Inside this Old Florida-looking locale awaits one of the Top 5 Weirdest Restaurants in America...
...and if you don't agree, take it up with Al Roker.
This distinguished elderly gentleman greets you at the door...
Old and very fragile? Sounds like the results from my last physical.
Not every restaurant spells their name out in a snake font...
...made of real snakes.
They got lots of them all around...
...including this fellow with venom 30 times more potent than a rattlesnake's. Suck it, rattlesnake!
It 's all fun and games until a gator starts chewing on a man's leg...
...and I don't believe I've ever seen a stuffed boar's butt mounted on the walls of the Olive Garden.
They've got alligator on the menu and I'm guessing it tastes like chicken...
...I opted for the yummy fish and chips instead.
The lodge sits on the beautiful Braden River...
...in all its glory.
They're fond of stuffed squirrels playing sports like baseball...
...basketball...
...and golf. That's nuts!
And for readers of The Weekly World News, there's a jackalope...
...Alaskan fur fish...
...and blue-billed ortholock.
Not quite sure what the connection to JFK is, but, okay.
Tip your waitress!
As mentioned in our previous post, the eccentric roadside wonders of Bradenton, Florida are plentiful, indeed. As if a vintage Mister Donut shop, a Uniroyal Gal and a manatee on every corner aren't enough, the "friendly city," as it's known, boasts a strange and glorious throwback to Florida tourist attractions of days gone by in the Linger Lodge, an RV park and restaurant on the beautiful Braden River in the east part of town. It started out as a campground in 1945 and in 1968 a Mr. Frank Gamsky, an amateur taxidermist, and his wife Elaine bought the place and added eccentricity to its ambiance by filling the walls and rooms with stuffed native animals, including snakes, bobcats, turtles, alligators, bears, fox and fish, all glaring at you while you enjoy your frog legs, alligator chowder and other less challenging traditional Southern dishes. There are also whimsical creatures such as jackolopes and Alaskan fur fish, and demented stuffed squirrels making golf shots and throwing hoops. This would not be the place to hold the next monthly PETA board of directors meeting, to say the least, but the food I ordered (fish and chips) was really good and the atmosphere was fun in a ghastly sort of way — I felt like I was dining in the corridor between a natural history museum and a novelty store. The Lodge's current owners put the place up for sale last fall, with plans to perhaps sell the restaurant separately from the adjacent RV park. Let's hope the new owners treat the place with the same reverence for jaw-dropping Old Florida anything-goes ambiance as every owner has before. After all, no one likes a stuffed shirt.
