{"id":30673,"date":"2026-05-08T12:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=30673"},"modified":"2026-05-08T12:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:36:10","slug":"naples-dinners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=30673","title":{"rendered":"Naples Dinners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>First of all, let me preface this post by saying Naples is a pretty bougie area where cheap dinners are hard to come by. <a href=\"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=30633\" >After spending over $100 on our dinner at K-Rico<\/a>, we needed to find a way to eat more cheaply because spending $100 every single day for dinner was not going to be sustainable. Since our <a href=\"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=30660\" >Go Cats on the Water tour guide JT<\/a> lives in Naples, we asked him where do the locals eat because everything around us was just too darn expensive. JT explained the further you go East, the more reasonable prices get. The more you go West, the more expensive things get. This makes sense. West is kind of the water side. Everything on the water is expensive. East is more inland. <\/p>\n<p>This led Brian and I to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tripadvisor.com\/Restaurant_Review-g34467-d1558155-Reviews-Mel_s_Diner-Naples_Florida.html\"  rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mel&#8217;s Diner<\/a> for dinner one night. This was probably the cheapest meal we had of the entire trip but the food was decent. Actually, Brian said his onion rings were really good.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55206218948\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55206218948_b56429050b_c.jpg\" width=\"500\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55206071606\/in\/photostream\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55206071606_4f4ce1ba4b_c.jpg\" width=\"500\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I took a page from Brian&#8217;s playbook and got the chicken tendies.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55206218893\/in\/photostream\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55206218893_e1a226bef0.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Dinner was good overall but it was a little creepy in that everyone in there was old. It seemed like their target demographic was Florida retirees and they absolutely nailed it. I joked to Brian that he fit right in. LOL. <\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55207745201\/in\/photostream\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55207745201_3bdcd62920.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The next night, we went back on the tourist trail, and walked to <a href=\"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=27692\" >Pinchers at Tin City<\/a>. We actually ate here with some friends a few years ago and enjoyed it so we didn&#8217;t mind going back. <\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55207986204\/in\/photostream\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55207986204_e1a84ee350.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not cheap by any means but they do have the BOGO happy hour drink specials to make up for it.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55207891003\/in\/photostream\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55207891003_86f100f35d_c.jpg\" width=\"500\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Brian took advantage of the BOGO drinks.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55207886718\/in\/photostream\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55207886718_a817a7d170_c.jpg\" width=\"500\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I had a pina colada which was not part of the BOGO deal, unfortunately.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55208136660\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55208136660_4c02722f87.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After perusing the menu, Brian decided to order his usual chicken tendies.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55207886743\/in\/photostream\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55207886743_4caf5f8669_c.jpg\" width=\"500\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I got some shrimp tacos. <\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55208132560\/in\/photostream\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55208132560_3fae3f9abb_c.jpg\" width=\"500\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We had a lovely dinner over all and enjoyed walking around and <a href=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/shorts\/NQEmXcTFVks?si=IgtSAhYStbqi5H4P\"  rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">checking out the Tin City shops<\/a>, after which we walked back to our hotel.  <\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55207890888\/in\/photostream\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55207890888_161b2e52e0.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First of all, let me preface this post by saying Naples is a pretty bougie area where cheap dinners are hard to come by. After spending over $100 on our dinner at K-Rico, we needed to find a way to eat more cheaply because spending $100 every single day for dinner was not going to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[27,2153,3127,3466],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30673"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30688,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30673\/revisions\/30688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}