MIAGuide
10 Restaurants Perfect For A Day Trip Outside Miami
Sometimes you need a vacation, but don’t feel like booking a plane ticket. Luckily Florida is an obnoxiously large state, with plenty of day trip options in case sleeping in your own bed is very important to you. If that’s the case, feel free to use some of these great restaurants as the excuse you so badly need to travel more than 10 miles from your couch.
All drive times are approximate, starting from Downtown Miami.
THE SPOTS
Drive Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes
We will happily travel far and wide for good barbecue—and West Palm Beach has a great little barbecue spot called Tropical Smokehouse. They’ve got classic things like brisket, baby back ribs, and burgers—but they also have some great Florida-specific dishes like smoked fish dip, gator sausage, and smoked cobia. They’ve got indoor seating, a patio, and they use crinkle-cut fries, which is a very underrated fry shape.
Drive Time: 45 minutes
Yet another reason to drive down to Homestead: the best key lime pies in the universe, which you’ll find at Sweet Delights Bakery. Here’s how a visit to Sweet Delights goes: you walk into a small storefront in Homestead and are greeted by baker/literal angel Debra Allen. After welcoming you, she conducts a brief interrogation about your pie interests, then returns with a big tray of pie samples. They have standard key lime, but they also have a selection of incredible fruit-infused key lime pies—like banana key lime, guava key lime, mamey key lime, and coconut key lime. There are about a dozen more options. Some, like the sweet potato key lime pie, require ordering three days in advance. But most of them are ready for you to take home in your trunk.
Drive Time: 45 minutes
Cap’s, which has been around since 1928, is Broward County’s oldest restaurant. The seafood spot is accessible only by boat, but they shuttle patrons to and from the dock continuously, so don’t worry if you don’t have a watercraft handy. Al Capone and Winston Churchill have both eaten here, which is pretty cool. They do a pretty famous hearts of palm salad and have plenty of other seafood dishes. But you don’t necessarily come here for the food. You come for the history, experience, and to potentially use the same butter knife as the guy who got the UK through WW2.
Drive Time: 1 hour and 30 minutes
City Seafood is a seafood spot on the west coast of Florida. You might be thinking, “Hey, we have seafood in Miami.” And you’re right. But it’s one of those old school seafood spots made almost entirely out of wood, the kind of place where you might actually see an alligator while eating an alligator. We don’t have a ton of those restaurants in Miami anymore. City Seafood also has a very impressive amount of delicious things that swim: conch fritters, alligator bites, shrimp, frog legs, oysters, and more. Plus, to get to this place, you have to drive by the Skunk Ape Headquarters, which is one of the best pit stops in South Florida.
photo credit: Cleveland Jennings
Drive Time: 45 minutes
For our money, Fort Lauderdale's Laspada’s makes the best Italian subs in South Florida. They have a few locations, but the best one is in South Florida’s most hyphenated town, Lauderdale-By-The-Sea. Because only there can you grab your sandwich (our order is a large Italian, no tomatoes, no mayo) and then take it down to Commercial Pier for a little beach picnic.
Drive Time: 1 hour
Florida dive bar connoisseurs will definitely appreciate Alabama Jack’s, a salty seafood spot that sits at the mouth of a causeway leading to Key Largo. The seafood is fried, the beer is cheap, and the threat of splinters is very real. There’s sometimes live music too. This place feels like if Mac’s had a baby with an alligator. That’s certainly worth an hour drive in our books.
Drive Time: 45 minutes
Knaus Berry Farm is nothing new to Miamians, who happily make the annual pilgrimage here to spend three hours in line for some seriously good cinnamon rolls and milkshakes. It’s still a worthwhile day trip whether you’re someone with the words “Cinnamon Rolls!” written on their calendar, or a first-timer to Knaus Berry. The Homestead farm and bakery sadly closes for the summer months and reopens November through April. If you’re not reading this in November through April, we’re sorry. Please don’t be mad at us.
Drive Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes
A trip to the Keys always sounds like a good idea, until you remember that Key West is like 23 hours away. Alright, not really, but it’s still a longer drive than we’d like it to be. Driving to Key Largo, however, is much more manageable. And one of our favorite places there is The Fish House, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. You come here to eat a lot of fish, maybe have some frozen drinks, and definitely eat pie. The dining room also has a bunch of string lights and puts you in a sort of tropical Christmas mood.
Drive Time: 45 minutes
With all due respect to Kelis, there is no milkshake that brings us to the yard quicker than the ones at Robert Is Here. This Homestead spot is a famous and essential stop on any drive to The Keys. It’s equal parts market, tiny zoo, and milkshake stand with a ton of very cool homemade sauces, jellies, and honey available as well. But you’ve also got to get a milkshake. Those are the rules.
Drive Time: 45 minutes
There are two locations of this excellent Mexican spot: Homestead and Florida City. While the Homestead location is larger (in case your day trip involves a big crew), the Florida City location is conveniently right down the street from Robert Is Here. Tacos are the main attraction here, but the alambres are why we’d gladly drain our gas tanks to eat here. The combination of carne asada, chorizo, bacon, onions, and peppers under a blanket of melted cheese can make you forget all about fuel prices. Scooped onto one of Morelia’s excellent corn or flour tortillas, it’s everything we love about fajitas, nachos, fondue, and loaded fries all rolled into one.
