The Fresh Catch Run

If you love pork, this is a pilgrimage stop. Traditional Cuban lechon — whole roast pig, slow-cooked, crispy skin — in the Spanish/Cuban tradition the Redland's community has been eating for years. Everything you'd want next to it: yuca con mojo, moros y cristianos, tostones, cafecito.

Cuban lunch counter opened by Cuban-American exiles in 1962 and still going on the same Collins Avenue corner sixty-plus years later — one of the few genuine old-guard holdouts in a stretch that has been renovated into anonymity a dozen times over. Formica counters, vinyl booths, a three-dimensional Haydee Scull folk-art mural of a Havana street scene painted on the back wall in 1979. The kitchen turns out ropa vieja, masitas de puerco fritas, and the pressed Cubano the way South Beach was eating them before Ocean Drive became a runway.

Waterfront seafood joint tucked at the end of Front Street on the Halifax River side of Ponce Inlet, in what started as Captain Frank Timmons' 1940s fish camp — Timmons is the guy who pioneered the party boat charter business out of the inlet. The bar came first for the fishermen, then someone suggested a fried fish sandwich, and the restaurant grew from there through the 70s. Menu is straight coastal Florida: Spicy Spanish Snapper, Black-N-Blue Tuna, bacon-wrapped scallops, the Hatch Fried Platter, king crab legs. Indoor tables or the outdoor deck over the water where you'll watch charter boats come back in and pelicans work the dock. Changed hands under new ownership in late 2024.

A family-run Bahamian-style gingerbread cottage at MM 100.2, known for conch fritters, conch chowder, and Romeo the resident parrot. Its Food Network, Travel Channel, and Emeril's Florida appearances fit the kind of well-worn Keys stop worth pulling over for.

A 1948 Art Deco dining car built by the Paramount Dining Car Company in Haledon, New Jersey — often mis-labeled a Pullman, it is not — hauled down from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and reopened here on September 11, 1992 after restoration. Stainless-steel exterior, curved corner windows, the original counter-and-booths layout intact. Open 24 hours, which is the real reason it matters: after most of Washington Avenue closes, this is where diner food, breakfast-any-hour, burgers, and a Cubano Eggs Benedict keep landing on the pass. Long-running and consistent rather than trendy.

License plates wallpaper the dining room.

Open-air biker-friendly tiki bar and grill on US-27 at the Broward–Miami-Dade line, in Southwest Ranches. Sunday afternoon bike night is the ritual — oldies rock bands, enough bikes to make a show. Thursday bike night with a live band too. Menu leans biker roadhouse (Jack Biker Burger, Truck Stop Burger, What a Jerk Burger) with Latin cross-cultural picks (Cuban sandwich, tacos, empanadas, alligator tail bites). Weekend brunch opens at 9a. Second-Saturday Jamaican Jerk Chicken monthly. Biker, trucker, family, and pet-friendly.

Authentic Jamaican kitchen and bar on US-27 in South Bay, right at the south shore of Lake Okeechobee — the town where the 27 Run's Lake Okeechobee stretch begins and the closest US-27 touchpoint to LOST (Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail). Jerk chicken, curry goat, oxtail stew, and fried plantains are the signatures; small plates for sharing, full bar. Rooted in the Caribbean farming communities that built the south-lake sugar and produce economy. First of the "27" road-brand family (Flavors 27 → Cafe 27 → Olde 27 → Tacos 27) that the route picks up around the lake.

Waterfront Southern comfort-food institution on the Halifax River in Port Orange — running since 1979 as a fish-camp-style spot on Halifax Dr, four generations of family ownership. Cinnamon rolls come free with every plate (over 1,000 baked and glazed on-site daily), and the fixin's bar loads up cornbread, grits, and homemade sides alongside the fried catfish, shrimp, and Southern platters. Sunday's Blue Jeans Brunch (9a–2p) is the ritual — dress code exactly what it says.

A French sandwich counter squeezed into an alley off 14th Street between Washington and Collins, opened in 1988 and still run essentially the same way — you order at an outdoor window, sit on stools at a bar, and eat baguettes stuffed with saucisson, camembert, prosciutto, or brie dressed in the house Magic Sauce, a French vinaigrette the kitchen refuses to change. Cult status with tattoo-shop workers, bartenders, and line cooks getting off shift at 4a is not marketing copy — it is what the 22-hour operating window is built for.

Sunset dock. Hogfish you caught yourself.

Chef Jeff McInnis, John Kunkel, and Chris Romero opened the original Yardbird on Lenox Avenue in 2011, translating farm-country Southern cooking into a Miami Beach dining room and drawing a James Beard nomination and Bon Appétit's Best New Restaurant nod in short order. The kitchen is built around a skillet-fried chicken that is brined and rested for 27 hours before it hits the cast iron — served plain, or as chicken-and-watermelon-and-waffles, which is the room's actual signature. Sibling outposts have since opened in Las Vegas, Singapore, and beyond, but this is the flagship.

Old-Florida seafood market and no-frills restaurant — Captain Jimmy Hull opened the retail market in 1981, added a two-table take-out kitchen in 2004, and it grew from there. Still family-run (Capt. Hull's son-in-law Brian Cavenaugh manages it now), boat-to-table with Hull's own blue crab and commercial fishing vessels working the Halifax and Ponce Inlet since Jimmy got his captain's license at 18. Order at the counter — grouper Reuben (grilled or blackened, sauerkraut, Swiss, Thousand Island) is the signature, plus crab cakes, blue crab gumbo, buffalo shrimp, hush puppies, collard greens. Dine in or grab a whole fish from the market on your way out.

Barn-red plank shack on the edge of Big Cypress that Joan Griffith opened in 1987 — a onetime cattle barn and bulk-oil depot she and husband Carl bought off the Tamiami in 1976, then converted into what has become the definitive Everglades roadhouse. Screened porch built out over the sawgrass, tin roof, walls papered in postcards mailed back by pilgrims from every state, and a giant white-on-blue COLD BEER sign visible from a quarter mile out. Weekend afternoons a "back-road" regular like Raiford Starke, Pete Gallagher, or Mike Martin sets up in the corner with a guitar. Featured on Food Network and every Florida road-food list worth reading.

Seaside seafood shack on A1A a few miles south of downtown Flagler Beach — since 1947, one of the oldest continuously operating beach dives on Florida's Atlantic coast. Wild-caught seafood, southern-fried baskets, and organic options coexist on the menu; Coastal Living once named it one of America's great seafood dives. Crab cakes, flounder sandwiches, shrimp, scallops, and the spiced shrimp platter are the standing orders. Cold beer, casual patio, complimentary valet pulling off the A1A Scenic & Historic Coastal Byway. Closed Wednesdays and Thursdays — the schedule to remember.

Beachside seafood joint sitting directly on A1A across from the sand in downtown Flagler Beach — Tony and Carolyn Marlow took over a bankrupt sandwich shop in 1992 and named it after Tony's parents' pub in London. Three-plus decades in, it's still family-run (son Chris co-owns now) and the SBA once tagged it the #1 family-owned business in the Southeast. English-style fish 'n' chips is the flagship, served with a house key lime tartar sauce they've been mixing the same way for 25+ years. Fried calamari, lobster rolls, fresh catch tacos, oysters. Upper deck for the ocean view, live music after 5.

Roadside Latin taqueria right on US-27 at the north edge of Moore Haven — one of two active local spots on the 27 Run's west-of-Lake-Okeechobee stretch (paired with Olde 27 Coffee two blocks off). Combo plates run chicken flautas, steak/chicken/pastor quesadillas with rice, refried beans, and a drink. Small local operation — Facebook is where daily specials show up. Fourth of the "Cafe 27 → Flavors 27 → Olde 27 → Tacos 27" road-brand family the route picks up on the lake.

Family-run counter-serve on the Barron River — plywood tables, ceiling fans, string lights over the dock — where the fish and stone crab come off boats the owners run themselves. The signature Stone Crab Tacos are the reason most riders park here: claw meat with slaw on a soft flour tortilla, cash-price simple. Herbs and greens come from the on-site garden, and the kitchen refuses imported seafood or hormone-fed meat. Menu shifts with the catch, hours shift with the season, and December through March packs tight enough to wait an hour. The rest of the year the pace slows and the dock gets quiet.

Hogfish francese, ocean tables.

A working stone crab house on the Barron River where the boats tie up out back and the day's catch walks straight to the market case. Order at the window, grab a picnic table on the dock, and eat with manatees rolling in the river ten feet away. The market moves fresh stone crab claws, gator meat, frog legs, shrimp, and whole Gulf fish; the cafe fries what the market sells. Cash-and-cooler business at heart — no white tablecloths, no reservations — just the everyday economics of a fishing town that still fishes. The Friday-night Beach Bar is a locals ritual.

Casual open-air seafood spot on the Intracoastal at the north end of Seabreeze, a block south of where A1A crosses the 17th Street Causeway bridge — a raw plank deck built at boat level with slips for guests who arrive by hull rather than by A1A. The menu is straightforward American with Caribbean and Southern accents: coconut shrimp, conch-and-shrimp fritters, mahi tacos, lobster rolls, blackened grouper sandwiches. Dogs on leash are welcome on the deck. The kitchen is faster than the room looks; the wait for a waterfront table on a Sunday afternoon is not.

Family-owned farm winery on US-27 in Lake Placid, opened September 2021. Sweet and dry wines from local Florida fruits — including an avocado wine that's exactly the kind of only-in-Florida detail this route lives for. Tasting room, outdoor patio with live music and line dancing, plus craft beer flights, charcuterie, honey and jams. Pick any 5 wines with a souvenir glass.

The only Cuban kitchen for 40 miles in any direction, tucked on Chokoloskee Island a mile past the 1906 Smallwood Store where the pavement gives up. Started in 2003 by Cuban-born fisherman Carlos Valdez and his wife Dulce, who borrowed to buy the building in 2005; passed to David Ardelean and Aaron Tabor after the pandemic, who kept the recipes and added a handful of American plates. The Cuban sandwich, ropa vieja, and palomilla steak read like a Little Havana lineup dropped into mangrove country, and the Cuban coffee is ground fresh. Courtyard tables under strung lights and folk-art murals; the crowd is fishing guides, park rangers, and off-road riders passing through.

Ranch-country taqueria on Plaza Ave in downtown Lake Placid — the name fits: Highlands County is real Florida cattle country, and Cowboy Taco leans in with birria, short rib tacos, carnitas, and steak quesadilla alongside cross-cultural picks like Korean beef tacos and tuna ceviche tacos. 4.7 stars over 250+ reviews. In the Sav-A-Lot plaza next to Dunkin'.

Craft cocktail bar and scratch kitchen inside a restored 1927 ice factory on Riberia Street, sharing the building with St. Augustine Distillery. The industrial bones are intact — exposed brick, hand-crank steel windows, and the original overhead crane that once moved 300-pound ice blocks — and the bar program is built around house-pressed juices, hand-carved ice, and small-batch spirits (most from the distillery in the same building). The kitchen is farm-to-table with a short menu of burgers, local Mayport shrimp, and fish specials. Reservations recommended for the dining room on weekends; walk-ins hit the bar.

Lobster reuben on the marina.

Family-owned American + Mexican kitchen tucked into the Placid Lakes neighborhood off US-27 — a Jaramillo family operation. Oscar started the original in Sebring nine years back; this Lake Placid outpost, run by Maria and daughter Jackeline with Chef Chris Manoudakis (33 years in the kitchen), took over an old Italian deli space. Split hours worth knowing: breakfast-only Sun–Tue, full-service Wed–Sat. Loaded fajitas, Molcajete, and the American Sweetheart breakfast are the signatures.

St. Augustine outpost of the Columbia — Florida's oldest restaurant, founded 1905 in Tampa's Ybor City by Cuban immigrant Casimiro Hernandez Sr. and still fifth-generation family owned. This location sits on the corner of St. George and Hypolita in the historic district, styled with hand-painted tile, dark wood, and a Spanish interior courtyard. The kitchen holds to the original Spanish/Cuban menu: the "1905" Salad tossed tableside with garlic, oregano, Romano, and Lea & Perrins; paella "a la Valenciana" for two; arroz con pollo; the pressed Cuban sandwich; and white chocolate bread pudding. Open every day of the year.

Waterfront American joint on Lake Henry — 50 years running in Lake Placid's lake district on the Lake June Rd corridor (the road hits Lake June; the restaurant sits on Lake Henry, connected by canal — accessible by boat too). Burgers, sandwiches, seafood, and the signature Hookiemelt (chicken tenders grilled or fried, smothered in hot sauce, cheese, onion, and sour cream). Open every day 11a–10p. Paired with Dock 633 up the road as the two Lake June Rd waterfront stops on the 27 Run.

Beachfront tavern since 1979 — Perry Don Francisco's Boston-transplant bar across A1A from the Delray municipal beach, and South Florida's official home of the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, and Bruins. Downstairs is the original: Fenway posters, license plates, thirty-plus TVs, and a Monday Reggae Night that has run past twenty-five years. Upstairs, the old Upper Deck was rebranded 50 Ocean and turned upscale — Ipswich steamers, lobster bisque, grilled swordfish, and second-floor ocean views. The place has outlasted every trend on Ocean Boulevard because it never tried to be one.

American sports bar and grill at 633 Lake June Rd — outdoor seating, Lake June across the street, and the "dock" reference is more setting than swimming distance. Burgers, wings, tacos, seafood, and daily specials that swing from Korean ribs to smothered burritos. Live music, sports on the TVs, full bar with happy hour, kids menu. Later-close weekends (Fri–Sat til midnight); Sunday opens at 10a for brunch and closes at 8p. Paired with Jaxson's a third of a mile south as the two Lake June Rd stops on the 27 Run.

Opened Friday the 13th of August 1976 by Vin De Pasquale — over 200 people were waiting in line, in a Naples that was still a fishing village of 12,000. Vin ran it 43 years before handing the keys to family friends who refreshed the food and bar program without touching the bones. Open-air waterfront room on Crayton Cove — the historic Naples yacht basin where boats pull up at the dock and locals arrive on foot from Third Street two blocks away. Menu leans seafood-forward: raw bar, grouper sandwich, peel-and-eat shrimp, plus salads, ribs, and steak. Sister to Riverwalk down the road.

Working pharmacy and 82-seat soda-fountain luncheonette since 1938, when brothers Bob and Murray Green opened it on North County Road across from St. Edward Catholic Church. The Kennedys, who wintered at Joe Sr.'s estate a few blocks south, made it a Sunday ritual — Mass at St. Edward's, then burgers and cokes across the street. Murray Green remembered a young JFK as "a hell of a nice kid who'd hang out around the drugstore drinking Cokes and reading our magazines." Still family-run, still filling prescriptions on one side and slinging milkshakes on the other. Bar-height counter stools, formica, generous portions, and by Palm Beach standards, the cheapest tab on the island.

Chef Daniel Boulud's Palm Beach flagship inside the historic 1926 Brazilian Court Hotel, opened 2003 and holding four stars in the Forbes Travel Guide plus Wine Spectator's Best of Award of Excellence. Steps from Worth Avenue and the beach, with a French-American menu inspired by Boulud's family heritage and his lifelong culinary muses — with a distinct South Florida flair and a focus on seasonal local seafood and produce. Indoor room, outdoor courtyard terrace, and a cocktail bar; breakfast, lunch, dinner, weekend brunch, and afternoon tea all on the schedule.

Fernandina icon working out of a 1972 Exxon station on the corner of Beech and 8th — grease bays became grill lines when Ray "Big Ray" Mullis and his son T-Ray flipped the family service station into a diner in 1998. Concrete floors, garage-door windows still rolling up in good weather, breakfast crowd of shrimpers and contractors packed in by 7a. Hand-patted burgers from fresh chuck, Southern breakfast plates, and daily blackboard specials. Named one of USA Today's 51 Best Burger Joints in the country. Cash-friendly, no pretension, line out the door on weekends — get there early or wait.

Chef Clay Conley's Palm Beach flagship, opened late January 2011 with partners Sam Slattery and Piper Quinn. Conley — formerly executive chef at Azul in the Mandarin Oriental Miami and culinary director for Todd English's 18-restaurant empire — brought a small-plates, wood-fired, come-as-you-are ethos to an island that had been mostly white-tablecloth. A five-time James Beard "Best Chef South" nominee, Conley is widely credited with breaking Palm Beach dining open; local press routinely call Buccan the toughest reservation on the island in season. The dining room is compact and loud in the good way, with an open kitchen along the back wall.

Classic American diner on US-27 at the south edge of Sebring — breakfast served all day, generous portions, and the milkshakes reviewers keep coming back for. Local + tourist favorite, and a natural food anchor of the Sebring cluster.

Waterfront seafood joint on the Marco River — 40 years running, opened 1985 by the Ballo brothers in a former bait-and-tackle shop on Bald Eagle Drive. Named for the game fish that runs the river channel out front. Two rooms: a shaded indoor dining side and the Chickee Bar, a 35-foot thatched-roof tiki that's the largest in southwest Florida, with live music daily and a stage under the palms. Boats pull up to the dock, dolphins work the channel, and the sun sets straight down the Marco River from the deck. Menu is grouper-forward — the grouper sandwich is the signature and has been for decades.

Open-air neighborhood bistro on North Ridgewood in downtown Sebring — under Tiffany and Bob, leaning locally-sourced. Lunch runs flatbreads and Black Angus burgers; dinner is tapas, charcuterie, fresh seafood, and steak. Real beer program, patio-forward. A natural post-race dinner from Sebring International Raceway.

Opened in 2004 by two Jupiter surfers as a modest sandwich shack on the Intracoastal, Guanabanas grew into a fully open-air Florida landmark, reworked in a 2008 renovation that added a proper kitchen without touching the atmosphere. Chickee huts hand-built in the Seminole and Miccosukee tradition sit under a canopy of banyan trees, with coquina-stone pathways underfoot and boats tying up at the dock behind the bar. Fresh Florida seafood — wild shrimp, mahi, blue crab, seasonal spiny lobster — comes out of a scratch kitchen, with live music most nights and a happy hour that runs weekdays 3p–6p.

Tuna nachos. Trust the chef.

Roosters. Key lime pie. The end.

Built in 1941 by Waldo Sexton — the same Vero pioneer behind the Driftwood Inn and McKee Jungle Gardens — on a sand dune 200 yards from the Atlantic, and run by the Replogle family since 1965 into a third generation at the door. The interior is Sexton's signature magpie style: pecky cypress and mahogany rescued from Florida sawmills, wrought iron, stained glass, and Spanish antiques hung wherever there's a wall, with the ocean crashing straight below the dining room windows. The menu holds to the mid-century supper-club script — she-crab soup, prime rib, roast duck with orange sauce, jumbo lump crab cakes, Indian River pompano.

Old-school Central Florida barbecue on the former Dixie Highway, the kind of smokehouse that gives the ridge-road run its backbone.

A canal-side fish-camp restaurant and old Florida detour east of Lake Wales, built for riders who like the long way.

Small-town Fellsmere cooking near the east end of the SR 60 run, with enough local texture to beat a generic highway exit.

A Vero Beach oceanfront institution for giving the Atlantic end of the route a proper meal instead of just a turnaround.

A Cross Creek old-Florida restaurant tied to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings country, giving the springs run a proper final meal.