For a relatively close-in getaway, consider winging your way to Jupiter. If you haven’t been there for a time, you’ll probably be amazed at the booming development.

Harpoon Louie’s is still thriving with its competent kitchen and sensational setting overlooking the Jupiter Inlet with its famous lighthouse, and the Jupiter Crab Company continues to captivate the crowds with its funky decor.

Charley’s Crab is also surviving in style, as I learned a couple of weeks ago. The death of co-owner and financial backer Harold Kaplan and the disappearance at sea of partner Chuck Muer have not left the operation rudderless. Management, very much in evidence during our time in the strikingly handsome, Key West-style waterfront structure, has surmounted the problem.

Muer’s Seafood in Boca Raton, Charley’s Crab in Palm Beach and Pal’s Charley’s Crab in Deerfield Beach have been on roller coasters in terms of food quality and consistency, but Charley’s Crab of Jupiter has somehow escaped. I found very little to fault when relaxing through a long, leisurely and very well served dinner.

The menu is a standard one for the Charley’s Crab outlets, but the back room in Jupiter is executing it better.

I was impressed the moment I was presented the menu with its listing of 15 wines by the glass ($4.25-$8). The wine is brought to the table, uncorked and poured after showing the label to the customer. A nice touch, eliminating the coldness of the cruvinet approach, but obviously dependent on keeping the bottles moving so the wine does not sit in the bottle too long..

I was also impressed with the complimentary smoked fish dip with great crackers and the quality of the starter courses, the Caesar and Martha’s Vineyard salads. One was standard, but the other was fresh bibb and red leaf lettuce, red onions, blue cheese and pinenuts dressed with a fine maple raspberry vinaigrette.

The Caesar cost $5.50 and the vineyard harvest $3.75. The two soups I tried, chilled gazpacho and roasted garlic, also were $3.75.

There’s an infinite number of ways to prepare gazpacho, and I really like the way Charley’s Crab in Jupiter is mashing the ingredients and adding the spices. Their concoction is not for sissies.

Nor is the roasted garlic soup, which has quality lump crab meat and a few ribbons of fresh leek. The garlic taste was terrific, but it was barely lukewarm.

The entrees were uniformly good, especially the $19.50 fillet of fresh salmon encrusted with shreds of potato, enhanced with horseradish and accompanied by fresh green asparagus spears.

I also had many good things to say about the $20.50 salmon delivered on a cedar plank with roasted new potatoes and perfectly grilled vegetables. The salmon was sensational with a fine smoky, woodsy flavor. A perfect dish for dieters.

The other two entrees were from a special, seven-entree Festival of Shrimp menu that ran the month of August. I wish management would extend it into fall.

Among the appetizers on that menu were the Caesar and Martha salads in smaller portions for $2. That, too, should be a regular feature.

I tried shrimp and artichoke hearts over linguine for $16.50 and something called SHRIMP, SHRIMP, SHRIMP for $19.

The pasta was properly al dente and the shrimp not over-cooked in the sauce labeled provencale. The other entree had 12 shrimp: four with a fine barbecue sauce, four broiled, and four coconut-wrapped and deep-fried. In the center of the plate was something called rice primavera, I guess because of the presence of vegetable bits among the white kernels.

The other crabs with Charley’s name should study this operation.