Benitos is, without doubt, the best known and best loved bar and cafe at Vera Playa.

Open from morning till late, Benito and his team serve drinks and snacks and famously large meals at great value prices

Located immediately outside the entrance of the Vera Playa Club Hotel - you can't miss it! See you there!

Within naturist zone:

Vera Natura/Chiringuito: Bar and cafe. All day and evening. Restaurant - evenings. Convenient walking distance - on edge of beach outside the Vera Natura urbanizacion. Bar and cafe is naturist during the day. You need clothes in restaurant (always) and in bar/cafe after about 2000 hrs.

There is a restaurant within Vera Natura, but this was closed during 2002 and still is closed (2003). It was, anyway, only by owners/visitors resident at Vera Natura

Natsun Beach Bar: Beach bar and cafe. Good food but only open until about 1600 hrs. The haunt of many of the long-time and fiercely naturist especially those who aspire to the sybaritic lifestyle. Naturist - non-naturists may not even be served!

Eventually, when all the developments are finished, there are likely to be several other restaurants and bars within the naturist zone.

"Hotel Street" - the street outside the Hotel Vera Playa Club. Several bars, cafes, and restaurants. Although it is within the naturist zone, for some obscure reason it is textile at all times (though this is widely ignored in high summer):

Benitos - If you are facing the hotel main entrance, Benitos is the bar/cafe nearest the hotel on your left-hand side. Benito and his bar/cafe are a Vera Playa institution. Excellent value both for drinks and food. Meals are cheap and enormous - almost all of them come with a tuna salad. Our favourite? Pork loin with omelette. Also swordfish steaks and salmon are memorable. Most of the seating is outside under an awning and physically Benito's has little to commend it - but as always it is ambience and the "je ne sais quoi" which results in there frquently being more people in Benito's than in all of the neighbouring establishments put together.

There are several other bars and cafes/restaurants, all worth sampling - though none are as popular as Benitos

The Broadway Bar (opposit Benito's) doesn't do meals

There are two other cafe/restaurants in "Hotel Street" - including a Pizzeria

Hotel Vera Playa Club Hotel has a good buffet style restaurant, but it is expensive for individual meals (about £15 per meal when the average restaurant meal is half or two-thirds of this price). Hotel guests are generally on half or full board terms but those who are not can buy weekly tickets which are much better value. These may be available to non-residents.There is also a large bar which does snacks. Non-residents can only go in to the hotel after 2000 hrs (officially) which is a bit of an inhibition to using the hotel restaurant or bar for non-residents of the hotel.

Outside Naturist Zone:

There is a huge selection of bars, cafes and restaurants of most descriptions in and around Garrucha and along Mojacar Playa. Here are just a few:

Beijing - newly opened (Spring 2003) at Las Marinas (on the main road into Garrucha, on the left hand side, just as the traffic signal/ traffic calming commences). Smart, food good, staff pleasant and attentive, good value. Only criticism is that all courses in a multi-course meal/banquet tend to brought to the table together and despite warmers on table some inevitably goes cold before you get round to eating it.

Chinatown - seafront, Garrucha. Good food and excellent value. Service can be very slow when the restaurant is busy. Decor, furniture etc looking a bit tired now compared with newer competitors such as the Beijing restaurant.

There is also another good Chinese restaurant close to Mercadona (on the other side of the supermarket, nearer the sea, and between the supermarket and Garrucha centre). Smarter, but dearer than Chinatown.

Hotel Tikar - restaurant azul - on right hand side as you drive into Garrucha, shortly after you see restaurant Sueza on the left hand side. Very stylish small hotel and restaurant owned by an American couple. Food is nouvelle cuisine-ish but ambience is unmissable. 3 course meal will cost about £12 a head plus drinks - expensive for round here! Book before you go.

Be careful if you go to any of the fish restaurants in Garrucha. Some, possibly all of them, regularly work a scam of taking an order for a cheap fish and then saying it is off and recommending another - which may cost ten times as much (though they don't tell you this until they prersent the bill!). This is, from our and other people's experience, the only sharp practice you are likely to suffer from restaurants, shops or anywhere else in the area - but be prepared!

There are several restaurants, including another Chinese, in and around the Las Bugainvillas commercial area (by the large roundabout at the junction to Garrucha) and there are new ones opening at the new Puerto Rey commercial centre and others down towards the beach.

There is an English owned bar/restaurant at Los Conteros a small urbanicazion on the southern fringe of Villaricos about 3 kms north of the Vera Playa naturist zone (turn left on to a minor road just as you reach the outskirts of Villaricos and the restaurant is on the right hand side about 100m along the minor road). The bar/restaurant has recently changed hands (early 2003) and two visits to it since the change suggest that it is now a venue which should definitely be on your list of local restaurants to visit (under the previous owners, although the food was good, the service was slow and the electricity supply very erratic - the new owners seem to have fixed both problems!)

There are several restaurants in the attractive fishing village of Villaricos, one of them, apparently, British owned and also a British owned bar/cafe.

The Vera Hotel on the way to Vera has a bar/cafe and a restaurant.

In Mojacar Playa there are countless bars and restaurants stretched along several miles of the coastal road, some of them British owned (some very smokey and fish and chippy - but food generally OK - Los Amigos is an example. So, good eating.

Internet Access

The only place within the naturist zone where internet access is available is at a property sales and letting office called "Multi-Services" by the roundabout with the statue halfway down Hotel Street.

There is a Cyber Cafe in the Commercial Centre at Puerto Rey and an Internet Cafe near to Intermarche at Vera. There are also a number of Internet Cafes along Mojacar Playa (notices on the roadside indicate locations).

Internet access is believed to be available in office hours only (Approx. 1000 - 1400 and 1700 - 2000 hrs)

As with bars and restaurants, shops (other than food shops) are thin on the ground within the naturist zone. There is one souvenir/crafts shop in "Hotel Street" and there will doubtless be several more as the developments surrently under construction draw towards completion. There are two Commercial Centres under construction - one, close to the entrances of Bahia de Vera and Torrema Natura looks as if it may open later in 2003. The other, which will be part of the Natura World development, is not likely to open until 2005, or later. However there is no shortage of interesting and attractive shops in the vicinity - whether you are shopping for holiday souvenirs or to furnish an apartment or house. However you will be seriously inhibited if you do not have access to a car. There is a very limited bus service to Garrucha and Vera and you could, obviously, call a taxi. Otherwise, the car's the star!

There is a new Commercial Centre on the main coast road at Puerto Rey which has a good selection of specialist shops.

Garrucha, about 6 kms south of Vera Playa, is a bustling smallish town with a diverse selection of shops stretched along its long main street (Calle Mayor) which runs parallel to the seafront road/promenade (Paseo Maritimo) one street back. For cheap and cheerful shopping there are a number of Todos (where everything - or at least many things - are 100 pesetas - now 60 cents. The best one is just a short distance past the Banco de Andlucia, on the left-hand side of the road. Closer to the bank, and on the same side of the road as the bank, there is an excellent crafts shop with a wide range of items including the attractive and very reasonably priced rugs made in the region (in and around Nijar). Further along the Calle Mayor there are several much more up-market shops with wide selections of delightful and relatively expensive knick-knacks, objets d'art etc. There are also at least two antique shops, one at the northern end of the calle Mayor and one at the far, southern end. Garrucha has a number of small to medium size furniture shops, both on its approaches from the north (e.g. El Rincon del Mimbre - an excellent selection of furniture including items made in all sorts of cane, rattan and bamboo) and through the town centre.

Vera, about 10 kms from Vera Playa and inland, is a busy, growing town with an old centre. It has a good selection of small shops.

The Centro Commercial at Mojacar Playa is currently the only significant purpose-built modern shopping development in the area (There are several others being built, those most are much smaller). A wander round its highly confusing and disorientating layout (just try finding the same shop twice!) will reveal a good selection of shops including various arts and crafts shops, jewellry and precious objects shops, etc. It would be surprising if you didn't find something nice here if you were shopping for good quality souvenirs, or for presents.

Cuevas del Almanzora, about 15 kms from Vera Playa (Go north 2 kms, take left at roundabout owards Palomares, then, at another roundabout, follow signs to Desert Springs and Cuevas del Almanzora). Similar sized town to Vera, and which sits on the Almanzora river (don't expect to see any water except in exceptional circumstances). There are many cave houses in the cliffs near the town and an impressive castle crowns the ancient town. A good selection of chic shops is testament to the area's increasing affluence.

Out-of-town shopping, like everywhere else there is an increasing proliferation of large and even huge furniture and kindred shops outside the traditional town centres, notably on the eastern outskirts of Vera and dotted along the length of the Paseo Mediterraneo (the coast road) for the full 12 kms or so between Garrucha and the southern end of Mojacar Playa. If you are seeking to furnish an apartment or house they are likely to be on your list to visit. If you are just on holiday - well, if you've nothing better to do . . .

Food shopping - see out facilities page for details of supermarkets - there are several small ones conveniently located in or very close to the naturist zone, but for that big shop, Mercadona on the northern edge of Garrucha is the nearest and best.

 
Many of the apartments and bungalows at Vera Playa are sold furnished, but you are bound to want extra items of furniture, ornaments and other furnishings to make your property just the way you want it.

Our shop is located conveniently close to Vera Playa - as you drive into Garrucha look out for us on the left hand side of the road just as you enter the town at Las Marinas - we have a huge selection of furniture and furnishings of all types, but especially in cane, rattan and bamboo.

Latest update: 10 May 2003

If your shop, restaurant or other business is at or near near Vera Playa
it can appear on this page - please contact "mail" at "veraplaya.info".
 

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