Cedar Key, little town, big fun

From Pencils to Pelicans, Seafood, Music and Art, Cedar Key has it all

Cedar Key is a town in the Cedar Keys; a group of islands on the west coast of Florida reached by driving west on SR 24 from Otter Creek off US 19. The road heads down to the Gulf and because the road is almost completely flat, boasts a sign at the location of the one hill warning drivers that the hill will block their view of the road ahead.

Cedar Key is another one of those end-of-the-road towns that are partly sleepy and partly a vibrant party town. It has had its share of ups and downs brought on by hurricanes, shifts in business interests and fisheries that boomed and busted.

Once you get close to town you begin to cross bridges and see houses perched on stilts sprinkled on the small islands on either side. Finally you get to Cedar Key itself. It is compact. Most of “downtown” fits into a grid between A and D streets and 1st, 2nd and 3rd streets. C Street is a one-way drive out onto Dock Street that wraps around the small in-town marina area for fishermen and local tour boats.

There is a fairly new, quite nice fishing pier and a batch of shops selling clothing, souvenirs and bait.

Dock Street has always been home to some really good eating. There is everything from the super casual Big Deck to the large upstairs room at Steamers with its impressive selection of craft beers. Seafood (fish, oysters, scallops, shrimp, clams) is available at a wide price point along Dock Street. And there are plenty of burgers and steaks. Do try the smoked fish dip and the hearts of palm salad. Most of the dock eateries have live entertainment so a dinner can easily turn into a night out and probably will. For a small town, there is a lot of live music and it ranges from mellow to rock.

Just a couple of blocks away downtown is the Island Room at Cedar Cove that reopened in April after being flooded out by the last two hurricanes. It is arguably the most upscale eatery in town featuring unusual offerings like lamb shank or duck confit.

And away from the water on 2nd Street, which is the town’s main street, you find the Island Hotel, Holey Moley and Tony’s. Tony’s serves huge portions and is famous for its prize-winning clam chowder that beat out all those Yankee chowder folks in a contest up in Rhode Island. Holey Moley has donuts and a bunch of delicious breakfast sandwiches.

The Island Hotel has no phones and no TVs but it is a real Old Florida throwback with rooms to rent and a restaurant. Founded in 1859 as a general store that later took in guests, the hotel has ten rooms with hand cut wooden floors and walls. There is a big porch on the second floor with rockers overlooking the street and a full hot breakfast is included in your stay.

The hotel is on the National Register of Historic Places and its history has followed that of the town including hurricanes, floods and fires. And yet it is still genteelly presiding over downtown. Bessie and “Gibby” Gibbs took over in 1949 and gave it its current name. Over the years the famous and infamous have stopped in to eat or belly up to the bar where Jimmy Buffet even gave the occasional impromptu concert. There is a marvelous detailed history on the hotel’s website.

On the way into town you pass Annie’s and the Oar House, two other nice places to grab a bite and enjoy the day.

Around town there are a few small cottage colonies remaining from days when most visitors were serious fishermen in for the week or the occasional couple looking for a romantic getaway. But most visitors now stay in vacation rental homes or one of the newer condo complexes that are scattered throughout town. People cruise around on golf carts and nice homes are tucked up next to small Cracker houses. There are three campground/RV parks nearby. There’s a lot of quirky yard art and more than a few boats on trailers parked under the shade trees.

Speaking of quirky, if you like that, you won’t be disappointed in this town. From the shops to the townies, local color and individuality are hard to miss and easy to enjoy.
Nearby shell mounds indicate a sizeable population of Native Americans dating back to 500 BC and various arrowheads and spear points found in the Cedar Keys date back to the paleo period 12,000 years ago.
The town was the terminus of the first Atlantic to the Gulf railroad and you will see official signs along the road from Otter Creek that point out long-gone train stops.

History is great but it’s all about the water here. Whether it’s commercial fishing, sport fishing, taking a boat tour of the islands or just kayaking around, most people do get to the water. If you aren’t on it, you can be over it at the public pier fishing or in it at the nicely maintained manmade beach with picnic pavilions.

And because there is so much coastline and estuary habitat, the concentration of wading and water birds is incredible. Giant flocks of ibis take off every morning around dawn for the serious business of finding eats. Herons, egrets, storks, pelicans, ducks and dozens of other bird groups join them. There is a healthy colony of roseate spoonbills, often hard to find in other locations, and birdwatchers will be happy here especially in the migratory season.

The town has walking trails, boardwalks out to parks, a history museum and a University of Florida research center. A local tour boat can drop you off on the beach at Atsena Otie; a nearby island now deserted that once held a factory to make Faber pencils out of the ubiquitous cedar trees.

Atsena Otie was a bustling place that was the site of the original town of Cedar Key. Earlier it was occupied by Paleo Indians, and then became a trading post. There was an army hospital there in the 1800s and this island is where the 1842 treaty was negotiated and signed that said if the Seminoles retreated to South Florida, the army would not follow them. That was the end of the Second Seminole War.

After that the island briefly became home to summer cottages and later was the site of a Civil war battle in 1862. Then the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company moved in. By the 1890s Faber was producing casings for a third of a million pencils. Over 50 families lived on the island. But the hurricane of 1896 ended that. The mill and most of the houses were destroyed.

Most people relocated to the mainland taking the wood from their houses and in the late 1940s the last wooden house on Atsena Otie was torn down for its lumber. Hurricane Easy in 1950 took down the other last remaining building.

Now the island is part of the Cedar Key Wildlife Refuge. The only remains of the past are bits of the mill’s foundation, an old water cistern and an eerie cemetery at the end of a long sand path leading to the middle of the island. The cemetery is kept tidied up and most of the headstones with their tender carvings are still standing though guarded by rapacious mosquitoes.

There is plenty to do.

For the locals, clams are now the top dogs in the seafood business. The claims about the clams in Cedar Key vary with some proclaiming that 95% of all farmed clams in the US come from the waters around this small town. Others make a more modest claim that 95% of all Florida clams come from Cedar Key. Any way you want to count it, with Cedar Key clam farming bringing in over $50 million a year, that’s a lot of clams.

The town didn’t start off in the clam business. It had a big oystering tradition paired up with fishing for mullet. Cedar Key oysters were famous and gave Apalachicola up in the panhandle a run for the money. But in 1991 the oyster beds were closed due to contamination by salmonella introduced from sewage in the Suwannee Sound. Eventually that was cleared up and the beds reopened only to collapse in 2012 from too much heat, too much salt in the water and a parasite, dermo. Now those beds are clean and producing again and the oysters are as tasty as ever.

As for the mullet, the town got hit hard when regulations banned gillnetting, the primary source of mullet production. That’s when the state came up with an alternative, farming clams. Now you will find steamers on the menu in most restaurants alongside the traditional fried oysters and smoked mullet dip.

The town boasts several art galleries and once a year the town is packed for the annual Cedar Key Arts Festival held the final weekend in March (unless that coincides with Easter). The dates for 2019 are March 30 & 31. 2018 was the 54th year for the festival officially renamed The Old Florida Celebration of the Arts in 2006. Out of hundreds of applicants only 120 are selected to take part so you can count on the quality being top notch. But if you want to stay in town overnight during the festival, make your reservations far in advance.

In addition to the annual art festival, there is a Pirate Invasion in late November and a Seafood Festival in October. The Cedar Key Chamber of Commerce website has all the information you need about restaurants, lodgings, boat rentals, tours and more.

Other than not being able to get a reservation for a busy weekend, the only real danger in Cedar Key is that if you come to visit, you may not want to leave.

Away From the World is one of several good restaurants and shops that line Dock Street in Cedar Key.

The fried oysters at the Big Deck are among the best in town. Service is casual, there is often live music and always a fun crowd.

Steamers in Cedar Key overlooks the water, has a long list of craft beers and all the seafood you might want.

The Island Hotel in Cedar Key is a little bit famous, a little bit infamous and a lot Old Florida.

Cedar Key, in addition to its well known yearly art festival in the spring has several working artists and galleries. All are worth a look.

Although there are some nice cottages and condos to rent, much of Cedar Key is full of working watermen (and women) and their yards are their showrooms and warehouses.

Just across the water from the town pier and Dock Street is Atsena Otie, a key that was once home to a pencil factory but now is part of a wildlife refuge. There are boat shuttles to take you over for a couple of hours or the day.

Dolphins will often come up behind speedboats and surf in the wake just inches off the stern.

Spanish moss adds a somber note to the old cemetery on Atsena Otie just a short paddle from Cedar Key.

The old cemetery on now-abandoned Atsena Otie across the water from Cedar Key reminds us that we will all be born and die and the chain of love will be broken but not forgotten.

Cedar Key

From Pencils to Pelicans, Seafood, Music and Art, Cedar Key has it all​

From Pencils to Pelicans, Seafood, Music and Art, Cedar Key has it all