Commissioned by a group of vacationing Texans hoping to break several Guinness World records, the $8,887 Bloody Mary served at a Holly Springs restaurant on Saturday looks like the kind of caricature of American intemperance that might appear in an animated movie about marine life, maybe during a scene in which the hermit crab protagonist slips into a dockside tavern to discover surf and turf isn’t the epic wave-riding competition he’d imagined.
The base for the drink is a clear rectangular vat filled with ice, with an inverted pyramid hollowed out in the center and filled with five gallons of Bloody Mary mix.
The price tag, and the wow factor, come from what’s piled on top—a shipwreck of prickly crab legs, whole red snappers, shellfish, exotic proteins, and enough red meat to recreate Lady Gaga’s iconic VMA dress. Shrimp, frog legs, alligator bites, calamari, and scallops jut out on skewers. Elk cheeseburgers crowd for space with onion rings, crab rangoon, chicken wings, and grilled cheeses. Tomahawk bison steaks are wedged into any remaining crevices, charred rib bones arching skyward. Nearly 100 oysters topped with chunks of lobster and salmon roe balance precariously around the edge of the vat alongside open tins of beluga caviar.
All hands are on deck at the restaurant, The Blind Pelican (at least he was spared the sight), the morning of the attempt. Showtime is 11 a.m. As staff start to wheel the behemoth out of the kitchen, someone screams and points at a steel hotel pan left on the counter. In it, three open tins of caviar are perched atop a mound of ice.
Someone waves him off. “Those are backups! Keep it moving!”
They’ve almost made it through the double doors when another minor emergency strikes—the wheels are locked. Someone drops to the floor, does some jostling, and the procession continues.
When the convoy finally clears the threshold, the dining room erupts. The customers, thirty-four travelers from Longview, Texas, are gathered around one giant central table, wearing matching T-shirts that say “Don’t Mess With Texas” on the back and inexplicably bearing the Buc-ee’s logo on the front.
This isn’t the group’s first pilgrimage to The Blind Pelican. The mission all started a year ago when the same group made the trek for Alexis Walters’ 40th birthday trip and ordered a giant Bloody Mary, a menu item the restaurant is famous for.
“We base our vacations on where we’re eating,” Walters explains.
During that trip, the group set The Blind Pelican’s in-house record for the biggest Bloody Mary with a $2,600 order. But soon after, another group of people broke that record with a slightly more expensive one; a situation that one member of the Texas bunch compared to being outbid by one dollar on The Price is Right.
Unwilling to accept defeat, the group decided to return to Holly Springs to reclaim their title. And while they were at it, they figured, why not try to set three world records: the most expensive Bloody Mary ever purchased at a restaurant, the largest garnish to ever top a Bloody Mary, and the most people ever served by a single Bloody Mary in one sitting.
“You can put this in print: we wanted to put our foot in their ass,” says Paul Walters, Alexis’s husband. “That way, next time somebody wants to step up, they just have to pull us out.”
Months of planning went into the event, both on the part of the restaurant and the customers. The Blind Pelican had a custom vessel made and collaborated with the Texans to develop the ingredient list. The Texans took charge of the world record process, hiring local private investigator Ruth Cruz-Nichols and her assistant, Yajaira Tellez, to serve as adjudicators. They’d need to document everything meticulously to submit to Guinness.
“You can put this in print: we wanted to put our foot in their ass. That way, next time somebody wants to step up, they just have to pull us out.”
As soon as the Bloody Mary makes its entrance, Cruz-Nichols and Tellez, dressed in white collared shirts and black blazers, start running around with handheld camcorders, recording from every angle, racing to document the scale of the creation before the eating begins.
Then Cruz-Nichols pulls out a yellow measuring tape, and Tellez starts getting bystanders to sign witness sheets, attesting to the authenticity of the spectacle.
Within minutes, the Texans are circling the vat. Servers walk around with trays of oysters Rockefeller, handing out ramekins of melted butter. Bloody Mary pitchers are placed at regular intervals down the table.
The Texans aren’t the first to make The Blind Pelican a destination. On the wall of the restaurant, there’s a map studded with pins marking the hometowns of visitors who’ve made the journey for elaborate Bloody Marys.
Nikki and Andrew Stafford opened The Blind Pelican in 2019. They’d had big plans for a build-your-own Bloody Mary bar, but then COVID hit.
“There were so many rules and regulations—we couldn’t have everybody touching stuff,” says Nikki, who is celebrating her twenty-second wedding anniversary with Andrew the day of the world record attempt. “So our bartender, Josh, had an idea to build an elaborate Bloody Mary and put a lobster tail on it. That weekend, we sold out. It’s just become a sensation.”
Across the restaurant, a group of locals is standing up to shake Paul Walters’s hand.
They’ve been here since 8:30 a.m., camped out, waiting for leftovers, and it’s paid off: They just received plates of food.
“They’re starting to devour it,” Cameron Chowanski, a friend of the Walters, narrates giddily. Chowanski is walking around with a tin of beluga caviar, handing out spoonfuls to friends and strangers alike. “None of us have ever had it before,” he says. “It’s like seafood butter.”
“We called ahead, earlier in the week,” says Curtis Gladney, who learned the record attempt would be happening from a Facebook post. “The restaurant said, ‘there’s gonna be so much food, there’s no way they’re gonna be able to eat it all, I’m pretty confident they’re going to be sharing.’”
Indeed, just about everyone in the restaurant gets in on the fun. Even the adjudicators fix themselves plates. While they’re chowing down on whole Maine lobster and filet mignon, Paul stops by their table and hands Cruz-Nichols the receipt. She places it carefully in a folder and tucks the folder under her plate.
“Proprietary information,” she says, with a wink.
The Guinness World Record verification process should be complete within 12 weeks.
Follow Staff Writer Lena Geller on Bluesky or email [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].