Florida Seafood

Deaths, arrests mar Florida lobster mini-season. The regular season begins August 6.

A low-key destination for kayaking, fishing, snorkeling and camping in our guide for things to do in the Lower Florida Keys.

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 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.

The Grant Seafood Festival is put on by community volunteers and has been held every year since 1966 in this riverside enclave between Melbourne and Sebastian.

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.

Florida’s seafood festival season kicks off in late August after a summer break and peaks in January-March.

The Everglades Seafood Festival in Everglades City brings fresh local seafood, country music, carnival rides and arts and crafts to this historic outpost on the edge of the Everglades.

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.