Old Spanish Sugar Mill in Deleon Springs, FL

When it comes to the most unique restaurants in Central Florida, the Old Spanish Sugar Mill in Deleon Springs State Park is near the top of my list. Being one of the few businesses located inside of a Florida State Park, this restaurant is a remnant of a time when Deleon Springs was more of a tourist attraction instead of state park. The building itself is an old sugar mills, surrounded by all sorts of old milling equipment. One of the restaurant's focal points is the huge set of gears attached to the waterwheel outside that once provided the power for processing sugar.

Each table in the restaurant has it's own griddle.

Pitchers of pancake batter are brought to the table, along with whatever other toppings you order. They give you traditional white pancake batter as well as a five grain stoneground batter, with the latter being my favorite. For $4.50, you get all you can eat pancakes, plus you get the fun of cooking them yourself at your table.

Here's a Banana-Blueberry-Pecan Pancake...

Pecan pancake topped with honey:

After you finish eating your homemade pancakes in a historic sugar mill, be sure to go swimming in the spring right outside. Swimming over to the boil with a mask and snorkel and then floating while you look down into the dark and seemingly bottomless abyss is a very cool experience...