St. Louis has the Gateway Arch. Seattle has its Space Needle. Los Angeles has the Hollywood sign. Yet, can any of these symbolic civic wonders really compare to the salt-crusted, mullet-tossed, beer-sodden glory that is the Flora-Bama Lounge? The Panhandle’s weathered monument to honky-tonkin’ good times is surely as alluring a roadside attraction as those other historic sites and speaks to an idiosyncratic sense of place with its very name. This oyster shack on steroids they call “the last American roadhouse” famously straddles the state line that separates Florida and Alabama—hence the name—but represents a state of mind that is wholly its own. Neither the wayward tides of time nor the howling winds of multiple hurricanes have altered that. Although the establishment that sprawls across the beachfront at Perdido Key has been rebuilt on an occasion or two, it abides—as surely as Jeff Bridges’s fabled the Dude from “The Big Lebowski,” who is exactly the kind of fella who would be right at home here, with his louche wardrobe. 

Open since 1964, the Flora-Bama wasn’t born into legend. It started out as a liquor store and lounge, opened by the Tampary family after the construction of the Perdido Pass Bridge. The geography was significant: Baldwin County, Ala., was considered a dry county, so it was shrewd business to plop a watering hole in the spot. It wasn’t until 1978, however, that the site began to flourish. A new owner named Joeseph Gilchrist began expanding the operation, inviting musicians to perform and putting the bar on the international radar. The management estimates some 3,500 performers gig under its roof (or on the adjacent beach) each year.

One of the Flora-Bama’s more notorious habitues, country singer Kenny Chesney, captured the vibe in his 2014 song called, what else, “Flora-Bama.”

There’s ball caps, photographs, dollar bills and bras / License plates from every state nailed up to the wall / Spring breakers, heartbreakers, already getting loud / Talledega’s on the big screen, don’t it make you proud?

Gilchrist died in 2022 at the age of 80, but his legacy continues in the capable hands of his partners who oversee what has become one of Florida’s biggest tourist draws (with two million guests each year) and a name that is now synonymous with the phrase “Redneck Riviera.” The Flora-Bama achieves peak redneckery each April with athree-day celebration known as the Interstate Mullet Toss, at once a cherished folk ritual to honor the dawning of a new season and a test of skills that are absolutely useless in any other context—and therefore greatly enhanced by a cold beer (or three). This year marks the 40th anniversary of the toss—or the 41st, depending on who you ask. The details of the first toss are hazy. The late April event requires participants to stand inside a 10-foot circle on the Florida side and hurl a dead mullet across the state line into Alabama. 

Some may laugh, but competitors take it very seriously. Record-setting tosses have been reported in excess of 180 feet. The signature event is ideally suited to the Flora-Bama, whose late proprietor had a heartfelt greeting for each customer: “We thank you for lowering your expectations.”

For more historic places and pieces of Floridiana, click here.