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The Snook Haven restaurant in Venice, Fla. sits on the placid Myakka.
MCT photo
VENICE, Fla. — Say “Venice” and people think Italy. Tell them “No, U.S.A.,” and their thoughts move to California. Fort Lauderdale, the so-called “Venice of America,” is more famous than the Venice of Florida.
It is a mature town — the median age is 69 — and people sometimes overlook the old. It’s a beach town in a state rotten with beach towns. It’s not as historic as Fort Myers or as sophisticated as Sarasota. But it’s got one remarkable, multi-personality main drag.
It begins (or ends, depending on your perspective) at the Gulf of Mexico. The Venice Beach Pavilion looms just to the west of West Venice Avenue like the lone surviving roof of a 1960s world’s fair. Down by the water, stooped figures comb the sand not for shells, as in fanciful Sanibel, but rather the teeth of sharks.
“This is 8 or 9 million years old,” a woman said to me early one morning, showing me the tooth she had just picked up. It was dark and small and resembled an arrowhead.
“Contemporary ones are white,” the woman explained. “Older ones are black, or dark gray.”
Her friend pointed out to the Gulf in a southwesterly direction. “That’s where sharks come to die,” she said. “It’s a burial ground for sharks.”
Over the years, beach “renourishment” has changed the currents, and sent a lot of chompers south to Casperson Beach. Nevertheless, a strong hurricane could still rain shark teeth down on West Venice Avenue. Which would give the street even more distinction.
From the Gulf, the street cuts a straight line east through a pleasant residential neighborhood — neat ranch houses and live oak trees — past some public tennis courts, and into a pretty, one-sided downtown.
Shops line the south side; a grassy corridor with towering palms graces the north. Some of the businesses breathe salt air; the sign in the window of Sea Pleasures & Treasures reads: “If you would like to look at some teeth, please ask cashier!” Inside, in addition to shark teeth (running from $5 to $1,000), you can stock up on alligator scutes, sting ray mouth plates, sawfish bills and the inner ear bones of whales.
Down at Nifty Nic Nacs, Freudian Slippers are for sale, along with countless other novelty items. The store seems right at home in the city where the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus wintered from 1960-1991. A display at the Venice Archives and Area Historical Collection features old front pages — “Venice Welcomes Home the Greatest Show on Earth” — and leaflets for Clown College, which boasted “the World’s Funniest Final Exam.”
Driving into town from the south, on U.S. 41, you cross the Circus Bridge, over which the animals and performers paraded after disembarking from the train that had carried them south. To your left you can see the large trapeze net where Tito Gaona still gives lessons.
The train station sits just north of Venice Avenue after it crosses the Intracoastal Waterway. Built in 1927, it features a statue of Gunther Gebel-Williams (what is it with Germans and wild cats?) and blown-up black-and-white photographs. A caretaker told me about one of Tito’s recent trapeze students, an 80-year-old woman who “dressed all in black — black tights and black shirt.”
The caretaker also talked about the circus. “They had three trains — the major train was a mile and a half long. The engine would be at the Circus Bridge.”
East Venice Avenue, as it has now become — though it’s the same street, on the same straight line — heads out of town into an abridged suburbia of small strip malls that soon give way to open spaces, nurseries, a Korean church with a long driveway. A stop sign rimmed by blinking red lights appears, and on the other side of the road the erstwhile main street turned country road suddenly, disconcertingly, dissolves into dirt. It enters a tunnel of live oak trees dripping Spanish moss and ends, a hundred yards in, at an old fishing camp on the Myakka River. The street that starts at water is stopped by water.
A restaurant, Snook Haven, hunches under more live oaks. If it’s not the best fish restaurant in Florida, it’s one of the three most scenic. The deck in the back overlooks the placid Myakka, its opposite bank a jungly tangle. The “No Feeding Gators” sign is a little unnecessary because when your grouper arrives on ciabatta bread, you’re reluctant to give your spouse a taste. The chips are homemade: warm, irregularly shaped, with deliciously crisp edges and soft, salty centers.
You sit there chewing and thinking about how you came from concrete to dirt, from saltwater to freshwater, from sharks to gators, from sun to shade, from urban to rustic, from New Florida to Old Florida.
In the space of six miles, without turning the wheel.
Travel to Venice:
LODGING: The Inn at the Beach, at the southwest corner of West Venice Avenue, is one of the prettiest motels you’ll find. Rooms start at $138 until August, when they drop to $106. 725 W. Venice Ave.; 800-255-8471; innatthebeach.com.
The Horse & Chaise Inn is a home turned B&B with friendly hosts and themed rooms. You can stay in the Ringling Room ($125 from now through June 30) or the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Room ($115) with a working electric train that, at the flick of a switch, runs along tracks set high on the walls. Closed July 1-Sept. 30. 317 Ponce de Leon, 941-488-2702; horseandchaiseinn.com.
EATING: Snook Haven, at the eastern terminus of East Venice Avenue. Beautiful riverside setting, friendly service, delicious food. Open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. Live entertainment some days (check the Web site for schedules), and canoe and kayak rentals every day. Despite its secluded feel, it is just a mile from I-75, so if you get hungry driving from Fort Myers to Sarasota, get off at exit 191. 941-485-7221; snookhavenfl.com.
INFORMATION: venicechamber.com; venicegov.com.