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New outside face, same quirky place

A new paint job can't change the personality of a Lutz landmark. Why, they've added even more idiosyncrasies out back.

By ELIZABETH MILLER
Published November 4, 2005

LUTZ - Bill Lyon and Rod Gaudin agree the old color, or lack of, was better.

"My wife wanted me to paint it, so I just slapped some paint on there," says Gaudin, owner of Hot Rod's BBQ & Grill.

Consequently, Gaudin's quirky restaurant, with its rusty pickup and painted cows, recently got a makeover. Instead of the unfinished barnyard siding, the exterior now sports a distressed red and white.

"I liked it rusty," says Lyon, a longtime customer who had stopped for tomatoes at the fruit stand out front.

He and Lyon pause to chat, which tends to happen at Hot Rod's, a landmark at Livingston Avenue and Sunset Lane. The crooked sign and rockers on the porch make new customers wonder whether it's a regular place of business.

In the back, a birthday party for another regular customer, a 2-year-old boy, is wrapping up.

Gaudin, 60, gives the boy fish food to throw to the Oscars in the small pond in the newly added Swamp Village.

It's another twist to accompany Hot Rod's hillbilly decor and offbeat menu, a place where patrons can meander before or after their meal, or have family parties.

"We're not about rushing people out," says Gaudin. "I want them to take their time and stay as long as they want."

Off the covered dining patio, the wooden deck ushers customers through a Louisiana and Florida backwoods-inspired town. There's a Lutz county jail, complete with an old commode, and a swamp with lizards and plastic gators.

The town includes Hannah Banana's Sugar Shack and Jimmy Jam's Fishin' Hole, named after Gaudin's two grandchildren. There's also a new stage area and root beer bar, where Gaudin eventually plans to have entertainment on weekend nights.

Throughout the village are touches from Gaudin's collection of vintage odds and ends.

"People call it vintage, but I call it early junk," says Gaudin, who had no trouble decorating the new addition from his shed of rickety finds.

Helen Gaudin couldn't let her husband do all the decorating. In the midst of the "early junk" is a Victorian gazebo with climbing vines.

"I'm Cajun, but my wife is Victorian, so I put that there for her," says Gaudin. "That'll be the place to have a redneck wedding."

Meanwhile, little has changed on the menu. Hot Rod's still offers smoked bat (fruit bat from Peru) and redneck prime rib (Spam), in addition to barbecue.

"You have to try the barbecue meatloaf," says Lyon.

[Last modified November 3, 2005, 08:47:07]