Happy Hour Anyone?

Dexter's
558 W. New England Ave.
Winter Park, Florida
407-629-1150

Overall:
A trendy little place in Winter Park with great location, interesting decor, and unusual dishes. A good option if you're looking for a happy-hour location and live music on a Friday night. Although an appealing happy hour location for co-workers, I can't say I'm rushing back any time soo.

Who's who:
A mixed crowd of both young and older professionals. Relatively busy for Friday at 6pm but not too busy to get a table with just a short wait. I would have expected that the well-known happy hour location would have been busier but maybe the rain kept the usual crowd away.

Cost Factor:
Not terribly high-priced given I was able to get a chicken and shrimp salad for less than $20. Overall, I'd consider them moderately priced.

Atmosphere:
Overall, I think they were going for the trendy, artsy look and accomplished it. Local artists displayed their pieces on the walls which not only made for non-classic art but also showed obvious support for the community that I can appreciate. The server, however, did not go out of her way to make us feel welcome and in fact, gave us the distinct impression that we were bothering her. We had to reorder appetizers after waiting and never receiving them. I'm not sure if that's the expected attitude in this particular restaurant but admittedly left a bad taste in my mouth for the restaurant as a whole.

Tastey:
The food options were a little more unusual than the typical chain restaurant. I debated on a coconut curried chicken with jasmine rice dish but eventually opted for a blackened chicken and shrimp salad with the feta ranch dressing. The presentation of the salad was appealing but ultimately the blackened chicken was a bit dried out. In trying a couple different appetizers of baked asiago, artichoke and crab dip, grilled salmon sate skewers over vegetable lo mein noodles, and buffalo mozzarella & plum tomato flatbread, I can't say that any of them were overly outstanding . The dip wasn't overly creamy, the 'skewers' were actually just one skewer, and the flatbread looked dried out.

Liquid Courage:
A full liquor bar with a few limited happy hour options. The drinks were slow to arrive - though the server claimed that the bar was backed up. One of my dinner-mates went up to the bar to order and had no wait at all so we're not sure where the service breakdown actually occurred.

Flirtability:
The crowd looked like one that was open to mingling and overall was an attractive group. I'd give the place a 10 in pick-up possibilities given that I watched two people meet (the woman had been at a table of four initially), make-out unabashedly at the bar, and quickly exit. Heck, given the amount of time and drinks needed to hook up at a club...this would be pretty good place for a quick and cheap pick-up.

Funness:
Around 7:30pm a hip rock band set up and played some well known covers such as Oasis and Dave Matthews. I imagine as the night wore on and the liquid courage continued to flow, dancing would be inevitable.

Insider Scoops:
Parking is kind of tough and requires a patron to park in the residential areas. Keep an eye out for no parking zones in these areas...I was lucky not to have been ticketed myself when I later realized I had inadvertently parked in a No Parking Zone.