No Name Pub

There is something about food that is covered in a batter and deep fried that tastes particularly good, and even though such cookery wrecks the nutrition, Americans' favorite flavor I once heard it said, is crunchy. I am quite fond of the fish basket at No Name Pub, deep fried fish and salty crunchy silver dollar fries. Throw in a large glass of Yuengling and you can see why such food is not on the list. So, to avoid temptation and stay on my wife's good side i rode out to No Name Pub at a rather blisteringly early eight o'clock in the a.m.

Wilder Road flies straight as an arrow north from the traffic light in Big Pine Key on Highway One. The trick to finding No Name Pub is to start from the traffic lights and take the right hand road, not Key Deer Boulevard, past the Big Pine Shopping Center. Thusly per Google maps:

No Name Pub has built itself quiet a cachet as being hard to find but it's not really, and commerce overwhelms all other considerations so as long as you start out correctly you will find pointers along the way:

No Name Key Pub is actually on the edge of Big Pine key and one has to wander through residential neighborhoods on the way, some of them quite fancy with large homes on large lots backed by substantial seawalls which merit an essay of their own:

Once past the curiously named Doctor's Arm subdivision the pub is unmistakable in all it's lemon yellow glory:

This place is packed in the winter months and it is famed for it's pizza which is okay in my rather uninformed opinion, but comes a distant second to the aforementioned fish basket. They sell the obligatory t-shirts and quite attractive they are too as they feature the parrot logo shown above. I used to know a woman who worked here and she said it was a highly desirable job among local waitstaff, doubtless because it's so popular and tips must be huge. Nevertheless as far as i know it's a good place to work and the I keep seeing the same faces on the rare occasions I visit.

The interior is the usual mixture of dark varnished wood, uneven wooden planked floors, bright neon beer logos and the odd irritating television. Plus there are the dollar bills:

Similar to the Cabbage Key bar on the west coast of Florida, No Name Pub has a long tradition of sticking dollar bills to every available space. No, of course I don't understand it, but that doesn't mean there aren't thousands of people apparently willing to deface the currency for a dubious shot at posterity:

If you are looking for a well lighted place to eat No Name Pub isn't for you, it's dingy and crowded and full of atmosphere but even if you think you won't like it it makes a fine destination for an hour long ride out of Key West (or Marathon) for those willing to step outside their comfort zones and take a trip:

This neck of the woods is where I come to show people who want to see them, because curiously enough where the signs are, there frequently are the deer:

There were two of them gallivanting around, full of the joys of spring, but I don't think she was having any:

They ran around in circles for a bit and popped out suddenly as I engaged the clutch. Ha! thought I, what an irony were I to go down thanks to a deer, right in front of the warning sign. I made it onto the No Name Bridge, past the marina and bait shop:The bard remarked that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but apologetically I choose to contradict the immortal one on that point. "Big Pine Key Pub" does not have the same ring as "No Name Pub" and I find it hard to imagine the pub would have lasted as long had it taken the former name. Nevertheless it is a fact that No Name Key is across a rather long bridge from the eponymous pub:No Name Key rejoices at least for a while longer in the fact that it's residents enjoy cable television and phone cable service on their island but not cable electricity. This apparently has to change to accommodate a central sewer system, though that issue is up for debate. I thing electricity is one of the great benefits of the modern era and apparently No Name Key agrees as they most of them go to the bother of powering their modern appliances with generators in addition to less certain solar panels. This is not a community of eco-freaks off the grid. They just don't want power lines in their community which i find eccentric. Personally I'd let them sort their own sewerage out if they insist on living with their noisy smelly generators, but I am not the state of Florida, which is a good thing.No Name Key's other claim to fame, aside form the electrical thing and the pub that isn't there, is that Cuban counter revolutionaries trained here in the 1960's to topple the Cuban government in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Nowadays it's mostly a nature preserve and i wrote an essay a while back on a walk I took through there last spring.I spent probably a quarter of an hour just lounging on the bridge, admiring the view and listening to the silence:And then I rode home. I swear there was almost a chill in the air. It must be freezing somewhere Up North.