Pinecraft, the winter village
Pinecraft sits a few miles inland from downtown Sarasota, a planned grid of small homes and shops around the corner of Beneva Road and Bahia Vista Street. According to Visit Sarasota County, Amish and Mennonite farmers were persuaded to come here in the 1920s to grow celery. The soil let them down. The winters did not, and many of them kept coming back.
Today thousands of Amish and Mennonite visitors return every winter from Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and as far away as Canada, and the street traffic is a steady stream of adult tricycles. The county tourism office names December through April as the best time to go. It also points out that Amish businesses close on Sundays, so plan the pie run for Monday through Saturday and get there early.
The food is farmhouse cooking, and it is the reason for the lines. Yoder's Amish Village has been a Sarasota tradition since 1975, known for pot roast, very large fried chicken and pies: more than 100 fresh pies in over 25 varieties every day, many still made from Mrs. Yoder's original recipes. Peanut butter cream is the famous one. Der Dutchman, in the heart of the neighborhood, serves broasted chicken, meatloaf and a house dish called Noodles Over Mash, and its bakery sells pies, cinnamon rolls and fritters to carry home.
Behind Yoder's, Pinecraft Park hosts shuffleboard, horseshoes and bocce for much of the day. Phillippi Creek runs alongside it, brackish water where you may spot manatees, otters and snook. Motorboats do not come this far up the creek, which keeps it as quiet as the neighborhood.
The rest of the Sarasota table
Downtown, the Sarasota Farmers Market has run since 1979, when Paul Thorpe and the Downtown Merchants Association started it to draw people back into the city center. It sets up every Saturday, rain or shine, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., centered on Main Street and Lemon Avenue and stretching north to First Street and south to Pineapple Avenue. Expect produce growers, prepared food, plants and local artisans, plus free booth space each week for local nonprofits.
On the water, Sarasota has fishing rules of its own. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission manages a Sarasota Bay region that runs from State Road 64 in Manatee County south to a line near the Venice airport, with its own limits for snook, redfish and seatrout. Snook cannot be sold anywhere in Florida, so a snook dinner here means someone caught it. Stone crab claws are the cool weather treat, harvested from October 15 through May 1.
