The Snook Inn, Marco Island, Florida

The Snook Inn is one of the most popular restaurants on Marco Island.  It’s on the north end in Old Marco, a tiny area much interrupted by newer buildings, and not too far from Lee Be Fish.  Like Lee Be, the Snook Inn has very fresh fish, but it’s a full service restaurant.  It’s not fancy or dressy by any means.  The decor is old fashioned and far from stylish.  In some ways, very far from stylish.

There’s a main building and also a thatch-roofed “Chickee” under which you can dine or have drinks while you wait for a table, as you usually will, especially if you want a waterside table.  The Snook Inn offers live entertainment in the evening, background music, not so loud that you can’t carry on a conversation.  There’s a salad bar (I told you it wasn’t stylish), and they have various specials, including all the shrimp you can eat on Mondays, and a late night happy hour from 10:00 p.m. until closing, where all prices are reduced.  My days of eating at 10:00 p.m. are long over.  Actually, my days of starting a full meal at 10:00 are pretty well over, with the exception of New Year’s Eve.

I find, to my surprise, that I’ve never written a review of the Snook Inn, although I think we’ve gone there during every trip to Marco.   I actually started to write an article last winter, after a lunch there with Al Hudson, a fellow Indian Springs School alumnus, and his wife Dorothy,

and DC friends Joyce Deroy and WIllie King.   I think we all may have had the blackened grouper, either as a sandwich or separately.  Their blackened grouper sandwich is wonderful.  When you’re at a seafood place in Florida, the default order should be grouper — maybe yellowtail in Key West, but then the Conch Republic is a world unto itself.  And the blackened grouper sandwich at the Snook Inn is one of the all -time greats

I have no excuse for not finishing that post.  (Sloth currently is holding steady in the number two spot among the seven deadly sins to which I am prey.)  It would have been a good post.  Al and Dorothy had decided to sell their place in Naples, getting rid of their goods and chattel, and start a life as nomads, drifting  around the US and Europe with the seasons.

We returned to the Snook Inn for dinner when we were in Marco earlier in November.  I stuck with the blackened grouper, but Nancy got a special, grouper topped with crabmeat served over mashed potatoes and topped with asparagus spears.

My grouper was great, and Nancy’s was so good that she didn’t offer to share it with me.  Usually she presses me to help finish her dinner.  It doesn’t take a lot of pressing.

It’s easy to see why the Snook Inn is so popular.  The food is good, the service is friendly,  and prices are reasonable.  It’s a nice place for a relaxing meal — a good experience all around.

The Snook Inn recently was purchased by the group that owns three high end restaurants on Marco, Marco Prime, DaVinci’s, and The Oyster Society.  They are much more upscale, much more formal than the Snook Inn, but they all are very highly rated.  DaVinci’s is worth a post of its own, one of these days.  I doubt that the restaurant group will make major changes to the Snook Inn.  The place is a gold mine.  You need to try it.

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