Florida is already one of America’s strangest states, so its restaurants have a high standard to meet.
Its dining map changes constantly, with three beloved Florida restaurants closing in June alone. Fortunately, the state still has places where guests can eat in vintage cars, watch underwater mermaids or cheer as armored knights knock each other from horses.
Here are five of Florida’s weirdest dining experiences, some perfect for Florida Man, some maybe perfect for you!
Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant in Orlando
The Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater at Disney’s Hollywood Studios recreates a 1950s drive-in inside a darkened building.
Most guests sit in booths shaped like classic convertibles, all facing a giant movie screen. Instead of a feature film, the screen plays a loop of old science-fiction trailers, alien invasions and gloriously cheesy monster clips.
Servers move between the parked “cars” while diners eat burgers, fries and milkshakes beneath a permanent nighttime sky.
It is one of the few restaurants where facing away from everyone at your table is part of the intended experience.
The Wreck Bar in Fort Lauderdale
The Wreck Bar has been one of Fort Lauderdale’s most unusual spots since it opened in 1956, when the building was known as the Yankee Clipper Hotel. The hotel itself was designed to resemble a large ship from the outside — an architectural quirk that has made B Ocean Resort, as it’s now known, an unmistakable presence on Fort Lauderdale Beach.
The bar is located inside, designed to resemble the interior of a shipwrecked Spanish galleon, complete with porthole windows that look directly into the hotel’s pool. Performers stage underwater mermaid shows and aquatic burlesque shows, visible through the portholes as diners sip cocktails on the other side of the glass.
The shows run several nights a week and on Sunday mornings during the “Mermaids & Mimosas Brunch.” A late-night adults-only burlesque show (21+) runs on weekends. Ordinary dinner shows are common in Florida. Very few require performers to hold their breath.
Medieval Times in Kissimmee
Medieval Times places diners inside a castle and asks them to cheer for armored knights competing in jousts and sword fights.
Guests eat a multi-course feast while horses perform, a falcon flies through the arena and rival knights battle for victory.
The experience is deliberately loud and theatrical. Entire sections of the audience are assigned a knight, turning dinner into a sporting event with crowns, banners and medieval pageantry.
It may not be historically perfect and it may be a small nationwide chain (this location in Orlando), but ordinary restaurants rarely include horseback combat.
Jaxson’s Ice Cream Parlor in Dania Beach
Jaxson’s has served South Florida since 1956, but its interior looks as though several antique shops, a carnival and an ice cream counter collided.
Vintage license plates, old advertisements, toys and collectibles cover the restaurant. The menu includes sandwiches and classic American food, but the enormous desserts are the main event.
The famous Kitchen Sink sundae is built for a group and arrives buried beneath scoops, toppings, whipped cream and cherries.
At Jaxson’s, ordering dessert can create a spectacle for half the dining room.
Yellow Dog Eats in Gotha
Yellow Dog Eats occupies a historic country-store building filled with signs, stickers, artwork, dog references and seemingly random objects.
Its barbecue sandwiches have names almost as colorful as the walls, and the restaurant’s relaxed patio adds to the feeling that diners have wandered into an unusually well-catered backyard party.
The visual clutter is part of its identity. Every wall offers another joke, sign or peculiar object to inspect.
Florida has plenty of polished waterfront restaurants. These five make a strong case for embracing the strange.
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