Old school
Just steps away from State Road 520 is the very different world of Lone Cabbage Fish Camp. TOM WILBY PHOTOS
Fish camp reels in the crowds with nostalgic charms
Visitors enjoy a relatively quiet time on the deck, which fills up quickly on weekends.
Just half an hour from the hubbub and seemingly relentless development at Viera, the trappings of today’s Florida are replaced by airboats and old docks, tea-colored swaths of water leading to the horizon, enticing platters heaped with gator nuggets, catfish and frog legs, and landscapes teeming with wildlife.
Welcome to Lone Cabbage Fish Camp.
Traffic up and down State Road 520 rushes by, just feet away from this very different world accessed by a dirt road on the eastern side of the bridge over the St. Johns River, where Brevard and Orange County meet. Decades have fogged the history of the fish camp, but best guesses from folks who know the camp well is that it dates back to the 1940s or early ’50s, when fishermen seeking trophy bass started docking their boats by a rustic bar. There were a couple of cabins for anglers who wanted to stay the night.
The airboats arrived in the early ’80s — a tourist attraction that helped the camp evolve into a destination. The bar morphed into a restaurant. Air-conditioning was installed to tame the mosquitoes and the relentless summer heat. Nevertheless, even today, some guests prefer to dine al fresco in a huge pavilion sandwiched between an outdoor bar and a stage for weekend troubadours.
Fish camps, a part of Florida in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, have mostly joined the army of Florida’s defunct roadside attractions. The survivors — Lone Cabbage in Cocoa, Honest John’s in Melbourne Beach and Camp Holly in Melbourne — have expanded to include boat rentals, tours, or food and drink, but they still remain true to their roots.
On weekends, crowds of families, couples and bikers arrive, swarming the utilitarian restaurant and bar complex. A massive statue of a frog greets guests lured by the promise of Lone Cabbage’s backwater best dishes: fried and seasoned gator tail, battered fried catfish nuggets, and golden-brown fried frog legs. The menu also includes burgers, chicken tenders and the like. There are also Norman’s Famous Boneless Wings: a nod to owner Norman Earley, who also owned the late, great Norman’s Raw Bar in Cocoa. Earley has retired to Jacksonville, but his daughter and son-in-law still run Lone Cabbage as Norm did for decades. Norm’s formula works, so they don’t mess with it.
“You have two, three hundred people at the restaurant on weekends,” said Dennis Inman, owner of Twister Airboats, the other half of Lone Cabbage. “I’m a walking testimonial about how good the food is.”
Inman has been introducing visitors to the wonders of the St. Johns River for three decades with brother-in-law Charlie Jones, who brought the tour concept to Lone Cabbage in 1983. He’s responsible for the construction of Twister’s current fleet of six airboats.
Fish camps, a part of Florida in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, have, with few exceptions such as Lone Cabbage, gone the way of defunct Florida landmarks.
Manager Dennis Inman tempts fate safely.
GATOR GAZERS
A fleet of six airboats have introduced visitors to the wonders of the St. Johns River for three decades at Lone Cabbage Fish Camp.
On weekends, all six boats may be tasked into service with a nonstop stream of tourists eager to catch sight of the area’s star attraction: alligators. The reptiles are usually happy to oblige. On hot days, only snouts and beady eyes popping above the water signal their presence. In balmier weather, they will bask on the banks of the St. Johns.
“In March and April, you can see 50 gators on the banks,” Inman said.
Debbie Myers arrived for the first tour of the day on an uncrowded Monday morning, eager to see alligators during what was a repeat visit for the Maryland resident.
“It’s so peaceful,” she said.
This was the first visit for Andrea Crites, a Colorado resident visiting her sister and brother-in-law, Valerie and John Cornelius. They brought her to Lone Cabbage from their home in Cocoa Beach. “We always bring family and friends here,” Valerie Cornelius said. “It’s unique and reasonably priced.”
For $38 [minus a two-dollar discount coupon found on the Twister website] for a 30-minute ride, guests are taken into a world where Mother Nature makes the rules. The airboat skims over the water, slowing to get a closer look at the many alligators along the way. One 12-footer follows the boat in dolphin-like manner, while his unsettling eyes seem to cooly calculate the tenderness quotient of the boat passengers.
Like the gators, cattle from a neighboring ranch take to the water to escape the heat. The two species co-exist within feet of each other. Capt. Gil Register notes that the reptiles usually realize they are no match for the mammals and leave them alone.
Expect a line of bikes on a sunny Lone Cabbage weekend.
“They might go after a newborn calf, but mama usually takes care of the gator,” Register said.
Register maneuvers his airboat between the animals but no one moves too fast under the Florida sun. The alligators eventually disappear into the water; the cattle, tails flicking in mild annoyance, move a few steps to let the boat pass.
But gators aren’t just outside Lone Cabbage, they’re also inside the restaurant. It’s a given that gator is on the menu, but a massive gator head takes pride of place. This is the last corporeal vestige of King, a 12-footer that once roamed peacefully near the camp, until visitors started feeding it. King lost his fear of humans — making him potentially lethal — so he had to be dispatched.
While King’s head is not for sale, plenty of others are available, for a price, at the bar. For $17, you can enhance your home’s décor with a smallish alligator head; if you want to take home the noggin of a monster, be prepared to pay $265. The gators outside need not worry for their heads, since the pates for sale belong to former gator-farm residents, not their wild cousins.
The airboats attract tourists from around the world; the food and the music bring in everybody. “We have a very good following with the locals,” Inman said.
Whether from near or far, Lone Cabbage visitors leave satisfied with visions of gator-dotted landscapes in their memories and tummies full of gator tail.
IF YOU GO
Lone Cabbage Fish Camp/Twister Airboat Rides
8199 State Road 520, Cocoa
321.632.4199
Of note: Live entertainment from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, and World Famous Fish Fry of catfish, hushpuppies, beans or slaw on Sundays.
Maria Sonnenberg
Maria is a prolific writer and proofer for Space Coast Living and an adjunct professor at Florida Institute of Technology’s Nathan M. Bisk College of Business. When not writing, teaching or traveling, she can be found waging a one-woman war against her lawn and futilely attempting to maintain order among the chaos of a pack of extremely clueless wirehair dachshunds and an angst-driven basset hound.
