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SloppyJohn's

Serving warm beer and lousy food for 30 years

Jutta and John celebrate Mahuffer-style

In a state known for its characters - from Ponce de Leon to Pluto - John Susor, sometimes known as Sloppy John, stands out as one of Florida's best-known characters. He recently celebrated his 80th birthday by getting married for the ninth time. He and his bride, Jutta Rosborough had their dog, June, act as flower girl. He owns a famous - or infamous - bar known as Mahuffer's or Sloppy John's on Gulf Boulevard in Indian Shores, located in the Gulf Coast's Pinellas County.

Said to be the last of the old-time beach watering holes, Sloppy John's is loaded with decorations that would give Martha Stewart apoplexy. The entrance is an obstacle course of old boats, a motorcycle that was left by a patron who got drunk and never came back, an old outboard motor, a toilet bowl as a planter, painted crab-trap buoys, life preservers, business cards and anything else that Susor's pack-rat personality has collected over 30 years on the beach, including used underwear.

He advertises warm beer and lousy food in "the wurst place on the beech", occasional live music and servings of food like roadkill pelicans and seagull wings. He opens the place when he gets up and closes when he gets tired. In between, he grouses, laughs, pours drinks, pokes barbs at city leaders, insults his customers and drops his drawers to get a laugh.

He claims the city fathers have been trying to close his bar for years and that's why he once ran for mayor. He lost by 38 votes.
Patrons follow a yellow-brick road into his bar. A yellow path is painted alongside the junk to guide customers into the quaint interior which includes old car seats splayed around a raised fireplace next to an old jukebox that is supposed to play only dirty songs. Visitors just might have to share their bar stools with the four-legged creatures that regularly visit John's establishment.
And where did Sloppy John and Jutta spend their honeymoon? Right here in Florida.

If you'd like to experience Sloppy John's restaurant for yourself, you'll find it at 19201 Gulf Blvd. in Indian Shores, or phone (727) 596-0226. If you don't mind a little tasteless humor, visit their web site at www.mahuffer.com.

And read what the Weekly Planet has to say about

MADHUFFERS, the last Son of a Beach in Florida, lol

FOOD
by bonnie boots

Travel Through Time and Taste Old Tampa Bay

The adage says you can't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been. So before we jump headlong into the new millennium, let's take a look back, to the very roots of Tampa Bay's cuisine scene. I've planned a taste tour of real old-timers, places that have survived through feast and famine, boom times and bust. Some have grown grand, some have the same flies on the wall as the day they opened, but each has remained true to itself. To live in Tampa Bay without visiting these unique pieces of our heritage is like living in New York without visiting the Statue of Liberty. They're monuments, dang it!

In the last century, Tampa Bay wasn't the area, but rather the body of water that made Tampa a prosperous port and provided St. Petersburg with its first industry — exporting snapper and mullet. Traveling from Tampa to the beaches meant an all-day excursion. Restaurants were few and far between, so you'd likely pack a lunch or catch some fish and grill them on the beach. Why, the very name Pass-a-Grille refers to a wooden frame on which native Indians barbecued their catch. At Pass-a-Grille, you'll find the Hurricane Seafood Restaurant, which began as a rag tag beach bar. Today it's transformed into a towering three-story restaurant, but the star of the menu has never changed. People still drive from far and near for the fresh grouper sandwich, an ice-cold beer and a sea gull's view of sunset.

Farther down the Gulf you'll find Bob Heilman's Beachcomber. What began in 1948 as a humble family diner has gotten all gussied up with fancy fixin's, like a wine cellar that holds 20,000 bottles, but its real claim to fame is serving perhaps the only pan-fried chicken dinner left in Florida. Fresh chicken is soaked in milk, dipped in seasoned flour and fried in huge black skillets just the way Southern women have done for generations.

Once upon a time, the beaches were a pretty wild piece of real estate. There were few full-time residents, but plenty of ramshackle buildings with cheap rents for those willing to risk it all in a hurricane or a bar brawl. Sloppy John's, a.k.a. Madhuffer's, is the very last of that wild breed. The building itself looks like a pile of flotsam washed up after a big storm. The hours, and menu, are iffy. Sometimes they're open. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes there's food. Sometimes there's not. But if you find them open, you'll surely find a cold beer and John Madhuffer, the last son of a beach in Florida.