Bottle shop plans to expand into restaurant

The new owners of Aardvark Beverages southeast of downtown Orlando are planning to add a full-service food menu and turn it from a beer retail into a hybrid shop and eatery.

Alynne Cordray and Ashlee Casserly bought the shop at 2610 S. Fern Creek Ave. in December and have been renovating it to get ready to sell food. They are working with the City of Orlando to put in a kitchen and seating where they can serve coffee, wine and beer.

The sample menu for new restaurant includes things like slow smoked brisket sandwiches, wild mushroom flatbreads, smoked salmon on toast and scallops.

“The idea is to do something different with the package store,” said Cordray, who formerly was in the home construction business. “We sell a lot of wine, beer and kegs, but we want it to have a restaurant environment too.”

Aardvark’s owners are still navigating the transition with city officials and figuring out how to combine the restaurant and bottle-shop concepts. They are also still working to refine the menu, but the preliminary idea has sandwiches starting at about $12 and grilled entrees ranging from $15 to $19.

“It’s going to be a blast from the past and a little vintage with neon signs,” Cordray said.

Earth Fare opening

Earth Fare will open its first store in Central Florida this

summer in the Lake Nona District, the niche grocery store company announced Tuesday.

The new store is coming to Narcoosee and Tyson roads at the Nona Place shopping center. The Earth Fare store will feature a juice bar with smoothies, juice and coffee drinks, as well as prepared foods such as a salad bar, a pizza station and a sandwich counter.

Earth Fare is building another store at the Crescent Lucerne project south of downtown Orlando on Orange Avenue, slated to open in 2019.

Big meatballs

Olive Garden has finally made a meatball so big you can’t wrap your mouth around it.

The Orlando-based Italian-style restaurant chain put a 12-ounce handmade meatball on the menu on top of two cheese-stuffed manicotti.

It’s a part of an eight-week Big Italian Classics promotion.

“We take some of our most classic items and give our guests even more flavor,” said an email statement from Darden Restaurants spokeswoman Jessica Dinon.

The promotion includes five dishes with either giant manicotti or stuffed fettuccine, which is essentially long ravioli strips stuffed with cheese and covered with alfredo sauce.

The four dishes are a giant manicotti with meat sauce; giant meatball and fourcheese manicotti; stuffed fettuccine alfredo; stuffed fettucine alfredo with chicken; and stuffed fettuccine alfredo with shrimp.

The dishes range in prices from $12.99 for the giant manicotti with meat sauce to $18.99 for the stuffed fettuccine alfredo with shrimp. The giant meatball dish is $17.99.