Posted on 02/18/2026 4:22:29 AM PST by DFG
It was a hiss and a miss.
A Florida pizzeria is facing backlash for adding iguana pizza to their menu while a cold snap in the Sunshine State stunned the invasive reptiles, causing them to fall from trees.
Bucks Coal Fired Pizza in North Palm Beach will stop offering iguana as a pizza topping after receiving a slew of complaints to the Health Department, according to local10.
The restaurant put out a viral video with tens of thousands of likes earlier this month, showing pieces of the large lizards being tossed onto cheesy dough and thrown into a pizza oven.
“My buddy hit me up and was like, how do you feel about me bringing in some iguana meat and making iguana pizza? I said, absolutely,” owner Frankie Cecere told the outlet.
The viral idea came about when iguanas across the state were falling from trees as temperatures plummeted. This happens to the reptiles because they are cold-blooded and become paralyzed to conserve energy.
Despite the polarizing menu choice, the pizzeria received “about 1,500 calls for iguana pizza,” Cecere said.
“It’s highly sought after apparently,” the owner added.
Bucks Coal Fired Pizza will now stop offering the topping due to complaints to the Health Department and concerns over animal cruelty.
“People called in saying we had live iguanas in house, like an animal cruelty issue,” Cecere said. “We don’t have live iguanas here.”
“I thought it would fall under catch and cook,” he added.
The pizzeria is now working through regulatory questions about serving the iguana meat, the outlet said.
“You don’t need a license to harvest iguanas because they’re an invasive species, but apparently, there’s no statute for it,” Cecere said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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I'm on a Mexican radio
I wish I was in Tijuana
Eating barbequed iguana
Their crime wasn't serving iguana - it's that they put it on pizza. ...and for that they deserve to be pelted with rotten fruit in the public square.
I’d give that a shot once.
“He gets paid by the State to hunt pythons and by private businesses to get iguanas off the golf courses and other places.”
I love to see the Kondo Karens come out and jump in his business and call the cops on him. They freak out over his ‘assault weapon’.
The air rifles he uses are pretty cool, optics and everything and lethal to the iguanas.
Then he unleashes the dogs to run them down and bring them back to the boat.
You’re right the Kondo Karens often freak out when they see him in the canal behind where they live.
What part of the iguana are we eating? If I had to call it anything, I would say it's his knee.
I want to try that meat.
There are several other channels about Iguana removal that are interesting. The things are a plague. We should really tighten up the laws about exotic pets in this country.
I wouldn’t let my dog in the water there for the Crocs.
Do any of them proved python meat as a topping?
Meat’s meat, and a man’s gotta eat!
But might like that cricket pizza.
I killed a very large rattle snake once and wanted to eat it because I’d heard it was good. After skinning it I couldn’t do it. The flesh had the look and texture of dried white silicon caulk.
Iguana and Python are both good eatin. The Mexicans make tamales out of them and Python grinds up like chicken or alligator meat into fine paddies , course sausage or links. Iguana also grills or stews up nicely in the bone. My Florida crew shoots them with 22 cal air rifles right out of the trees from the canals they live on. Suppressed air rifles are nearly silent and the neighbors cheer us on because the little monsters eat their gardens to death.
Python can have heavy metals due to bioaccumulation it’s best to eat the smaller ones and trash the big boys they are invasive so no harm in that.
Ask a Cajun to cook you up some reptile they have all the recipes for it already. Reptile meat is reptile meat, be gators or tree dinos or snakes.
We Texas boys eat rattlesnakes all the time. You can get it at lonesome dove bistro in the stockyards in Cowtown. They do it fired or as rattlesnake and rabbit sausage links.
I first had rattlesnake, pan fried, at six years of age, at a festival. It had the consistency of shrimp and sort of tasted like turtle, which I hadn’t had, until years later.
It was a small bite from my dad’s food order, but I will always remember it.
Don’t they use the iguana hides for wallets, belts, etc.
I’d eat it. Iguana is good. It does taste like chicken.
Iguana is actually very good. Tender and tastes like chicken.
Yup it’s fine leather, most reptiles make for fine leather.
I have alligator and caiman boots. Along with elephant, full quill ostrich, and Python I am a bit of a boot collector. I don’t own a pair of “dress shoes” that’s what Lucchese boots are for. Dan Post, Justin Ropers too.
The Italians make leather out of anything.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1835440814/real-lizard-skin-italian-genuine-iguana
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