Guides · Cedar Key, Florida
A Weekend in Cedar Key: What to See, Eat and Do
Cedar Key is not a resort that happens to be old; it is a town that happened to be big, and the arithmetic of that loss is written in its streets.
The Shape of the Place
The census says 756 people live here. The median age is 68.4. There are 819 housing units and 450 of them sit vacant. That is not neglect; that is a town built for a season that ended, and the houses are simply waiting for the people who own them but do not come.
What you see when you arrive is the survivor version of a place that once ran seventeen sawmills and cut nearly half a million board feet of red cedar a week. That was 1886. The wood went into pencils. Eberhard Faber opened its mill in 1865, and the Eagle Pencil Company worked the same trade until the 1896 hurricane and fire put both of them out of business within a year or two of each other. The town never went back to what it was. It got smaller instead, and that smaller version is what you are here to see.
Where to Stay
You will want to be on the water, or at least near it. Cedar Key Harbour Master Suites sits on Dock Street with a 4.7 rating from 401 reviews, the highest score in this group. Island Hotel & Restaurant on 2nd Street is the older bones of the place, rated 4.6 from 579 reviews, and it will put you in the middle of everything. Park Place in Cedar Key is also on 2nd Street, 4.5 from 277 reviews, and smaller in scale.
If you are less interested in charm and more in a bed, Cedar Cove Hotel shares an address with the park and runs 4.4 from 332 reviews. Cedar Inn Motel is the budget end, rated 4.0 from 312 reviews, also on 2nd Street. For a longer stay or something with wheels, Sunset Isle RV Resort is out on FL-24, rated 4.2 from 273 reviews. The town is walkable; the peninsula is not.
Book early. The place fills in October, and it fills with people who know exactly why they are here.
What to Do Before You Eat
Start at Lil Shark Park, 192 2nd Street, rated 4.6 from 966 reviews. It is not a theme park. It is a park, a nature park, and it is the best free thing you will do all weekend. The playground is a distraction for children; the real draw is the view of the Gulf and the salt air that does not let you forget where you are.
Then drive out to Cedar Key Museum State Park, at 12231 SW 166th Court, rated 4.2 from 560 reviews. This is where the history gets specific. The museum does the work of explaining what happened here, but the island itself—Atsena Otie Key, visible from the shore—is the primary document. In the Creek language, Atsena Otie means "cedar island," and that one island gave the whole group of keys its name. Augustus Steele bought the military structures there in 1843 for $227, along with title to its 167 acres. That was the nucleus of the first organised settlement in the Cedar Keys. More than thirty-five houses on the high ground survived the 1896 storm surge that locals still call the tidal wave.
You cannot walk there now unless it is October, during the Seafood Festival. But you can stand on the mainland and look at it.
If you want to see where the pencils were actually made, walk to the corner of 3rd and G Streets on Way Key. That was the Eagle Pencil Company site, where cedar slats and pencil boxes were cut. There is nothing much left to see. That is the point.
Where to Eat
The food here is about one thing, mostly, and that thing is Gulf seafood. You will not need a reservation at most places, but you will need to time your meals around the crowds.
Steamers, at 434 2nd Street, is the big one: 4.5 from 4,362 reviews. That is a lot of people who have eaten there and told their friends. The same building houses 2nd Street Cafe, rated 4.6 from 901 reviews, which is the breakfast move. Same address, different room, same street. You can do worse than starting your day there and ending it at the other end of the block.
Tony's Restaurant, 597 2nd Street, is the seafood counterweight, rated 4.5 from 1,226 reviews. 83 West & 29 North at 83 West on Dock Street is the slightly more adventurous option, rated 4.3 from 1,175 reviews, and it puts you across from the marina. Cedar Key Pizza And Subs, at 598 2nd Street and D Street, is rated 4.5 from 365 reviews and is exactly what it sounds like, which is sometimes the right call after a day in the salt.
For the raw material itself, go to Robinson Seafood Market, 6991 FL-24, rated 4.4 from 720 reviews. It is a working fish market, not a restaurant. You buy what came off the boat, and you cook it yourself or you do not. That is the honest version of this town's economy.
The Festival That Matters
The Cedar Key Seafood Festival, run by the Lions Club each October, is the one weekend when the town remembers it used to be a crowd. More than 100 arts and crafts exhibits, live music, a Saturday parade at 11am, and the usual suspects: clam chowder, oysters, smoked mullet dip. It is also the rare chance to reach Seahorse Key, a historic island three miles out that is otherwise closed to the public. The festival boats run out there, and if you have ever wanted to see a place you are not normally allowed to stand on, this is your window.
That is the whole trick of Cedar Key. Most of the time, the history is something you look at from a distance. The island you can see but cannot visit. The pencil factory site where nothing remains. The mill town that outlived its mills and then shrank until it fit the land again.
The Numbers That Explain It
Forty-nine point seven percent of residents have a bachelor's degree or higher. The unemployment rate is 4.2 percent. Median household income is $69,226. Median home value is $331,100. Median gross rent is $918, which is low for Florida and makes you wonder what the catch is.
The catch is the vacancy rate. Of the 819 housing units, 269 are held for seasonal or recreational use. That is nearly a third of the town, empty most of the year. The median age—68.4—tells you the rest. This is a place where people come to end things, not to start them. That is not a criticism. It is a fact, and it is woven into the way the town moves.
You will notice the pace. It is not slow in the way that beach towns are slow, with the sun and the sand. It is slow in the way that places are slow when they know exactly what happened to them and have decided to stop pretending it didn't.
The Weekend, Assembled
Day one: arrive, check in, walk to Steamers or Tony's for dinner. Day two: breakfast at 2nd Street Cafe, then Lil Shark Park in the morning, the museum in the afternoon, and dinner at 83 West & 29 North if you want something that does not feel like every other Gulf town. Day three: buy what you are taking home from Robinson Seafood Market, and stand on the shore for ten minutes looking at Atsena Otie Key before you drive back over the bridge.
If you are here in October, you already know what to do. You are here for the festival, the parade, and the boat to Seahorse Key. The rest is just filling the hours in between.
Cedar Key is not quaint. It is not sleepy. It is a town that was built for a world that ran on pencils and cedar, and when that world ended, the town did not end with it. It just got quieter, and smaller, and more precise about what it had left. That is what you are here for. That precision. That memory of a thing that made the world write, and the storm that stopped it.
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