Watch shark feedings at Key West restaurant
There’s a place in Key West where you and sharks can dine together.
The Stoned Crab Restaurant has free shark feedings four times a day, at 1, 5, 8 and 10 p.m. The interactive attraction started about six months ago at the Ibis Bay Beach Resort’s eatery.
“The spark of the idea was the sharks arriving,” recalls Chris Holland, the resort’s owner since 2004. “They followed the fishing boats into the dock with their catch. You know, [boaters] throw scraps over the boat. There were three and then there were four and there there were 12 and then there were 17. And we’re next to a fish market. They filet fish there and give the scraps to the sharks.”
Holland says that very quickly they were getting 20 or so sharks, all of them the more docile nurse sharks. The sharks are not penned and, when not hunting, rest under the ledges of reefs.
So are these sharks man-eaters? Holland says the nurse shark is known for two things: laziness and friendliness. He adds that they are the only sharks that don’t have to constantly keep moving and are bottom feeders.
“They are friendly to the degree that if we have people walking around doing plumbing work under the dock, they swim around their feet,” says the Australian who emigrated to the United States in the 1960s. “That being said, if they believe that you are attacking them … they would flip around and bite you. But the bite of a nurse shark is very, very different than a shark bite from a bullnose, hammerhead or any of these more violent sharks.”
But you can’t be too cautious when it comes to sharks, right? Nonetheless guests use three-foot tongs to feed the nurse sharks fish scraps. And the staff has been trained by Florida Keys Aquarium Encounters in Marathon.
“Some are seven or eight feet long,” he adds. “Some are babies, two feet long. There’s this [on-staff shark trainer] named Robin and she’s the shark lady. She has named them all. There are two babies and we say they are twins. Robin has named these two Flip and Flop. So now we have T-shirts that say ‘I Love Flip’ on one side and ‘I Love Flop’ on the other side.”
How much does this cost? “We have fun doing it,” Holland says. “We don’t charge for it. It’s not about making money. Nature gave us a gift and we give that gift back to the guests without charging them.”
The Flip and Flop T-shirts are $24.99. Children also can get a free cup with sharks on it and a free badge saying they are a honorary Key West commercial fisherman.
“Listen, it’s entertainment,” sums up Holland. “The things I remember most as a child were visual things. My brother and I, when I was 7, we went to this [horse stable] and we watched the birth of a foal. Now that was close to 60 years ago and yet I remember it like it was yesterday, the foal standing up for the first time. It’s a really great memory. Those are the memories I want people to take away. I want them to say, ‘I went to a place and I fed sharks and here’s a picture of it.’ ”
The Stoned Crab has lunch and brunch small plates for $11-$14, sandwiches for $13-$15, tacos for $15-$20 and pasta dishes for $22-$26. Dinner entrees range $28-$48.
The resort also has two giant tortoises and 11 baby tortoises (guests can feed them daily at 11 a.m.) as well as talking macaws.