Top 16+ best Old Florida-style restaurants worth the road trip include 2 on Treasure Coast

Get a taste of Old Florida when traveling across the Sunshine State.

USA Today Network-Florida's dining and entertainment team recently put together a list of 16 restaurants from across the state where the food and the atmosphere is Old Florida.

Fried shrimp dinner with coleslaw and apple sauce at Marsh Landing Restaurant.

Two of those restaurants are on the Treasure Coast: Marsh Landing in Fellsmere and Waldo’s Restaurant & Bar in Vero Beach.

Here's why they made the list, along with 14 other Old Florida restaurants worth the road trip.

Marsh Landing, Fellsmere

Marsh Landing Restaurant in Fellsmere is where sweet tea is served in a mason jar and each table is dressed with a bottle of hot pepper vinegar. On Thursdays, they push to the side some of their tables, covered in newspaper clippings from the Fellsmere Farmer and Fellsmere Tribune, for live bluegrass music.

Its building was constructed in 1926 for the Fellsmere Estates Corp. and was at one time home to the Florida Crystal Sugar Co. Mother-daughter team Fran and Susan Adams opened the restaurant in 2002. The walls are decorated with agrarian tools, taxidermy mounts and historical news articles from the early days of Fellsmere.

Don't miss the amusing bathrooms signs.

It serves true native Old Florida cuisine, such as frog legs, gator tail, catfish and swamp cabbage. When it's available, swamp cabbage is made from the edible core of a cabbage palm tree and cooked until tender. Try the fried green tomato BLT for lunch and fried shrimp with coleslaw and collard greens for dinner. Save room for the peanut butter pie for dessert.

Waldo's Restaurant & Bar

Waldo’s Restaurant & Bar, inside The Historic Driftwood Resort, is one of Vero Beach pioneer Waldo Sexton’s historic landmarks. Sexton first came to Vero Beach in the 1920s and started building the Driftwood Inn out of the timbers of a dairy barn destroyed in a storm.

Finished in 1935, it was supposed to be a family beach house. However, after many requests for rooms because of limited hotel options in the area, it expanded with an oceanfront restaurant and bar. It has indoor and outdoor seating with a guest-only pool in the middle, live music on the weekends and a wooden deck that sits on the beach.

Its beachside munchies include Key West conch fritters and Breconshire nachos, named after the nearby shipwreck. Its menu features seafood and steak, as well as its world-famous chicken wings and signature chicken salad. It also has an extensive list of wines, martinis, cocktails, frozen drinks and beer.

Old Florida restaurants outside Treasure Coast

  • Cabbage Key Bar and Restaurant, Fort Myers
  • Captain Dave's on the Gulf, Destin
  • Gator Joe's Beach Bar & Grill, Ocklawaha
  • J.R.'s Old Packinghouse Cafe, Sarasota
  • Linger Lodge, Bradenton
  • Okeechobee Steakhouse, West Palm Beach
  • The Old Fish House Bar and Grill, Grant-Valkaria
  • The Point Restaurant, Perdido Key
  • Reececliff Family Diner, Lakeland
  • Shell Oyster Bar, Tallahassee
  • Singleton's Seafood Shack, Mayport
  • Skipper's Smokehouse, Tampa
  • The Snook Inn, Marco Island
  • Swamp House Riverfront Grill, DeBary

Laurie K. Blandford is TCPalm's entertainment reporter dedicated to finding the best things to do on the Treasure Coast. Email her at [email protected]. Sign up for her What To Do in 772 weekly newsletter at profile.tcpalm.com/newsletters/manage.

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