08/30/2026
🦞🌴 BETSY THE LOBSTER — THE BIG GIRL WHO BECAME A KEYS LEGEND! 🌴🦞
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If you’ve driven through enough times, chances are you’ve passed one of the biggest and most recognizable ladies in the Upper Keys… Betsy the Lobster. 🦞😎
She’s sitting right there out front at today, but what a lot of people probably don’t know is that Betsy had quite a journey before she finally found her home.
Her story goes back to the early 1980s, when Florida artist Richard Blaze was working on her down in . Betsy was built between 1980 and 1985 out of fiberglass, and she wasn’t just somebody’s idea of a giant lobster. She was actually designed to be an anatomically correct . 🦞
And she is BIG.
Betsy was originally supposed to be a roadside attraction for a restaurant being planned in Islamorada. The problem was, the restaurant never made it. It closed before Betsy was even finished.
So imagine that… you spend years building a giant lobster for a restaurant, and by the time the lobster is ready, the restaurant is gone. 😂
Luckily, that wasn’t the end of Betsy.
After she was finished in 1985, she ended up at along the Overseas Highway, where she spent years doing exactly what those old Florida roadside attractions were supposed to do — make you look, make you smile, and hopefully make you pull over. 🚗🌴
Those of us who remember the Keys before cell phones and GPS know what I’m talking about. You remembered places by the landmarks.
“Go past the giant lobster…”
Everybody knew what you meant. 😂🦞
Eventually Treasure Village became a charter school, and Betsy had to move. For a while, one of the most recognizable lobsters in Florida basically disappeared into storage.
But you can’t keep a good lobster down. 😎
In 2009, Betsy finally made her way to in Islamorada.
Moving something that size wasn't exactly a matter of throwing her in the back of a pickup truck either. 😂 Parts of Betsy had to be taken apart — including her legs — and then put back together once she arrived.
And that’s where she’s been ever since.
Honestly, it’s hard to imagine Rain Barrel Village without her now. ❤️
She sits out front welcoming people traveling the , and over the years she’s become one of those landmarks that just feels like part of the .
And that’s why I love stories like this.
Betsy wasn't created to become some historic Keys landmark. She was supposed to advertise a restaurant that never even opened.
Instead, she outlived the restaurant, moved around the Keys, spent time tucked away in storage, got taken apart and put back together, and somehow ended up becoming more famous than the business she was originally built for. 🦞😂
That is about as as it gets.
Today Betsy is more than just a giant fiberglass lobster. She’s part of our roadside history, part of Islamorada, and part of that wonderfully strange personality that has always made the different from anywhere else.
And after more than 40 years, she’s still standing there doing the same job she was built to do…
Making people slow down, look over and smile. ❤️🌴🦞
That’s Betsy.
And I hope she stays right where she is for another 40 years.
👇 QUESTION OF THE DAY:
Do you remember seeing Betsy back when she was at Treasure Village?
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