Even though Pensacolians may never see the red-painted hues of Vermont forests in the fall or snow-kissed cabins in the winter, they could experience them at Pensacola’s Maple Forest Café. That ends Saturday when the daytime café at 4455 Mobile Highway closes permanently at 1:30 p.m.
Maple Forest owners and Vermont natives Diane and Larry Morrison created the cozy West Pensacola nook to reflect their former home. The warm atmosphere, created with area rugs, wood paneling, artificial greenery and even a few stuffed deer heads, created a place you could snuggle up by the fireplace and nurse a maple latte − made with 100% pure Vermont maple syrup, of course.
You could smell the crisp 8-inch pizzas coming out of the brick-oven during the daily lunch special. This was when the daytime café would transition out of the soft and slow morning coffee crowd to a lively and bustling lunch rush.
Even in the hot Florida summer months, the café would keep a steady crowd serving cool maple “creemee,” which, in Vermont, is how the maple syrup is infused into soft serve ice cream. Or you could order it like a die-hard Northerner and opt for The Vermonter, which takes the creemee soft serve in a bowl and drizzles it with maple syrup.