The old City electric building, located in Cascades Park, has successfully been transformed into the Edison restaurant, which offers patrons great views and a unique atmosphere.
However, if you are out in Cascades Park with your family and you decided to stop in and eat lunch, be prepared to pay some of the highest prices in Tallahassee.
While there have been a number of articles written in the Tallahassee Democrat about the Edison, none of the reports have addressed the cost to eat at the City subsidized restaurant.
Listed below is a lunch menu recently sent to Tallahassee Reports. Click to enlarge.
For a family of four, ( husband, wife and two children) to eat a lunch that includes the Edison Burger ($15), a Wedge Salad ($11), a Grilled Cheese for each child ($7 each) and four soft drinks ($2.50 each) it would cost, with sales tax, approximately $54.00.
The menu also includes a Blackened Grouper sandwhich for $12 and a Lobster Roll for $21.
How do the Edison prices compare to other restaurants?
We used the Edison Burger as a comparison.
The Edison Burger includes bacon, cheese and french fries. The following shows a comparison of prices for five different Tallahassee restaurants. Prices were taken from online menus.
The Edison – $15
Shula’s -$13
Andrews $12.99
Midtown Caboose $10.99
Grub Burger $10.80
We reviewed approximately 15 restaurants and it appears that the Edison features one of the most expensive burgers in town.
Edison Menu Features $15 Bacon Cheeseburger added by Staff on
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The Edison is great- and a boon for our city, and the south side, and only helps property value in Myers Park. The major cost in dealing with that space was the brown field clean up and renovations- cost that the city should bare. Quit complaining and start enjoying this great new restaurant.
People can always be angry about things- but that will keep them from ever being happy. What is your solution now? Revert it back to toxic hull? This is good for Tallahassee – and good for you.
Wait a minute. The Edison burger is 8oz of wagyu. Googling, the cheapest for a lb of such meat I say was $36.00. Five guys charges $7 without the high priced kind of meat.
Sure it is expensive. But it is for a specialized kind of hamburger, and given that regular hamburgers of that size are $7, it doesn’t seem out of line.
I think I’d pay $15 to see what is up with the wagyu, which I will never be able to afford in any other form..
Wagyu is “Faux-be” Kobe meat:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryolmsted/2012/04/13/foods-biggest-scam-part-2-domestic-kobe-and-wagyu-beef/
Excerpt:
”
Real Kobe beef is from a very specific breed of cow – and surprise, it is not Wagyu. In fact, Wagyu is not even a breed. Not that it matters much here, but actual Kobe beef comes from the Tajima-gyu breed – and by law, only from that breed. Wagyu, on the other hand, means “Japanese Cattle” and refers to the entirety of the nation’s breeds. Of course, Japan has many Western and European cattle breeds – if I ship a cow that lives down the road from me in Vermont to Tokyo and it spends more than half its life there, it becomes Japanese cattle – but never Kobe. Some argue, with a bit of merit that Wagyu refers only to a narrower subset of historically Japanese breeds. Even if this is true it doesn’t change the fact that they are breeds not allowed in Kobe beef. So when I see the term Wagyu on a menu here I know exactly what it means: beef of largely unknown origin that is almost certainly overpriced – and not from Japan.”
Mr. Daniels has some very strong points in his comment on how the Myers Park residents are suffering with the city’s “convenient” location of dumpsters and employee parking. I doubt that Mayor Gillum (or his lobbyists, campaign manager, any of the city commissioners, et al) would tolerate the same conditions near their own homes/neighborhoods. Perhaps the residents of Myers Park include some very capable lawyers who could bring lawsuits against the city for violating their own ordinances to facilitate their official/crony investments. And we really need an investigation into the lying about investors on the application for a liquor license.
Preston Scott says experienced restaurant owners who have seen the Edison business plan do not see it as realistic or sustainable. The sad thing is that when the Edison goes out of business, some of the invested money lost is from Tallahassee taxpayers. Tallahassee could be a great place to live, but the pervasive, ugly stain of city government corruption affects all of us, our wallets and our neighborhoods. It hangs over the city like a cloud of pollution.
If you don’t want to spend money on the burger, go to Whataburger. What a ridiculous story. Comments are more newsworthy than article. Try focusing on those and not stupid comparisons to other overpriced burgers.
Mr. Stewart – I appreciate the great work you do shining the spotlight on the missteps our local government makes, irrespective of the ultimate intent. I believe Mr. Daniel’s perspective is one that may be ripe with opportunity, (certainly no pun intended) as the Myers Park area has been the directly burdened both financially as well as with a diminished quality of life that the residents have worked very hard to create and maintain.
Fifteen-Dollar cheeseburgers are not the worst thing to come along with the Edison Restaurant.
The burgers are strictly optional, and any person can choose to do without one.
However, there are some non-optional costs that are being dumped on the Myers Park Historic District right next door:
1. The staff (parking which should be in a lot provided by the restaurant) amounts to approximately 30 vehicles on nearby South Gadsden Street, and Van Buren Street. Staff starts showing up mid-to late-afternoon. They change clothes next to their car and walk to work, leaving close-by neighborhood residents with no on-street parking for guests and visitors. These staff come back at various hours, well into the early morning, sometimes very loudly, and some leave a trail of litter from late night snacks. They are not welcome, as far as I’m concerned. Myers Park Historic Distract is not a commercial parking lot.
However, as a property owner, I can’t decline this activity like a cheeseburger.
2. No restaurant in Tallahassee can get a construction permit unless there is a bona-fide place and plan for the garbage dumpster on-site. EXCEPT, The Edison….
Wait staff, or busboys, haul their train of half dozen 40-gallon trash cans over the railroad tracks and into Myers Park Historic Neighborhood, where the city has built a nice concrete apron for the huge, smelly dumpster at the end of Van Buren Street. This is very much not welcome in Myers Park. Our neighborhood is not a garbage holding facility.
There are real costs to having to put up with this in the Myers Park Neighborhood. Property values are hurt, the neighborhood ambiance is damaged, and the long term result will be whatever becomes of any back door dumping ground for a large business–the unrelenting pressure towards slumhood.
The first and foremost thing that comes to mind every day when another outrage from this restaurant is happening is what really crooked and dishonest commissioners we have in our city and county. I suspect they’ve given the Growth Management people carte blanche to waive any standard that others would have to meet. I hope someone can find the evidence necessary to dish out real consequences to these politicians.
Mark Daniel
Myers Park property owner
Start documenting with photos and videos and get it to TR and the local news stations. This cannot go on.
Keep up the pressure. Sorry our tax dollars were used for this.
Of the $15 for the Edison burger, how much does investor and lobbyist Sean Pittman get? $12?
Steve, remind me how much of a subsidy they received and what their rent is. I’d like to reopen Paradise, so maybe the City will give me the same deal. Actually, no way! I wouldn’t take money from my fellow Tallahasseans. Don’t we all own the Edison considering our taxes helped pay for it? Don’t think I’ll hold my breath waiting on a dividend check. Man, we need new City Commissioners in a bad way. We deserve better! PS – no way that’s fresh Grouoer at $12.
Drew, All totaled $2.1 million tax dollars. $1.3 directly from the COT and $800K from the CRA. The City has no right to be in the private sector.
Until recently, I subscribed to the Tallahassee Democrat and unfortunately, I am not up to speed on the crony capitalism in question. I guess I would have learned more from the Democrat had Republicans been in charge.
Cancelling your daily fishwrapper means, pardon the pun, that your light bulb no longer is being dimmed, As for “The Cronyson”, I’d sooner starve to death than eat there.
Can’t wait to see who the 1% or more investors are. Especially if it can be proven one of them is the mayor, which would be a huge story, if so.
Would not eat there if you paid the tab!!!!
They must be paying thee employees $15 per hour and giving them generous benefits. I’ve owned small businesses, and since the rent is generally half the cost of payroll so I can only assume this extra money is going to the people who work hard for a living wage……
Tallahassee Reports, while I agree with most watch-dog groups holding agencies and folks accountable, I believe you have gotten stuck in the bitter-barn. Restaurant prices aren’t where you need to be focusing your attention. Stop being a sore loser and move on.
Hi Joe,
Sorry you feel that way. This project will be in the news for years given the players. The owner just registered to lobby the City Commission. They have at least one investor that is paid by the City. This is one of the biggest examples of local cronyism. Not to mention, taxpayers paid $50 million for Cascades Park and now it appears the restaurant will cater to the elite.
“Sore loser”? Explain that comment. This restaurant got sweetheart financing at the expense of, not only citizens’, but its competition’s tax dollars. The loser is you and every other taxpayer in the City. The restaurant cannot possibly live up to the pipe dream business plan it handed to staff and Commissioners to stay afloat. There is not one single restaurateur that has looked at it and believed it was remotely believable. Yet, only Commissioner Gil Ziffer questioned it. Why would that be? Because of the insider status of one of the owners and, at least, one of the investors. By the way, why shouldn’t there be a public release of the investors (the Edison will not release the list)? To check for conflicts of interest, which already exist, shouldn’t there be full disclosure since public money is involved?
Perhaps it is time for the FDLE to take a look at this. They still investigate over there, don’t they?
Amen.
“let them eat cake”; “bread and circuses”; it’s all been said before.
At Cabos you get a 1/2 lb burger with cheese and bacon, fries and a drink for less than $12.
Cabos, locally owned for 28 years has been serving charbroiled black angus burgers since 1993.. BEC is right on..Served with Hand Cut Fries and bottomless Bev under $12 bucks.