4 Best Restaurants in The Everglades, Florida

Gems from the sea are delivered fresh from the owners' boats to this rustic haven. Enjoy breakfast, lunch, or an early dinner outdoors to watch pelicans, gulls, tarpon, manatees, and the occasional gator play off the dock on the Barron River. Even better, you can chow down on sustainable stone crabs—medium, large, jumbo, and colossal, based on weight—with a clear conscience. After they remove the meaty claws, crabs are returned to the water so they can grow new ones. Brought a cooler with you? City Seafood wraps for the road (and ships, too). Gator and shark-tooth necklaces and cutesy crabby-style tanks, boxers, and tees await in the gift shop.

This quaint eatery is inside the farmers' market on the edge of town, and it's big on serving fresh vegetables and seafood. A family of anglers runs the place, so fish and shellfish are only hours from the ocean. Catering to farmers, the restaurant opens at 5:30 am serving fluffy pancakes and omelets with home fries or grits in a pleasant dining room. For lunch and dinner, you can choose from fried shrimp or conch, seafood pasta, country-fried steak, and roast turkey, as well as salads, burgers, and sandwiches.

West of the nation's tiniest post office, you'll find this red barn of a place dishing out catfish, frog legs, gator, grouper, burgers, salads, and (no surprise here) an abundance of soft-shell crabs and crab cakes. Entrées are reasonably priced, and peanut butter pie makes for a solid finish. Order an icy beer or wine by the glass, and eat out front or on the back patio—just keep an eye out for neighborhood gators. Joanie's schedule changes depending on the season, so call for hours of operation.

Along the Barron River, seafood houses, fishing boats, and crab traps populate one shoreline, while mangroves line the other. Some seafood houses added picnic tables and eventually grew into restaurants, like the family-owned Triad Seafood Market & Café. It's nothing fancy, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a better grouper sandwich. The fried green tomatoes are tasty, too. An all-you-can-eat fresh stone crab feast (when available from October 15 to May 15) is worth your time, especially for the jumbos. As a bonus, you can have your picture posted on Triad's Glutton Board. This casual spot has a screened dining area and additional outdoor seating under a breezeway and on a deck (heated in winter). Here you can savor fresh seafood at its finest or have it shipped to your home.