Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Near Pinecraft Historic District Pinecraft, FL

Pinecraft is not an incorporated town at all, but a small neighborhood inside the city of Sarasota, near the intersection of Bahia Vista Street and Beneva Road.

Pinecraft is Florida's famous Amish and Mennonite enclave — a winter vacation destination for Plain families from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana.

The community traces back to the 1920s, when Amish farmers came south hoping to grow celery; the soil proved unsuitable for celery, but the farmers found Sarasota's sunshine so agreeable that they stayed.

Only a few hundred people live in Pinecraft year-round, but during the winter season thousands of Amish and Mennonite visitors swell the neighborhood, with roughly 5,000 visiting over the course of a year.

Many visitors arrive on chartered buses collectively nicknamed the "Amish Express," making rides of around 20 hours from the Midwest and Pennsylvania rather than driving or flying.

In 1946, the Tourist Mennonite Church was established on Bahia Vista Street in Pinecraft so that vacationing Amish could worship without breaking their beliefs.

Because Pinecraft is a vacation community rather than a farming settlement, it is largely buggy-free — residents get around on bicycles, adult tricycles, and on foot between its small bungalows.

Pinecraft is anchored by well-known Amish restaurants such as Yoder's Restaurant and Der Dutchman, whose pies are ordered by Sarasota residents across the city for Thanksgiving and Christmas.