Tips & Trips
Fonville Press: Defying Description
Ask five different South Walton visitors to describe Fonville Press, and you might get five different answers. To some, it’s the perfect place to start the morning with a newspaper, a cup of coffee, and a pastry. To others, it’s a spot to bring the kids for ice cream and a romp in the playground. To still others, it might be the ideal location to enjoy a glass of imported wine or beer while reading a book or magazine.
In reality, it is all of those places, and more.
Designed to blend into the white-walled Caribbean architecture of Alys Beach, Fonville Press serves as the neighborhood’s social hub, a place to grab a quick breakfast or lunch or a place to linger for conversation with friends or curl up with a good book on a rainy day. With warm welcoming décor, soft world music on the speakers, and comfortable indoor and outdoor seating, it might sometimes seem difficult to leave.
“What a perfect place to grab a morning coffee and plan the day,” raves one satisfied customer from Indianapolis. “My husband and I enjoyed riding our bikes to this place everyday,” says another visitor from Georgia. Indeed, if there’s one thing everyone seems to agree on about Fonville Press, it’s that the place just seems to draw you in.
Inside, the building is lined with tall wooden doors and windows and surrounded by a small library of unique books and magazines. Outside, the patio is shaded with bamboo and decorated with tropical plants and a waterfall. Among the food and beverage offerings are homemade cookies and pastries, soups, salads and sandwiches, and a unique lineup of hot and iced lattes, including such flavors as “Sugar Beach,” “Peppermint Twist,” and “German Chocolate.”
But it’s not only latte-addicted adults who’ll love Fonville Press. Right next to the café is one of the most unique little playgrounds you’ll ever find, complete with a curtained climbing house and a short twisty trail to the top of “Fonville Hill.” Once the kids have expended some of their energy, you can reward them with a tasty treat from the soft-serve ice cream machine.
Whether they consider it a bookstore, a coffeehouse, a restaurant, a playground or a lounge, South Walton visitors seem to find a reason to come here, and a reason to stay awhile. In fact, perhaps the one completely accurate description of Fonville Press is “a gathering place.” And that’s exactly the way people in Alys Beach like it.
Modified: August 31, 2012 8:52 am
