Snook Haven Reopening in Venice, FL: A River Park Returns

Snook Haven closed on April 30, 2025. The sign said "Smack Dab on the Myakka River," and in the last days the regulars came back for brisket platters and banjo music while the staff got ready to pack up the 15-foot stuffed alligator. Cheri Pachota co-owned the Venice Pier Group, which ran the place. She told The Sun's Venice coverage that "the alligators might end up in my living room" while the county rebuilt.

Eighteen months later, the new Snook Haven at 5000 E. Venice Ave. is almost ready. Sarasota County has set a public ribbon-cutting for Thursday, November 6, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. The site that reopens is a different kind of place, though. Over the past two years the county has turned a riverside restaurant with a small park around it into a river park with a food stand in it. That change explains most of what longtime visitors will find, and most of what the county still hasn't announced.

What Venice had for nine decades

Snook Haven started well before the restaurant. The Herald-Tribune's August 12 history of the site, republished by Bluewater Healthy Living, traces it back to 1931. That year a movie crew cut a dirt road from River Road to the Myakka to shoot a film about a French Indochina prison colony. In 1936 a wealthy Michigan man built a retirement house there. Snook Haven became a fishing camp in 1948, and the original restaurant building went up in 1958.

The ownership history is also part of the local story. Sandy Alston's ex-husband bought the property at auction in 1988 for $400,000. In 2006 the county bought it from Alston for $2.6 million and made it a public park. The Venice Pier Group ran the restaurant from mid-2012 through the end of April 2025. In those years it was home to the Myakka River Blues Festival. The Gulf Coast Banjo Society had already been playing Thursday shows there from April through October since 1987, and it kept doing so until 2025.

So even after the county bought the land, people treated Snook Haven as a restaurant. Its manager, Ralph Whigham, described it to The Sun as a place where "people come from all over the place just to come here and have lunch, listen to music and have a great beer."

Why the county stopped planning around a restaurant

The 1958 building sat low on the riverbank. The Herald-Tribune reported in July that it flooded when the Myakka rose. After Hurricane Ian in 2022, the park sat under about four feet of water. The county's answer was to move the food building, the covered deck and the bandshell farther inland and to replace the sit-down restaurant with a concession building and covered seating.

Land purchases explain the rest of the shift. When Snook Haven closed in April 2025, Pachota told The Sun that the county had canceled the concession bid her company submitted, which was the only bid. She said officials told her the county had a deal pending on the campground next door that could greatly expand the park. That deal closed in October 2025. The county bought the 20-acre Camp Venice property for $14 million. It was the 100th purchase under the Environmentally Sensitive Lands Protection Program, which is funded by a voter-approved 0.25-mill property tax. A referendum on renewing that tax is on the November 3, 2026 ballot, three days before the ribbon-cutting.

The difference in size is large. The Herald-Tribune described the original Snook Haven as a 2.5-acre park. In a July internal memo to County Administrator Jonathan Lewis, Parks and Recreation Director Shawn Yeager described the expanded park, now called Snook Haven Regional Park, as having more than a mile of protected Myakka River shoreline. He said it would serve as "a central amenity hub and trailhead" for Sleeping Turtles Preserve South next door, Deer Prairie Creek Preserve to the east and Jelks Preserve to the south.

In that plan, the food stand is one amenity among several. Yeager made the same point when he told the Herald-Tribune what the concessionaire will cover: "The concessionaire will just be focused on the restaurant area. That includes the bandshell, it includes the restaurant, it includes the seating area."

What's built and waiting

Sweet Sparkman Architects designed the $8.75 million rebuild, and Jon F. Swift Construction built it. Funding came from impact fees, two rounds of the county's infrastructure surtax and tourist development capital money. The county's project page lists what visitors will find:

• An ADA-compliant food service building
• A covered pavilion with seating and a view of the river
• A replacement bandshell with an accessible patio
• A new fishing pier with accessible parking
• One of the old cabins converted into a canoe and kayak outfitter, with a public restroom
• Accessible walkways connecting to the existing boat ramp and the canoe and kayak launch

As of the county's September 30 update, all exterior site work was finished and waiting on final permit closeout. Building inspections for the bandshell and storage building were set for early October. Kitchen equipment for the concession building was still being delivered and installed, and final inspections of that building can't happen until it's in. Parks staff also held a volunteer workday on September 10 to pull invasive plants along the shoreline.

The Herald-Tribune said the county's design aimed to keep the site's Old Florida character. Visitors will be able to judge that for themselves once the park opens to the public.

What hasn't been announced yet

The structures are close to done, but the county hasn't named who will run them. Here is where each open question stood in the most recent reporting:

Earlier reports gave a different reopening date. In August, the Sarasota Record reported an October 15 opening. Even then, the Herald-Tribune called that date penciled in and not firm. The county's October 6 notice, which set the November 6 ribbon-cutting, is the latest official word. It doesn't say whether the public can visit that same day. The contract also has more than one step. In July the Herald-Tribune said a finished agreement would go to the County Commission for approval. In August it reported that the commission had adopted a resolution on July 7 expanding the vendor's financial responsibility for upkeep of the concession building and dining pavilion, and that the county administrator or a designee would sign the final contract.

Both open questions point the same way. The county has finished the parts that make Snook Haven a river park: the pier, the launch, the walkways and the outfitter cabin. The parts that made it a restaurant, meaning the menu, the beer and the band schedule, depend on a contract that hasn't been announced. When Snook Haven closed, Pachota said she hoped the county would bring back an indoor restaurant. She told The Sun, "There are hot, hot summers," and added, "I love the county's outdoor pavilion, but if they were to actually rebuild it as a restaurant, I think that would make a lot of people happy." The building now standing is the covered pavilion.

The larger park arrives in stages

Some of what the county has planned won't be open on November 6. The Snook Haven Campground, formerly the Camp Venice RV Resort, won't open this fall because its new water and sewer lines aren't ready. The Sarasota Record reported in August that the campground is expected to reopen in 2027. When it does, the county will run it the same way it runs Turtle Beach Campground on Siesta Key. It could eventually hold more than 120 RV, tent and glamping sites. The county's campground updates page says reservations will go through the county once it reopens.

The live oak grove between the restaurant area and the campground will likely open to all visitors as a natural playground and picnic area. An existing building near the grove may be replaced by an open-air educational pavilion overlooking the river. Yeager, who used to work for the Florida Park Service and spent a lot of time on the Myakka, described the goal to the Herald-Tribune this way:

"To see the wild and scenic river, to go out and enjoy the banjo music and get some food over at the service provider or get on the Myakka in a canoe or a kayak but also to explore what real Florida is and really enjoy it."

His list starts with the river, and the food is one item among several. For anyone planning a first visit back, the river access is the part that's certain. The fishing pier, the kayak launch and the walkways to the boat ramp are built and waiting on final sign-off. The menu, the hours and whether banjo Thursdays return will depend on the operator the county signs. The county's Snook Haven project page is where the September 30 construction update appeared, so that's where to look for the next one before November 6.

If you'd like to talk through how changes like this along the Myakka fit into the Venice market, Niki Medlin is glad to hear from you. Let's Connect.