Little Place, Huge Character

“I’m not an alcoholic, just a big personality,” says the woman behind the bar, as she pours us a basket of Funyuns and Bugles. Though she looks and sounds like an off-kilter version of Paula Deen, her endless supply of conversation livens up the quirky, art-fill bar in Sanford. Little Fish, Huge Pond is full of that personality, and, hopefully, will be full of patrons just as quirky and eccentric as the owner, who goes by the pseudonym Mo’ Wisdom.

Since Little Fish, Huge Pond moved to its new location at the corner of First Street in Sanford starting in March, things have changed. The café has closed (though Mo’ surreptitiously mentioned that she serves bowls of her homemade chili from Thursday thru Sunday), the liquor license is gone (though she serves a mean Champagne mojito and some pretty vicious sake bombs), and the patronage has sharply turned to patrons from the nearby restaurants who come by for a digestif from Winter Park hipsters. “You know, no matter how bad the economy gets, people will still smoke, drink, and…well, you know,” Mo’ comments, as she gazes around her still-empty bar. It’s 6 o’clock on a Tuesday. The crowd doesn’t get in until at least 9, she assures us.

The beer list at Little Fish, Huge Pond is as idiosyncratic as its owner. While I sip my Champagne mojito (a rose-colored concoction of simple syrup, lime, and mint covered in pink Champagne), my companion orders a Holy Mackerel, a Florida-brewed thick wheat beer that Mo’ says, “tastes like what Beowulf would have gotten drunk on at Stonehenge.” He’s sold immediately.

There’s no dearth of events scheduled for Little Fish, either. Every demographic is represented from a Buffett-style guitarist that night to an all-ages metal band in a week, Little Fish, Huge Pond is no respecter of art forms, everything is valued. Next time I head up to Sanford, I’ll be at the drag show Mo’ schedules once a month and I hope I won’t be alone.