Are you hungry and if so, where do you eat and or even shop for food when you're new to the Southwest Florida area? You can always locate the big chain supermarkets and mainstay restaurants. There's no need to mention the obvious especially since they don't need my advertising. Besides what you really want is the down home flavor of the heart of what our Southwest Florida area has to offer.

Whether it's that local mom & pop eatery or specialty market, when you shop or eat there you want to know that you just had some of the best that area has to offer. What I'm going to attempt to do is list some of my favorite places that I have personally eaten or shopped at that provided me awesome value in service, atmosphere and price. Every listed place below may also come to me by a really good friend too.

If you're a local company that want to be listed here, invite me by for a taste and let's see what we can do. Until then, I will have to post my recommendations based on a few places that I have eaten at and maybe a few places from a couple of friends that haven't steered me wrong. Remember the best advertisement is a happy customer.

I will post no more than my top 5 in each category (more is coming) that may rotate monthly below: Okay now let's eat!

Restaurants:

The Village Fish Market (Punta Gorda)

Sweet's Diner (Port Charlotte)

Say no more, just get to their store and make sure that you tell them that I sent you!

Bruce Jacobs from SWFLHive.com