Anna Maria City Pier

One of the absolute must-go places on Anna Maria Island is the Anna Maria City Pier, which is a long walkway with no protective railings across a long span of sea. (As you might imagine, it acts as something of a sobriety test when everyone's walking back to the mainland across it after dark!) It's a primo fishing spot, has a great restaurant with locally-caught grouper, live acoustic music from Howie Banfield, and is just a generally pleasant place to sit, light a cigar, and watch the water and the seabirds.

Manatee Beach Tiki Bar

They serve cocktails and brews by night...

...and pancakes and sausage by day.

Who can say it isn't beautiful?

Sea Crow

Sea crows are a surprisingly aggressive bunch. This one perched along the tables at Manatee Beach's outdoor restaurant and loudly, angrily, demanded service.

Skinny's Place

For years during my frequent visits to Florida before having moved here, I passed by Anna Maria Island's Skinny's Place and gave it little thought. The dilapidated shack looked more like some sort of private biker club or something, the kind of rough-around-the-edges dive bar you find on Key West with its front door perpetually wide open. It just didn't seem like the kind of place suited to a decent meal - more likely, or so I thought, it was more of a venue to drink Landshark and smoke 305s.

I was so wrong.

Their burgers are patted out by hand and sizzled on an old timey grill, much the same way as my beloved Jasonburgers from the late lamented Taylor's Billiards from back in the old country. Their onion rings are spectacular, and their mugs are extra frosty - something for which they're famous for. Given the number of substandard eateries in the area, a simple place with a simple homemade cheeseburger is quite worth cheering about.

Skinny's is so named after its founder, one Carl “Skinny” Freeman, and has been serving Skinnyburgers since 1952, when it originally opened as the Mid-Island Drive In).

Molly

I've never eaten at the Bridgetender Inn on Anna Maria Island, but I have often been intrigued by this crudely painted sign outside.

Peeking through the window, however, provided nary a glimpse of any of these purported Molly products.

Joe's Eats and Sweets

When in Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island, my favorite place for the good ice cream is Joe's Eats and Sweets, 219 Gulf Drive South, with enticing and exotic flavors like Orange Pineapple, Sweet Cream, Cotton Candy & Nerds (yes, the Nerds candy!), Almond Turtle Fudge, Key Lime Cheesecake, Brownie Batter, Dulce de Leche, and White Chocolate Peppermint Bark.

Joe's is one of the very few businesses up on stilts, which is odd because things get flooded around here rather often. Climbing their steps can be a bit of a drag, but their vantage point does provide a lovely view once you get up there.

Leffis Key

Yet another installment in my neverending assay of Flo-zone's 4,500 islands (a statistic you can probably quintuple if you include islands less than 10 acres in size)... the amazing Leffis Key.

Leffis Key is completely unpopulated and, aside from a few wooden walkways built to enable you to walk over the thick mangrove swamp that makes up most of its surface, shows no signs of civilization whatsoever. It's located just off the bottom southeast coast of Anna Maria Island, just before the bridge that carries you over to Longboat Key.

The attentive reader may also have noted already that the cover image for my book The Seventeenth Island was taken from the edge of Leffis Key, with that other I-have-no-idea-what-it-is-because-no-map-seems-to-say island in the distance.

Anna Maria Oyster Bar

Another one of the little ironies of life in the Sunshine State: one of Anna Maria Island's best seafood-oyster joints on isn't actually on Anna Maria Island.

The Anna Maria Oyster Bar is many miles inland, in a strip mall on Cortez Road in Bradenton. (They also have another Bradenton location, plus one in Ellenton, plus a side-project called Halfway - as in, halfway between Bradenton and Sarasota - which looks pretty intriguing to me as its logo depicts a cigar-smoking dolphin, but I digress.)

The monicker comes from the fact that they used to be on Anna Maria Island's City Pier, then relocated to the mainland and decided to stick with the name. Though a strip mall in Bradenton just isn't the same ambience as tranquil island living, the food here is right-on and cures what ails you. Most curative of all is their cocktail selection - my hands-down favorite of which would be the Anna Maria Sunset, pictured here. I think this was my third. What's in it? I don't know, man, rum and stuff, you know.

Anna Maria Water Shuttle

Island hoppers! The Anna Maria Island Water Shuttle Service (aka Island Pearl Excursions) runs daily to one of my all-time favorite spots, the mysterious Egmont Key, as well as private charters for up to 49 passengers. They also offer a variety of tour packages including a day trip to Sarasota (depart at 10am, go and shop on St. Armands Key, and be back at home on your lanai by shortly after 5pm), a manatee/dolphin watching excursion, and a complete circumnavigation around Anna Maria Island.

They'll also take you to my beloved Beer Can Island (pictured below), a great secluded spot just off of Longboat Key that kinda reminds me of the beach at the end of Planet of the Apes with its eerie desolation and spooky post-apocalyptic-looking fallen gnarly trees.

Captain George

In a state with at least 4500 islands (and you can triple that statistic if you include tiny ones under 10 acres in size) you need a lot of boats. And if you don't have a boat (I'm workin' on it) then you need a lot of Captains. Fortunately for us all, there's no shortage of have-craft-will-chauffeur Captains out there plying their trade.

One of my closest Captainly allies is Captain George on Anna Maria Island, who will for a pittance shuttle your ass wherever you want to go. Even if you don't really want to go anywhere. Even if you just wanna be dropped off on Beer Can Island for awhile to go frolicking nude in the mangroves with a bottle of Kraken and a bag of limes. His boat, the Mystic Dolphin also comes equipped with a CD player that plays both kinds of music - Jimmy Buffett and.... Jimmy Buffett.

Call the man: 941.778.2761. And tell him I sent you by!

TV at the Table?

I'm not going to name the restaurant in question - because in the interest of positivity I won't (often) use this blog to specifically "call out" places I dislike even when they really really really deserve it - but who thought it was a great idea to have a television set at every table at this Anna Maria Island eatery? I mean, aren't we bombarded with video monitors enough already without having high-frequency radioactive tentacles trying to suck out our brains while trying to enjoy a nice distraction-free meal and conversation on a gulf coast island?

I almost turned around and left when I saw that. And when the poorly-made drinks arrived in the hands of a bored and uncaring waitress, I knew I shoulda gone with my instinct.

When I eventually open my own Steampunk-Tiki bar in Florida, the Pulcova Club, rest assured, there will be NO television sets. At all. Except maybe over the urinals I'll put little TVs that play nothing but random loops of Yma Sumac and Korla Pandit.

I will probably also eventually set up some sort of organization that seeks to convince as many Florida bars and restaurants as possible to go TV-free, or least cut back on turning their customers' brains to mush with nonstop broadcast crap. All in time.

Mr. Bones

You know, many people come to me and they say "Hey, Jeffrey Scott Holland, what is the best BBQ on the gulf coast of Florida?" Okay, no one's actually asked me that, but if they ever do, I have my answer already prepared. It's Mr. Bones, located in Holmes Beach, FL on the ever-paradiscal Anna Maria Island.

This ain't no roadside dude with a rusty smoker and a bag of Big Lots wood pieces, nossir, this man is serious. There's a prominent sign up warning you not to ask for salt or pepper or ketchup, because his formula is such a pinnacle of barbecue achievement that it needs no doctoring up. And he's right.

Initially his stringent no-nonsense policy threw me off my game, because I'm one of those guys that likes his barbecue served naked so that I may dose it myself with various sauces provided on the table. But this isn't one of those places; there are no sauces on the table. You'll eat what he's cookin'.

Don't let the prominent "vegan - vegetarian" sign out front throw you off - most of Mr. Bones' wares are all meat, all the time. There are some veggie offerings on the menu for you sprout-biters, though. I'd love to tell you in copious detail all about his various exotic offerings, but fact is, I just keep going back for that BBQ Pork Plate again and again and again. Wowzers. Do it. And tell him I sent you by.

There's 60 varieties of beer in stock, and he keeps a coffin - that's right, a coffin - filled with ice and beer and soda up front. Why I didn't photograph it is a mystery even to myself. Next time...