One of the places I visited while I was in Florida awhile back was this little hole in the wall, and by hole in the wall I mean Deliverance hole in the wall.

Off the beaten path from I-75 lies Snook Haven, a mix-match of biker bar, what had the potential for a good hot-spot, and a place where the geriatric crowd dined, this place was pretty, well.. unique to say it best. In addition to the restaurant/bar, they also had a little shop to pick up random trinkets, a few ‘cabin’ looking shacks and canoe/kayak rental. They also chartered pontoon boat tours up and down the waterway, which I sure had more than it’s share of gators, so I was a bit hesitant to go for the kayak rental.

Off to the side of the lot, was an outdoor stage area with a dance floor which at the time of my visit was inhabited by a one man band doing cover songs in a full array of genres. Scattered about the ground were little lizards, geckos and random wildlife, nothing to threatening tho, which was good since I was in flip-flops.

When we got our seat on the patio, we looked thru the menu, both for food and drinks. Snook does not have liquor papers, so I went with a safe Bud Light, Dad had a margarita (premixed) and mom lushed it up with an ice cold water. The outdoor seating area was pretty decent, right on the water, on a long deck area, so there were certainly nature sights to be seen.

We placed an order for our meals, and poked a little fun at the place, with it’s, well. almost inbred looks, with tree’s growing out of the roof of the inside dining/bar area, and what looked like a truck hit the side of the building, but not in any place a truck could get to.

Dad ordered, I think some sort of Po Boy if I recall correctly, Mom played it safe with a salad and I went with a pulled pork sammich. We decided to split an order of sweet potato fries. Our food arrived, about as I expected. It was all served on foam plates, with plastic utensils. Mom’s salad looked like iceberg lettuce chopped up with the dressing on the side. Dad’s po boy looked interesting, and edible, and my pulled pork sammich looked pretty good. It also came with homemade potato chips.

Mom’s review of the salad wasn’t anything special, and Dad was pretty neutral on his po-boy, I could tell he was being a little nice, but he finished the meal so it wasn’t all that bad I guess. My sammich was pretty decent, the pork was good, moist and pretty tasty, but the bun was pretty basic, oh well.

What we did all find very good were the sweet potato fries, and my homemade chips. My chips were really thick cut, and not super crispy and fried to death, but just enough to make them firm and damn good. The sweet potato fries were also awesome, just as you would expect, a little sweet, and not completely crunchy like the bottom of the bin at your local fast food chain.

Overall, I think the bill was about $35, which wasn’t too bad for three meals, an app, and two drinks, all served on foam. The service was prompt and very friendly. While the food isn’t anything to write home about (seeing as it’s taken me two months to finish this post) it’s certainly worth the trip to check out the whole package.

Snook Haven
5000 Venice Ave. (Off I75)
941-485-7221