We’re getting excited about our summer road trip starting in a couple months, which also means we’re looking forward to taking some pit stops to our favorite spots along the route.
While one of the oldest cities in America, St. Augustine is a relative newcomer as a location on our Road Trip. We* began stopping there three years ago on the request of a customer who had been making the trip from St. Augustine to Jacksonville to pick up her peaches. This customer was Lauren Titus, who is the publisher of Edible Northeast Florida, so we figured she was pretty plugged in to the food scene. Lauren directed us to her friends Bill and Bryanne who run the nursery Southern Horticulture. What they lack in parking lot size, they have more than made up for with their tremendous hospitality.
Now, one thing we are motivated by is finding local spots to grab a bite. St. Augustine is full of wonderful choices, but there’s one place in particular that is a must stop every trip: O’Steen’s. A seafood joint that’s been serving up their renowned fried shrimp and pink sauce since 1965. The place is cash only and usually has a long wait to dine in, which we’ve done on occasion, but typically we call ahead and get ours to go. We always order more than we should and ask for extra datil pepper hot sauce, another thing O’Steen’s and St. Augustine is known for. Since our first taste of this fruity-spicy concoction, we’ve been hooked. We’ve bought countless bottles and even bought datil pepper plants from Southern Horticulture to try and make our own sauce. Of course we added a healthy dollop of peach puree’, and maybe one of these days we’ll perfect the recipe and bottle it. Even still, we’ll keep trying new brands of sauce and keep getting our shrimp from O’Steen’s.
*The “we” in this story is Jack and Steven. If you’ve ever been to a stop of ours in Florida, you know Jack because he’s worked every Florida location we’ve ever done. Steven has been with him for most of the Florida trips, and has worked our northeast portion of the Road Trip for many years, as well.
All accompanying photos were taken by either Jack or Steven.
