Palm Bay Florida Apartments & News

If you have been waiting for the moment like myself, then it has finally arrived. The Palm Bay Panera is officially open! Although it is not officially in Palm Bay, since the Hammock Landings shopping center is in West Melbourne, it still feels like Palm Bay has it’s own Panera now.

The address of the new restaurant is 245 Palm Bay Road West Melbourne, FL 32904, as if you needed it. Just drive down south Palm Bay Rd near the intersection of Minton Rd and it will be on the north side of the street where Publix, Moe’s Southwest Grill and HHGregg is. You can’t miss it.

Now that it’s here I’ll probably be spending plenty of time there enjoying many of their delicious sandwiches, bagels, teas, coffees, salads and more. Some of my favorites are the Mediterranean Veggie sandwich, the Frontega Chicken panini, the Greek salad and of course the bagels and great breads. I’ve also been known to partake in a chocolate fudge brownie, but I am trying to eat better so I might have to limit the brownie intake to 1 a month or so.

Another nice thing about Panera that some people may not know about is that they have free wifi, so that just makes it all the better to hang out in and work a little while enjoying their tasty treats. Finally, after suffering through years of fast food in Palm Bay Florida, we now have some decent quick food to look forward to. I don’t call Panera fast food because it certainly is a few steps above McDonalds and Burger King. We’ll just rename fast food to quick food for Panera’s sake.

Anyway, if you are in the vicinity of Palm Bay Road in South Brevard County during meal time (they’re open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, stop into Panera and have a bite to eat. You’ll probably see me with my MacBook Air sitting in a corner munching on a bagel or something else delicious.

The big hoopla in Palm Bay yesterday was that the new Moe’s Southwest Grill over at Hammock Landing’s was giving away free burritos. When my wife told me about the event yesterday morning, I thought I’d go grab one. I mean, who can pass up a free burrito? When I got to Moe’s yesterday evening around dinner time and there were probably 125 or so people in line I thought, this had better be worth it.

Well, it was, and I thoroughly enjoyed my Triple Lindy (Moe must be a Rodney Dangerfield and Seinfeld fan).  It seemed like half of Palm Bay was at Moe’s yesterday and standing in line for about 40 minutes wasn’t any big deal because everyone seemed to have a hey-I’m-gettin-a-free-burrito-so-no-worries attitude. Besides I saw a few friends that were obviously needing their Mexican food fix like I was and we had a good time discussing the finer points of free burritos.

When the line whittled down and I finally got inside the restaurant all the employees seemed to be having a party as they were cranking out the food. Every time the greeter at the door said “Welcome to Moe’s” all the employees piped in an enthusiastic, “WELCOME TO MOE’S!” And as the total burrito count was shouted out while I was inside, more than 1,100 of these delicious creations had been served.

I’ll definitely be visiting Moe’s again as the food was delicious and the pricing structure won’t bankrupt you like the now defunct Panchero’s down the street did with their everything is extra pricing. Like guacamole? At Panchero’s that was extra, as was chips, turning your $5.99 meal into a $9.50 meal by the time you got out the door. That won’t happen at Moe’s where you get free chips and salsa and guac is priced right in with the cost of your burrito depending on what you pick.

Hey, if you live in the area and are jonesin for some Mex/southwest food, head on over to Moe’s Southwest Grill in Hammock Landings. Finally, we’re getting some decent fast food in Palm Bay.

I can’t believe it, Palm Bay Road construction is finished! At least it is up to Babcock Street and everything west of that intersection. The never ending beeping of heavy construction equipment backing up and cement mixers belching out gray concrete has ended.

I think it has been over 2 years that this asphalt eating, hole digging, dust spewing, lane switching, tar spitting project has graced the city of Palm Bay. And that includes 2 years of driving an obstacle course of cones, trying to figure out where lanes actually are, watching the car next to you so you don’t crash into it, wondering if your car can really fit into a half size lane while traveling 50 mph and various other surprises that seemed to crop up right around the next, “Caution, Men Working” sign.

It is a pleasure now to drive the vast blacktop of Palm Bay Road and quickly zip from lane to lane as you try to spot a nice slalom traffic arrangement you can exploit. I’m not advocating speeding or reckless driving here, just a little fun when the opportunity presents itself. In any event, the flow of traffic along the congested palm Bay Rd is much smoother now and travel times seem to be reduced in the mornings and other high traffic times.

I haven’t ventured on to the eastern lands on that side of Babcock St yet to see if construction has finished over there. It must not be done, because we’re still expecting that big bar-b-que with beans, smoked turkey and and a cold beer mentioned in my other Palm Bay Road post for living with dust, debris and destruction for 2+ years. Can I bring the scissors for the ribbon cutting ceremony?