Captiva Island Restaurants: The Bubble Room
Some days you just want cake. Friday was one of those days.
Some of my friends came to visit me in beautiful southwest Florida, so I knew we needed to visit some of our area beaches. It is nice living so close to tourist destinations like Sanibel Island, however, I sometimes forget to take the time to appreciate what our area has to offer. When one of my friends mentioned she hadn’t really been to Captiva Island, I knew it was time.
Captiva Island is about an hour away from where I live. It’s actually much closer, but the island has one two-lane road so it takes a little while to make it all the way out there. Captiva is one of my favorite beaches because it is so remote. It’s beautiful and has soft sand. The water is gorgeous. I have photos of the beach to share on another day, but for now… CAKE.
The Bubble Room is a classic tourist restaurant on Captiva Island. It is hard to miss from the road with its bubblegum pink signage and Christmas kitsch hanging off the roof. My friend hadn’t been to The Bubble Room since she was young, and I had never gone. It was always on my To Do List, but we never made it around to it.
This place is unusual and has a reputation for having delicious cake. Since we had already eaten lunch and just wanted to visit this place, we opted to have dessert and cocktails. It was a wise move!
We arrived at The Bubble Room promptly at 4:30 pm on a Friday. Captiva Island basically takes a nap from 3 pm to 5 pm and the restaurants are closed. Weird, right? Anyway, we saw that The Bubble Room re-opened for dinner at 4:30 pm on Fridays so we wanted to be there exactly at that time. I had a kiddo in daycare to pick up before 6pm…so we were in a bit of a hurry!
According to the servers, every day at The Bubble Room is Christmas. Just in case you were wondering why there was so much Christmas decor outside.
We told the servers (or “scouts,” since they are wearing Boy Scout-ish uniforms with tons of patches) that we were in a bit of a rush. They didn’t give us menus, but brought by a cocktail menu and a tray of cake to choose from.
We just wanted to have ONE drink. We chose The Pink Flamingo. It’s apparently “famous.”
The Bubble Room has crazy decor inside too. They let you walk around to admire some of the collectibles that are hung on the walls, strung from the ceilings, and even inside the tables under glass. While I didn’t take the trip around the restaurant, there were many interesting things around our table.
This hung above our table. I also noticed that I felt it was “dark” inside when it was SO bright outside.
Our drink made it! It was really good and surprisingly strong. It tasted mostly of banana rum which was fine by us.
We decided on red velvet cake and a chocolate torte. The server boasted that the chocolate torte had homemade whipped cream, and it was SO good. We demolished both slices of cake, but we decided that the chocolate one was irresistible.
While many reviews might slam The Bubble Room for being overpriced or a tourist trap, if you are in the area it’s worth a stop. Just grab cake and cocktails to avoid the food menu! 😉
