Site of Seminole’s historic Porpoise Pub to become a car wash

A popular bar and restaurant for motorcyclists, Screwie Louie’s Porpoise Pub was destroyed by fire in 2015. Facebook photo.

Screwie Louie’s Porpoise Pub was destroyed in a fire seven years ago. For a while, there was hope that the popular bar and live music venue at 8701 Seminole Blvd. might be rebuilt.

But the Porpoise Pub, a popular, low-key watering hole and eatery favored by motorcycle aficionados, is not coming back.

The property was sold March 7. John Burpee & Associates, representing the seller One in a Billion LLC, says the buyer intends to build an automated car wash on the weedy vacant lot along Seminole’s busiest thoroughfare.

The buyer, whose name was not disclosed, paid $700,000 for the 1-acre site.

Built in the early 1960s as the area’s first indoor/outdoor beer garden, the Porpoise Pub was so named in 1965. Inspired by the success of TV’s Flipper, owner James Clendenon netted a bottlenose dolphin in the Gulf of Mexico, and relocated it to a swimming pool in the center of his beer garden.

For $15,000, Clendenon bought five tons of regular table salt to prepare his dolphin enclosure.

The first captive “porpoise” (as the marine mammals were commonly called in that era) refused to eat dead fish. Since Clendenon had stored 10,000 pounds of the stuff, that created a problem.

History did not record what happened to the animal, but a St. Petersburg Times story dated Feb. 6, 1966 outlined the subsequent story of “Hello” and “Dolly,” a female dolphin and its baby taken 80 miles from the coast by the pub owner and “an experienced hunter,” as replacements.

They “took to” eating dead fish, the story said, but “Hello” became snared in a motor scooter inner tube (presumably tossed into the pool as an incentive for play).

Again, no record exists of the ultimate fate of the baby, but “Dolly” became the central attraction at the family-friendly Porpoise Pub. For a quarter, kids got five or six small “baitfish” to feed “Dolly.” Clendenon’s menagerie also included a sea lion (kept in the pool with the dolphin), two deer, monkeys, alligators and a pelican. 

On Fridays and Saturdays, the owner’s folksinging wife Gloria performed.

According to the historical record, Clendenon dug an 800-foot canal from the edge of his property to (freshwater) Lake Seminole. He advertised “boat rides” with his dolphin.

And that’s where the historical trail ends. After 1969, the ads were suddenly changed to “boat rides” with sea lions. The fate of “Dolly” remains a mystery.

The Clendenons sold the business and moved to Bradenton in 1975. The Porpoise Pub, by 1979, was the source of headaches for residents of the neighboring Florida Mobile Home Park, who complained to city administrators that rowdy pub patrons revved their motorcycles, blew car horns and otherwise carried on, late into the evening, in the pub’s parking lot.

Time, renovations and changing ownership all contributed to the rehabilitation of the pub’s reputation. At the peak of its popularity, the re-named Screwie Louie’s Porpoise Pub regularly raised money for area charities.

According to Burpee, the buyer is waiting on final approval from the City of Seminole before proceeding with the car wash.

St. Petersburg Times, April 17, 1966. In this story, Dolly the captive dolphin is referred to as “Happy.”