Finding its feet in College Park, Mid Drive Dive strikes delicious balance | Review
There’s a drink on the happy hour menu at Mid Drive Dive called The Stetson, one of five named after streets in College Park. From 3-6 p.m., Tuesday-Friday — and all day on Monday — these cocktails go for $8 apiece.
The Stetson is a light, refreshing fizz bomb, a spa-centric cucumber delight with the classic highball combo of gin, lime and soda. Served in a kitschy glass denoting this idyllic Orlando neighborhood’s zip code, it appeals for many reasons — approachable ingredients, reasonable price and trend-forward look.
The Stetson, in fact, should appeal to a wide array of customers at this new venue on Edgewater, an airy ode to mid-century style that now lives where a Graffiti Junktion, a burger joint, served its customers for a decade.
Co-owner Jacob Zepf, proprietor of East End Market’s retail-centric watering hole, The Neighbors, as well as Freehand Goods (which opened a second spot in College Park last year), says that the happy hour section has been the most popular part of the bar menu since they opened a couple of months ago.
His wife, beverage maven and brand-new mom Brittany Zepf, crafted this one as beautifully as that of The Neighbors, with similar Orlando-centric whimsy.
“People have really gotten a kick out of the names,” he tells me. “They’ll order the one for the street they live on to start.”
If you want to live on Stetson Street — at least, in the updated 3/2 pool home I saw listed there on Zillow this week — you’ll need about $750,000.
If you have that, you can probably afford to stop in when drinks are full price, but not all the denizens of this charming and walkable ‘hood are newcomers. Some bought their homes 30 or more years ago, around which time that same house sold for $143,000.
They’ll appreciate the $2 off drafts, wine and snacks, whether or not they want to go for the crispy pig ears or duck liver paté or egg and trout roe toast.
Because the fat, crispy chicken wings are also on special. And the chips with scratch-made onion dip. And the deviled eggs.
This may be chef and co-owner Matt Hinckley’s second-newest outpost (yes, this glutton for punishment chose to trot out two brand-new concepts at virtually the same time), but just as he’s done at Hinckley’s Fancy Meats, where whole-animal butchery sees them churning out the most gorgeous terrines and er, interesting hot dogs in the city, there is plenty to play with in the realm of the approachable.
A good thing, because College Park-ians go both ways.
“It’s a tricky neighborhood,” says Hinckley, “but it seems pretty receptive. I feel like half of them are going to eat the pig ears and the liver — they’re willing to step outside the box a little bit — and we wrote the other half of the menu for the people who are going to order grilled chicken and a Diet Coke.”
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That liver, the bestseller at Hinckley’s East End Market counter, isn’t moving as much on Edgewater Drive, but the pig ears ($9) are the fried food these folks just don’t know they want with their beer yet. Thin-sliced, hot and crisp, a quick drag through a silky, housemade hot sauce would invite oohs and aahs from just about anyone (if you didn’t tell some of them what they were eating). The egg and trout roe toast ($10) piled onto toasty-buttery Olde Hearth sourdough might sell higher with bacon on top, but heck, it’s hella delicious. (Those who want the bacon can opt-in for smooth-yolked deviled eggs, $8 for four halves, and discuss the merits of Hinckley’s award-winning rashers.)
“More burgers, less duck, less bison,” wrote one commenter, a “40-year+” College Park resident, on a recent Mid Drive Facebook post announcing the addition of the pig ears.
In addition to the super smash burger and non-smashed mushroom burger, Mid Drive’s Blue Plate Specials include burgers, as well. I didn’t spy bison on my visits, but man, that elk bacon cheeseburger ($19) is one of the best I’ve eaten this year.
Cooked to temp, piled with the works on an Olde Hearth bun, the kitchen was even happy to cut it in half for us without our asking. So, too, did they neatly divvy up the stellar CSA salad ($15) with its gorgeous local produce and textured adds of fruit and nuts. This is one I’d return to for a satisfying, summery lunch.
As for the duck? Well, it’s all subjective. My happy hour companion went wild for the disco duck fries. Regularly $14, they are the gravy-laden love child of Canada’s poutine and Jersey’s all-night diner favorite, with the very Hinckley add of rich, tender rillette.
“I’m obsessed with this,” she proclaimed from her bar perch, a spicy, citrusy Jazzercise Club cocktail paired alongside. But before you call her pretentious, she followed that sentence up with this equally effusive one: “I’d eat these out of the garbage!”
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Though the ‘hood has proudly proclaimed its love of burgers and wings, they’re also big on seafood. There’s a lot to love here, including the popular fish and chips and, somewhat to Hinckley’s surprise, the mussels. We had the steamy moules frites, then an entree laden with butter and wine and the spicy, salty pop of soppressata, but it will be making the move back to the app side by the time this story hits, served with grilled bread instead of fries.
Cobia and snapper have made appearances as sandwich specials. Most sell out. The cobia collar on special, though? Barely any takers for this most succulent of seafood cuts. Not enough people know, I guess, but when I see this gorgeous off-cut on the menu, I grab it straightaway.
“It’s like fishing,” says Hinckley, who’s throwing out a lot of lures. Delicious ones. But you can’t hook ’em with things like fish collar — or pig ears — out of the gate. “You get ’em in the door with the burgers and the wings, and after the third or fourth time, you’ve earned their trust. They might try a pig ear, realize they lived, and maybe even say, ‘Hey, this is pretty good!’ But really, I just want to give people what they want.”
He did tell me before the place opened he was building the menu with ears. This, meaning he’d keep his open for feedback and adjust accordingly. And so the duck liver will be coming off the menu (but will return regularly as an appetizer special, says Hinckley). Grilled fish will be a new addition. The duck fries are staying put.
Oysters were huge when the place launched, but their popularity crashed the understaffed kitchen. As soon as they’ve got some dedicated help on the case, Hinckley plans to bring them back strong.
The menu is finding its groove among the people, and with the recent addition of live music, the groove is finding its groove, as well. Brunch, too, will soon make an appearance. The cute glasses, into which sublime cocktails including the Jump Tree (so named for the tree from which College Parkians past would launch themselves into Lake Ivanhoe) or House of Jack (like, Kerouac stayed here for a while, man) are poured, are selling off the merch rack like nobody’s biz. And Hinckley, no stranger to being a stranger in a strange land, is patient.
“It’s like getting a new pair of shoes,” he says of the process. “We’re breaking the place in, and I think it’ll take about six months for us to figure out what the neighborhood wants it to be. In time, we’ll be able to deliver exactly what they’re looking for.”
Find me on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com, For more foodie fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group.
If you go
Mid Drive Dive: 2401 Edgewater Drive in Orlando, middrivedive.com
