Things To Do In SW Florida

Two Central Florida restaurants and a food truck shut down the week of Feb. 18-24, according to data from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

Orange

La Isla Del Frappe at N. Goldenrod Road, Vin 5160, in Orlando shut down on Feb. 23.

Inspectors found eight violations, three of which were a high priority.

Those violations included an employee working without washing their hands, no potable running water and flying insects inside the kitchen.

A second inspection took place on Feb. 24.

Officials found two violations but none were a high priority.

The food truck requires another follow-up inspection but there are no immediate threats to the public.

Volusia

C’s Country Diner at 741 N. U.S. Hwy 1 in Oak Hill shut down on Feb. 19.

Inspectors found three violations, one of which was a high priority for backed up sewage in the bathrooms.

A second inspection took place on Feb. 20.

No violations were found.

Brevard

The Island Waterfront Bar And Grill at 1891 E. Merritt Island Causeway in Merritt Island shut down on Feb. 21. read more

After the historic return of the U.S. to the surface of the moon after more than 50 years last week, a private company’s lunar lander will likely have its mission cut short because of how it landed.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines that managed to touch down on the moon last Thursday with its Nova-C lander Odysseus, but tipped over to one side, is not expected to be able to maintain power or communicate with mission managers beyond Tuesday, according to a statement from the company.

“Flight controllers intend to collect data until the lander’s solar panels are no longer exposed to light. Based on Earth and moon positioning, we believe flight controllers will continue to communicate with Odysseus until Tuesday morning,” reads an update from the company’s website.

That’s bad news for NASA, which paid the company $118 million as part of its Commercial Lunar Lander Services program, which tasks private companies to build hardware capable of bringing payloads to the moon. NASA has six payloads on board worth about $12 million that were aiming for eight to nine days of life before the sun set on that part of the moon, although Intuitive Machines’ pre-launch target was seven days. read more

After three days without power, the lights came back on Sunday at the Seminole Towne Center in Sanford, and stores reopened for business, mall officials announced this weekend.

Florida Power & Light had pulled the plug on the center’s electricity on Thursday after the mall’s owner, Seminole Mall Realty Holding, failed to pay the power bill.

However, the big-box anchor stores — including Dick’s Sporting Goods, JCPenney, Dillards and Elev8 Fun — remained open and with the lights on. Those businesses are independently owned and on separate power connections.

“Hello everyone,  I just wanted to let you know that the power has been restored and we will resume normal operating hours tomorrow,” according to a pair of Facebook posts on Sunday. “Please stop by and support our local small businesses throughout the mall.”

FP&L officials could not be reached for comment. It’s unclear whether the mall’s owner has paid its delinquent power bill in full.

First opened in the mid-1990s, the Seminole Towne Center once offered high-end stores to attract high-end shoppers from the nearby affluent communities of Heathrow and Alaqua. read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps has had to get comfy in three different spacecraft seats, but while she said she would have fit in any of them, it’s the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour set to lift off this week that ended up being the one that was just right.

Chosen as one of nine NASA astronaut candidates in 2009, Epps is the last of her classmates to fly into space. She had previously been assigned to both a Soyuz mission and a Boeing CST-100 Starliner mission to the ISS, but after a reassignment took her off the Soyuz trip and delays piled up on Boeing’s Starliner program, Epps was finally shifted to the SpaceX Crew-8 mission.

“I guess any launch is a great launch if you have a mission. So even though you’re the last, it doesn’t matter. You get that launch, you get the mission and you go,” she said after arriving Sunday to KSC with her crewmates. “You know they always save the best for last.”

Now, nearly 15 years later, she’s set to finally get to space atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A at 12:04 a.m. Friday. read more

Orange County appears to have lost a legislative fight to pay for affordable housing projects with its lucrative stream of tourist-tax money — a largesse that an opposing Central Florida lawmaker called “a convenient pot of gold.”

But future battles to loosen spending restrictions on the money are likely ahead.

Some advocates envision better outcomes on a tax plan that could have raised $56 million a year for affordable housing locally.

“Other counties are realizing flexibility would allow them to better serve their communities in ways we haven’t been able to do before,” said Rep. Anna Eskamani, who offered a tax-bill amendment to let counties levy a 1% “tourist impact” surcharge on hotel-room rentals if voters approved. “Though it wasn’t successful in this first attempt, over time, I’m hoping, we can win over some people on this issue and have the Legislature provide that option for Orange County voters.”

An Orlando Democrat, Eskamani introduced the proposed rule change, which was recommended last summer by Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings’ citizen-led, tourist-tax advisory board over objections of hoteliers. read more