Passionately Inspired Low Country Cuisine

By DAVID THEUS

If you are not familiar with the efforts of downtown Starke over the last 10 years, you need to reacquaint yourself with their progress. This is a downtown redevelopment that needs to be modeled for future use by other small towns all over north and central Florida.

As we cruised Call Street looking for a place to dine, one establishment stood out. I quickly jumped from the car to run in and see if this would be the place we would try. The Sugar Tree Café, located in Historic Downtown Starke, Florida at 127 East Call Street 904-964-3003 is the place we decided upon for dinner.

The building itself is something to behold, tastefully restored, the facility served as the town’s main post office during the mid and late 1800s. The owners clearly spent lots of TLC and money to bring her back and preserve a little bit of history in the mean time.

The dining room is simply comfortable with four tops and a bar area to one side. The room looks as though it could go from being it’s daily casual setting to a very formal setting if needed for a special event. Our server greeted us immediately and accommodated our special seating needs with ease. After she took our drink orders, she quickly discussed the nightly special and left us to decide.

Their appetizers include Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes with a fresh peach salsa and southern remoulade. Fried Green Tomatoes, with roasted red pepper sauce and black eyed pea salsa, even Fried Gator Tail with Horseradish Ranch sauce too. I decided to skip the appetizers because I saw some dessert I wanted to save room for later.

I ordered the Chicken Geneva, a grilled chicken breast piled high with sautéed onions, mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese. Each entrée came with two sides, I chose the fresh green tossed salad with blue cheese dressing and the side of home-cooked collared greens served with a hoe cake. Each served to perfection, the salad fresh and the collard greens to die for. It takes a good southerner to truly appreciate good greens, and these were fresh, hand washed and prepared daily, good greens.

Our guests ordered the Pecan Crusted Grouper with a crawfish butter and Tupelo BBQ drizzle, she too had a salad and the greens. She ate every bit, a clean plate for sure. Another guest had the Friday night special, Fried Catfish Fillets served with smoked Tasso and cheese grits and cole slaw. Another order of the salad and greens for sure.

After dinner we asked to see the dessert menu again and we even requested the manager for help deciding. He quickly explained that all of the desserts are made daily in the restaurant and not brought in frozen from a supplier. He even went on to explain that all food was prepared fresh daily with the exception of the odd can of catsup they use. I ordered the Bourbon Pecan Pie served with a real bourbon glaze drizzle, and an order of a slice of their homemade Key Lime Pie served with whipped cream and a very lite raspberry drizzle. After all of us took turns sampling each, it was unanimous, they both were incredible. The Sugar Tree Café is a must return, we will include this restaurant on our evening out schedule for sure. I give the Café four and one half forks out of five.