There are many cafes and restaurants in Arroyo la de Miel – almost a cafe or restaurant in every other block of apartments, and dozens on every street. If I were to dine in one restaurant a day, it would take me a few years to go through them. The restaurant business here is very competitive.
On the main street, or the town center the cuisines are more international. These are doing all right because they have the tourists trade. But some local restaurants are small and tucked away. You would have to live in the area to know they are there. These restaurants will have to depend on the locals for business. It must be very difficult for them.
Some of them are foreign owned. If the foreign owned cafes and restaurants have been around long enough, they will have their own clientele which would mostly be the expats living in Arroyo, or those who come back for holidays annually.
Roger and I are not foodies, nor very adventurous when it comes to food. We always stick with the food we like, and we more or less go back to the same restaurants that we felt comfortable with. Another reason for that is that at the local restaurants, most of the staff do not speak very much English. Sometimes, the menu is in Spanish. That could be a problem.
Anyway, the menus are more or less the same in the cafes and restaurants. So, it is better to go to a place we like and are comfortable with. So far, I think I have only been to a dozen restaurants here.
Besides, the advantage of going back to the same restaurants is that they know us, and they look after us better. Sometimes, they give us a little extra something at the end of the meal, to show their appreciation.
There are many of these small restaurants in and around Arroyo. They have six to eight tables inside the restaurant, and sometimes, even that is quite a squeeze. Most of them will have another eight to ten tables outside. If they are lucky, they will have a little courtyard. That will give them some flexibility over the table arrangements.
