We're losing a piece of history - thank you Leo Lovell and family.
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'It’s been a great ride': Spring Creek Restaurant closing after Hurricane Michael
Karl Etters, Tallahassee Democrat
There’s no telling how many oysters have been slurped or shrimp have been scarfed at Spring Creek Restaurant over the past 41 years.
It could probably be measured by the tons, though.
For four decades, Spring Creek has been a place where the seafood is fresh and local and everyone is treated with the same down-home hospitality.
On Oct. 9, the day before Hurricane Michael walloped the Panhandle, the Wakulla County institution served its last meals.
It won’t reopen and may go up for sale, said Leo Lovell, who owns and operated the restaurant, 11 rental rooms next door and a fish house that distributed North Florida seafood by the truck full all over the country.
The adventure started when Lovell and his wife Mary Jane moved to Shell Point after they married in 1971 and began to frequent the restaurant.
Lovell ran a commercial paint store in Tallahassee. The restaurant was then owned and operated as a marina by Bud Cargal. He put it up for sale and Lovell and his family bought it.
It remained a family affair up until the last meal was served four months ago.
The stuffed shrimp and crab cakes were recipes of his mother’s as were the chocolate and coconut pie and highly-revered salad dressing.
Both of his sons, Ben and Clay Lovell, worked at the restaurant and grew up fishing the waters just a stone's throw away. Clay is an artist; Ben was just named food and beverage manager for Wakulla Springs Lodge.
“It was crazy when we started to operate it,” Lovell said. “My mother was cooking in the back; grandma Helen ran the cash register; my mother’s mother was the salad girl; my sister was the waitress; her husband Bruce was the broil cook. I still ran the paint business but that’s when I started commercial fishing.”
Twice a week, a tractor-trailer took as much as 14,000 pounds of fish to Fulton Street Market in New York City. Wakulla County octopus became a hotly sought after item as did scallops, soft-shelled crab, pompano, grouper, oysters and of course, mullet.
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Leo Lovell looks over one of the first boxes of farmed oysters he produced back in 2013. (Photo: Karl Etters/Democrat)
Lovell was the first person to farm oysters in Alligator Harbor and helped lobby the Florida Legislature to allow farmers to use the entire water column at the outset of oyster aquaculture's infancy in the Big Bend. He and others in Spring Creek became the place to get the freshest seafood around.
“There were tractor trailers in and out of this little burg day and night,” Lovell joked. “People don’t realize that Wakulla County was seafood and pine trees. I think we had some of the finest seafood in the country because we could tell you who caught it.”
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btw one of my favorite reads -
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'It’s been a great ride': Spring Creek Restaurant closing after Hurricane Michael
Karl Etters, Tallahassee Democrat
There’s no telling how many oysters have been slurped or shrimp have been scarfed at Spring Creek Restaurant over the past 41 years.
It could probably be measured by the tons, though.
For four decades, Spring Creek has been a place where the seafood is fresh and local and everyone is treated with the same down-home hospitality.
On Oct. 9, the day before Hurricane Michael walloped the Panhandle, the Wakulla County institution served its last meals.
It won’t reopen and may go up for sale, said Leo Lovell, who owns and operated the restaurant, 11 rental rooms next door and a fish house that distributed North Florida seafood by the truck full all over the country.
The adventure started when Lovell and his wife Mary Jane moved to Shell Point after they married in 1971 and began to frequent the restaurant.
Lovell ran a commercial paint store in Tallahassee. The restaurant was then owned and operated as a marina by Bud Cargal. He put it up for sale and Lovell and his family bought it.
It remained a family affair up until the last meal was served four months ago.
The stuffed shrimp and crab cakes were recipes of his mother’s as were the chocolate and coconut pie and highly-revered salad dressing.
Both of his sons, Ben and Clay Lovell, worked at the restaurant and grew up fishing the waters just a stone's throw away. Clay is an artist; Ben was just named food and beverage manager for Wakulla Springs Lodge.
“It was crazy when we started to operate it,” Lovell said. “My mother was cooking in the back; grandma Helen ran the cash register; my mother’s mother was the salad girl; my sister was the waitress; her husband Bruce was the broil cook. I still ran the paint business but that’s when I started commercial fishing.”
Twice a week, a tractor-trailer took as much as 14,000 pounds of fish to Fulton Street Market in New York City. Wakulla County octopus became a hotly sought after item as did scallops, soft-shelled crab, pompano, grouper, oysters and of course, mullet.
Leo Lovell looks over one of the first boxes of farmed oysters he produced back in 2013. (Photo: Karl Etters/Democrat)
Lovell was the first person to farm oysters in Alligator Harbor and helped lobby the Florida Legislature to allow farmers to use the entire water column at the outset of oyster aquaculture's infancy in the Big Bend. He and others in Spring Creek became the place to get the freshest seafood around.
“There were tractor trailers in and out of this little burg day and night,” Lovell joked. “People don’t realize that Wakulla County was seafood and pine trees. I think we had some of the finest seafood in the country because we could tell you who caught it.”
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btw one of my favorite reads -
