Fudpucker's is probably one of the more well-known tourist locations of Destin. The restaurant comes with a lot of quirky traditions. The original Fudpucker's is at Fort Walton Beach. The restaurant existed before the gators. But then the gators became a hit, and when the Fudpucker's was built in Destin, they made a gator "beach" (more like water where little alligators live). You can buy food to feed the gators (my cousin was kicked out back in 2003 for teasing the gators with the fishing pole...) and can pay to have your picture taken holding a live gator.
Possibly more prominant than the gators is the grafitti on the wall. People bring sharpies and sign the walls... and the floor... the ceiling, the doors... everything has signatures on it. It's fun to come back and try to find your signatures from years past.
This is Meredith and Rachel's signature from 2006 - the oldest we found.
Also quite popular are their tee-shirts with funny sayings. There's the classic Fudpucker's Tounge Twister - "How much fudd would a fudpucker puck if a fudpucker could puck fudd?" Say that five times fast. Then there's the "Mother Fudpucker." They had new neon shirts in for the summer. I got a yellow one that said, "You ain't been pucked til you've been fudpucked!" Don't worry - the children's shirts are pretty clean.
As always, there was an incredible wait. However, with so much to do (I forgot to mention that there's a bar with a live band most nights, as well), the wait isn't that bad.
Helen and I had wandered off by ourselves (apparently into a "dead zone"), and while we were gone, we were called to be seated. When we got down to the table, Meredith warned us of our scary waitress, Lesli. She started yelling at Meredith to speak up because she couldn't hear, and Meredith, the jokester, replied, "Well, probably because I haven't said anything, yet," and made our waitress angry. She continued to be rude to Meredith throughout the night.
Our order was easy - we all got Mother Fudburgers. However, it took forever for our food to come.
In the meantime, we were seated beside an obnoxious table - it was two families with four little kids, and they let their kids scream and run around the restaurant. Dad noted that the little blonde girl was quite full of herself, standing up on a chair and dancing like she was the stuff. The baby was a screamer. And their parents ignored them... and occasionally laughed at them when they did something "cute" (such as throwing stuff onto the floor).
When people who were seated after us got their food before us, Rachel shared her disgust rather loudly. The floor manager walked by (while carrying food) and said not to worry - our food would be out next.
Another ten minutes, and our food came. Rachel needed ketchup. The ketchup at our table was out, so she walked over to the bar to get some, and as she shook it, she didn't realize the lid was off. The ketchup spilled onto the floor, right in front of one of the children who happened to be running at her.
The busboy looked over and said, "I'm not cleaning that." Rachel exclaimed rather loudly, "Do I need to clean this myself?" Our worthless waitress then told us that no - he would clean it. The busboy came over grudgingly to clean up the mess.
Now, it's tradition to get dinosaurs with your meal. So, I asked the waitress if we could have some dinosaurs. She said rather sarcastically, "Well, I guess I could get you some." Then, I think she realized that this would be a good time to suck up to us and brought us a handful of plastic dinos.
The burgers... were garbage. Mine was burnt (I asked for medium well... it was very well) and dry. I put all of their sauce on it, and it still tasted gross. But I ate it because I was hungry and I had waited this long (I would've sent it back, except then I'd be there another hour... besides, it's not like our waitress cared that I wasn't happy with my food).
In fact, the only time our waitress actually walked to the other side of the table was when she gave Dad the check.
Dad left no tip and wrote on the check "Service SUCKS!" (He said if he had more space, he would've written more.)
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