Photo Post 20: Repurposed Shrimp Boats in Florida

A couple of years ago, one of our readers let us know that there had been a Shrimp Boats restaurant on US-19 in Florida, on the stretch north of Tampa between the towns of Hollywood and Tarpon Springs. Well, I said, that sounds like a stretch of a road that we will never visit. Well, never say never, because, as you’ll see in the next chapter, we went to visit Tarpon Springs, and so I looked up that business. It’s currently the home of Sunray Auto Sales, and the somewhat bemused proprietors did not object to me wandering around their property taking pictures.

This location has been a car lot for a while now. It’s presently called Sunray, but it was previously known as Best Choice Motor Sales. Before that, it was a NASCAR memorabilia and collectibles store.

We figured we were done with Shrimp Boats for the weekend, but the buildings were not done with us. See, when I printed out all our directions, I included toll roads in them. Then we got into central Florida on Friday and we learned how stupidly expensive these are. So on the Saturday, we instead used US-441, called Orange Blossom Highway here, to go from Apopka to Orlando, and I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across Motor Point Auto Sales. If the tolls had been reasonable, we’d never have used the old highway to get around!

We got permission to take pictures again – it’s always a good idea to do that at a place you’re not actually spending money, but especially at a place that sells cars that may want to know why you’re wandering around their inventory snapping photos – and grinned and checked another place off our list of 95 reported locations (41 to go!). We didn’t have time to stop by a library with old city directories to see whether any other Shrimp Boats had been located in the Orlando area, but we certainly kept a close eye on all the storefronts as we drove around. That said, if you’re in the area and wouldn’t mind hitting that library for us, give me a holler, would you?

Previously in the Shrimp Boat series:
Overview and Milledgeville GA location
Monterrey (former Buford Hwy, Doraville GA location)
Durham NC location
Gastonia NC location
Rome GA location
Patrick’s Sub Shop (former Collier Rd, Atlanta GA location)
Instaloan (former Lawrenceville Hwy, Decatur GA location)
Ming’s Chinese Restaurant (former Valdosta GA location)
Lancaster SC location
Rock Hill SC locations
El Pollo Dorado (former Sandtown Rd, Marietta GA location)

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