LOCAL FLAVOR
BBQ, COLLARD GREENS AND CORNBREAD! OH, YUM! ‘SOUTHERN COMFORT’ AT BABCOCK RANCH GATOR SHACK RESTAURANT Written by: Mandy Carter
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mmm … “Southern comfort.” Although I’m a fan of the whiskey with that name, I’m not talking about liquor. I’m talking about the “home sweet home” feeling I had as a child while having Sunday dinners at my grandmother’s house in the rolling green acres of Tennessee. It was a tradition to stop by Grammy’s after church for a meat-and-potatoes meal with family and friends. It’s a memory that stirs up emotions and activates my taste buds. Southern cooking is what I was raised on. It was my breakfast, lunch and supper. But now that I’m a transplant in Florida, with children of my own, our daily meals do not reflect the big flavor and down-home comfort I grew up on. So I often seek out foods from my past. Recently, I lucked upon a gem off the beaten path in Southwest Florida: Take your taste buds on a true Southern trip with a visit to the Babcock Ranch Gator Shack Restaurant.
This is country cooking my grandmother would serve. Many diners arrive at the Gator Shack Restaurant by following the enticing smells after taking a swamp buggy eco-tour of Babcock Ranch. But it’s worth wandering your way here just for the food. Chef John Anderson, formerly of John’s Good Food, will not disappoint your Southern food desires when dining at Gator Shack. He has a passion for food and you can’t go wrong with anything you order. Try a dinner of ribs, coleslaw, collard greens (the best around), cornbread and some good ol’ sweet tea to treat your stomach to the comfort feeling that it is craving. After all, an original Southern BBQ menu is truly incomplete without a good rack of ribs.
ROUNDUP Babcock Ranch Gator Shack Restaurant 8000 State Road 31 Punta Gorda, Florida babcockrancheco tours.com/ gatorshack
And there is a lot more to choose from. Chopped pork, light and crispy alligator bites, hush puppies and white chocolate
Clockwise from left: Gator Shack employee Tess, chef John Anderson and Babcock Ranch Eco Tours guide Rhonda. Locally grown vegetables are used by Anderson. The pork sandwich comes with ranch beans and coleslaw. Southern Fuelwood provides the restaurant's charcoal. Bonita residents Lynda and Gordon Rehse, with 7-year-old twin grandsons Luken and Sayer, enjoy their hearty meals. The chopped pork plate includes ranch beans, collard greens and garlic-Parmesan potatoes.
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