Neighbors Casual Kitchen  offers an outdoor patio.

Neighbors Casual Kitchen offers an outdoor patio.

Neighbor’s Casual Kitchen has been open one week and already they’re full each day and evening, with pent-up demand from a community anxious to see what will fill the gap left when Highlands Café owners retired from café life.

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New owner Peter Touris and wife, Melissa, live in Lake Highlands’ L streets and have been remodeling since they bought the place in February. The most notable physical addition is the small bar on the Audelia end serving beer, wine and cocktails and playing big screen TV overhead. Just outside, a large patio offers 15 tables for cool evenings and family gatherings. Orders are now placed with a waiter at your table, and the “serve yourself” soft drink bar is long-gone.

The new menu, “completely relaunched” according to Touris, features appetizers from Hummus and Grilled Pita to Fried Green Tomatoes to Jumbo Lump Crab Cake. Choose from a wide array of salads including the Chopped Cobb, owner Pete’s Wedge Salad and the Highlands Pasta Salad, and sandwiches including a French Dip on baguette, Crab Cake Poboy and the Ahi Tuna Burger. When you’re ready to think dinner, look for the Double Cut Pork Chop served with cheese grits and broccoli or the Chicken Fried Ribeye bathed in gravy and mashed potatoes. Watching your waistline? How about Teriyaki Tofu with baby carrots or Grilled Salmon with wild rice?

Beginning September 27 and 28, Neighbor’s will kick off their “Weekend Boozy Brunch” with a new brunch menu and drink specials. “There are so many young families moving into Lake Highlands, and many parents are used to going out for brunch and having mimosas on the weekend,” Touris told Advocate’s Whitney Thompson in April. “Why should we have to leave Lake Highlands to do that?”

Neighbor’s is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week now, but will open at 9 a.m. brunch begins.

The Neighbor's bar

The Neighbor’s bar

Vintage photos line one wall

Vintage photos line one wall

The counter is gone, you'll now order at the table.

The counter is gone, you’ll now order at the table.

Tomato Basil Soup and Mahi Mahi Fish Tacos

Tomato Basil Soup and Mahi Mahi Fish Tacos

Hummus and Grilled Pita

Hummus and Grilled Pita

Fried Green Tomatoes

Fried Green Tomatoes