Clock's ticking to visit the iconic Gator's Seafood in Milton, so enjoy it while you can

When you hear the words, “We’ll holler for ya when it’s ready,” at Gator’s Seafood in Milton, you know one thing with certainty: summertime has arrived.

Milton’s storied three-month-only restaurant, Gator’s Seafood, is a little off the beaten path. It’s easy to miss the dead-end street off the interstate if you don’t catch the aging alligator-sign waving you in.

But the drive down the tree tunnel, which welcomes you with sunlight bouncing off Farrington Lake and tree limbs strung with hanging lights for when the sun goes down, takes you on a trip down memory lane.

“I have people all the time that will tell me, they’ll say, ‘Bill, I came out here with my grandparents when I was 12 years old ... the place looks the same as it did when I was 12 years-old,'” Gator’s owner Bill Farrington said. “There are not many things in your life you can go back to, that are memories like that of what you did with your grandparents or your parents. So, for many people, the parents are deceased, or their grandparents are deceased, and it really has an emotional tone to it as well.”

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Not only does the décor date back to when his parents, Earl and Voncille Farrington, first opened it full-time in 1975 — but the family recipes do as well. The nostalgic, simpler-times mentality has only made the modern-day crowds larger and the restaurant increasingly desirable during its three-month reign ending in late-August.

“We just try to do what my parents originally did. So, it’s not a sophisticated menu, it’s local seafood. It’s a family place. The local seafood, mullet, flounder, shrimp — you know, the basics. We just try to do it the way they’ve always done it, in the way that they created a following and a reputation,” Farrington said.

The sweet tea is travels around the room by the pitcher, the rocking chairs are the most sought-after seats in the house during the wait to be seated and customers' eyes are glued to the glass windows for one reason: the live gators outside.

Although the alligators can be seen lurking in the lake behind the fenced in restaurant grounds, the restaurant’s namesake isn’t about the animal, but Farrington’s father who coincidentally earned the nickname as a young boy.

The restaurant was once his parents’ livelihood, but opening the doors is now his immediate family’s summertime tradition.

“We just let the fresh fish be the attraction. There are other things that go with it, the alligators kids like to see and things like that,” Farrington said. “It’s a unique spot where it’s located on the lake. It looks like Louisiana, if you will — cypress trees and a natural lake and those kinds of things and big, live oak trees. That’s just a natural beauty that is local here.”

The weekend-only restaurant is open from 5-9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday from the start of June until August’s end. But every night that the dinner service kicks into gear, the line winds around at back. But the wait-time is just enough to run to the ATM inside the gas station around the corner to grab a handful of cash for the cardless restaurant.

Whatever you spend, you’re getting your money’s worth. Coleslaw comes out free of charge, along with a bowl of crackers and hot sauces to accompany it. When it’s time for the main course, you have hand-breaded mullet lightly fried in the back made from the freshest seafood the Gulf has to offer.

The menu’s seafood platter offers a little bit of everything with a taste of fried mullet, catfish, oysters, shrimp and stuffed crab and the famous hot mullet filet.

The recipe for the hot mullet dates back decades, and Farrington has carefully preserved it.

He knows the menu is simple and doesn’t take offense when the rare customer will demand he expand his menu or stay open longer.

“I smile with that, because those are people that don’t understand what’s going on,” Farrington said.

Like the recipes, Farrington has also preserved the memories of his youth.

When Farrington questioned whether the restaurant would be worthwhile to keep up in 2012 as his parents were aging, it was his wife, Jennifer Farrington, that convinced him not to let the restaurant die. It wasn't hard to get him on board.

“All those memories are there with me, because it’s the same place I worked in when I was 18, 20 years old,” he said.

Now that he is the man in command like his father, he realizes the lengths his parents went to keep the place alive.

He wears many hats as a seasoned real estate attorney by weekday and a professional fish fryer on weekend nights.

But all the work is worth it when the crowd piles in and there is no such thing as a stranger. Smaller groups voluntarily share some of the larger, family-styles tables. His wife rocks newborn babies so mothers can enjoy their dinner.

Although the service is quick and attentive, getting in and getting out is far from the objective. The Gator’s regulars make a night of it, which was the environment his father nurtured.

“He was very much a people person,” Farrington said of his farther. “My father — he laughed, he loved people, and the restaurant became his outlet, if you will, for his personality.”

The menu reflects the simplicity of the log cabin-like dining room. A big bowl of cheese grits, baked beans and hushpuppies are among the sides that Farrington grew up eating that are still made fresh to pair with the filets.

The commitment to maintaining the establishment like Gator and Voncille did back in 1975 is why the line winds past the porch and into the parking lot. Because there isn’t anything else like it.

The restaurant has been keeping memories alive for Milton and beyond, and also creating new ones.

“There was a man in his 90s just this past weekend who was a friend of my dad, and he used to be in business over in Milton and all, and he’s just like my dad. A very gregarious, outgoing personality. And in his 90s — he was still just outgoing and laughing and gregarious,” Farrington said. “He came back in the kitchen to say hello to me. I was busy. We were real, real busy. I couldn’t get up to speak to him. But he came back, and when he went in the kitchen, he just lit up and he said, ‘Bill, this is like homecoming to me.’ He said, ‘So many times I was back here with your dad, and we were laughing and cutting up fish and I would take fish to people he wanted to send mullet to.'

“It has nothing to do with making a profit or anything like that,” Farrington said. “It has to do with just the emotion of family and friends that you’ve known all your life. I would never, ever probably see that man again, except for the fact that he came. His kids brought him down to Gator’s.”

Further updates and information can be found on the Gator’s Seafood Facebook page.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Gator's Seafood draws crowds in Milton every summer. Here's why.