Unique Eats, Bars & Seafood Shacks

My idea of a great choice for a place to eat on vacation is a restaurant with a story behind it. Here are seven historic restaurants that fit that criteria — from Prohibition rum-runners to 1980s drug-runners; from authentic 1920s grand hotel to an authentic 1950s diner.

If you want to savor the flavor of the Florida Keys, spend a little time at a tiki bar. Our favorites profiled here are unpretentious waterfront spots where you’ll get good fresh fish, fried everything and a big serving of Keys atmosphere.

The historic agricultural area surrounding the Homestead entrance to Everglades National Park offers so many cool experiences — a park where you can see and sample exotic fruits, a historic village of shops and restaurants, a local tropical-fruit winery and famous fruit milkshakes and cinnamon rolls.

Sebring, a small town along the lovely Lake Wales Ridge in Central Florida, is staking a claim for something new — Florida’s first (and only) craft soda festival, the Sebring Soda Festival. Local small-batch sodas made with real sugar are making a comeback, partly as an outgrowth of the craft beer phenomenon. This Sebring festival is a good opportunity to taste what it’s all about.

It closes for the season on Saturday, April 26. The line will start forming again when it reopens in late October. This 50-year-old institution south of Miami has generations of devoted fans. It’s a good stop for an Everglades trip or a day exploring the Redland.

The Marathon Seafood Festival calls itself the Original Marathon Seafood Festival to emphasize it’s the real deal – indigenous and authentic. Marathon is a fishing town, and you don’t get fish any fresher than here, unless you catch it yourself.

After a pandemic pause, the St. Augustine Lions Club Festival returns in 2022, reimagining its seafood festival past.

This isn’t frozen shrimp or imported shrimp or farmed shrimp. The huge boiling pots at the Fort Myers Beach Shrimp Festival are filled with fresh, right-off-the-boat Gulf pink shrimp. Members of the Lions Club have perfected the cooking technique over 50 years of Shrimp Festivals.

Our guide lists more than 350 locally owned craft breweries in Florida, easily referenced by region and by city.

Stone crab season starts Oct. 15 and Everglades City, a small, isolated fishing village south of Naples, is a place to feast on this Florida favorite in an authenic Old Florida atmosphere.

Fresh Florida seafood is best enjoyed in an authentic Florida fish shack, ideally with an outdoor deck overlooking the water. Here are a few of our favorites.

The Pensacola Seafood Festival is back for 2021! After taking a COVID break in 2020, this popular Panhandle festival returns to its normal dates in September.

It is possible to go to Key West on a budget. Here are some frugal tips on lodging, interesting budget restaurants and free places to go.

Everyone wants to discover that funky inexpensive spot where locals go. In Key West, that would be Hogfish Bar & Grill on Stock Island, which wins raves for fresh off-the-boat seafood.

Driving U.S. 1 north of Titusville, you would never know Oak Hill even existed. But this gateway to the Mosquito Lagoon is worth finding. There’s fascinating history, a great fishing pier and the sort of atmospheric, out-of-the-way waterfront seafood shack that we love to discover.

Stopping at Alabama Jack’s, a fish shack and dive bar on a remote road between Homestead and Key Largo, has been the classic way to start a Keys trip for decades. We revisited the open-air waterfront spot recently, and we’re happy to say: It’s as shabby and atmospheric as ever.

No Name Pub has been around since the 1930s, and it looks like it. It offers tasty food in a historic building, but what makes this the king of Funky Florida is the decor: $90,000 (some say) stapled to the walls and ceiling.

Mangoes may be the reason I can never leave Florida. Here are favorite Florida mango recipes discovered or developed during my 30-plus years of worshiping these beautiful fruit.