Snook Haven Regional Park, Sarasota County’s historic music and food destination on the Myakka River, is expected to reopen Nov. 6 following a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Billed as “Smack Dab on the Myakka River” at 5000 E. Venice Ave., Venice, Snook Haven has been closed since April 30, 2025.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony is open to the public and will be livestreamed on Facebook.
County officials hope to have the park open to the public later that day. SSA Group, a Denver-based company that operates food concessions at attractions nationwide, including The Florida Aquarium in Tampa, is the likely food vendor. A Sarasota County spokeswoman noted via email that the concession agreement is in its final administrative stages.
The concession area’s opening
remains subject to final certification.
The Gulf Coast Banjo Society is scheduled to resume performances at Snook Haven on Nov. 12.
Why is Snook Haven revered?
The longtime Venice landmark will be the centerpiece of an ambitious 45-acre regional park.
The first phase involved replacing the former restaurant and seating area with a new concession building, covered seating area and bandshell.
The original budget for that makeover was $8.75 million, with those structures elevated and moved farther away from the banks of the Myakka River.
Portions of Snook Haven frequently flooded. After Hurricane Ian in 2022, the Myakka River rose to the point that the park was under 4 feet of water.
The overall park will offer expanded river access and new opportunities for camping and ecotourism.
What may SSA Group bring to Snook Haven?
SSA Group currently operates restaurants at The Florida Aquarium, the Jacksonville Zoo & Botanical Gardens and Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens.
The concession building was designed to accommodate a smoker, allowing the future operator to offer barbecue.
Sam Burr, vice president for the Southeast Region of the SSA Group, said, “We’re really excited to operate the restaurant,” and later added, “We know how important Snook Haven is to the community.”
Burr confirmed that a variety of barbecue options will be on the menu, as well as a fresh catch of the day, fish and chips and gator bites.
“The menu, we’re going to respond to what the public wants and what the public gives feedback on,” Burr said.
Restaurants at SSA’s three other venues offer several common menu items centered around burgers, sandwiches, chicken tenders and bowls.
Each restaurant also has specific dishes not offered at its sister locations.
For example, Cafe Seventy-One at The Florida Aquarium offers a short-rib luxe appetizer, specialty pizzas and a fish sandwich featuring a blackened fresh catch of the day.
Graze Cafe at the Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens lists a falafel wrap among its handheld sandwiches and a dirty rice bowl among its bowl options.
Palm Plaza Cafe, one of two restaurants at the Jacksonville Zoo & Botanical Gardens, offers spicy chicken tater tots, personal pizzas and a barbecue pork melt sandwich.
Trout River Grill, the other restaurant at the Jacksonville zoo, offers hand-breaded redfish bites among its shareables and a redfish BLT among its sandwiches.
Nine decades of riverside charm at Snook Haven
Snook Haven served as everything from a movie set to a bootlegger outpost in the 1930s, before opening as a fish camp in 1948.
In 1931, a movie crew first cut a dirt road connecting River Road to the banks of the Myakka River for a film about a French Indochina prison colony. Then, in 1936, a wealthy Michigan resident built a retirement house there.
The original restaurant structure was built in 1958.
Sarasota County purchased the historic property for $2.6 million from Sandy Alston in 2006 and made it a park.
Alston’s ex-husband bought Snook Haven at auction in 1988 for $400,000.
The Venice Pier Group operated Snook Haven for more than a dozen years, from mid-2012 to the end of April 2025.
Notably, the park became the site of the annual Myakka River Blues Festival, as well as regular performances by the Gulf Coast Banjo Society.
For 38 years, from 1987 until 2025, the Gulf Coast Banjo Society performed Thursday shows at Snook Haven.
Those shows are scheduled to resume Nov. 12.
What will be offered at Snook Haven?
The main offering is access to the Myakka River itself, either as a place to grab a bite while enjoying music, a base of operations for canoe and kayak excursions or for longer stays at the Snook Haven Campground, formerly known as the Camp Venice RV Resort.
Sarasota County officially acquired the 20-acre Camp Venice property in October 2025 for $14 million.
The purchase was lauded as the 100th one made under the Environmentally Sensitive Lands Protection Program, which is funded by a voter-approved 0.25-mill property tax.
Earle Kimel primarily covers local governments in Sarasota County as well as land development and environmental issues for the Herald-Tribune. Follow him on Facebook and X. He can be reached by email at earle.kimel@heraldtribune.com. Support local journalism by subscribing.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Historic Sarasota County waterfront destination set to reopen
