’ll do some more neighborhoods over the next few weeks and eventually try to tie it all together with a larger analysis of neighborhoods that have a lot in common.
First half (January to June) of 2015
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BocaFalls-1H-2015.xls”]
Second half (July to December) of 2014
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BocaFalls-2H-2014.xls”]
First half of 2014 – There was only one REO transaction which was removed from this data.
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BocaFalls1H-2014.xls”]