Robbie's of Islamorada

The tradition of tarpon feeding at Robbie's began, as the story goes, with a single injured fish. An ailing tarpon was nursed back to health at the marina, and once recovered it kept returning, joined over time by others, until a whole school made the docks their regular gathering place. From that beginning grew the famous feeding that draws visitors today.

Over the years the marina became a Keys institution, adding the market, the restaurant, and the water-tour operations while keeping the tarpon at its heart. It is the kind of place that grew organically rather than by design, which is much of its charm, an easygoing tangle of docks and stalls with the fish always waiting below.

The tarpon is a magnificent fish, silver-sided and armored in large scales, prized by anglers for its size and its acrobatic fight. The fish that gather at Robbie's are fully wild, able to come and go as they please, drawn by the reliable feeding, and seeing them mass in the clear water is a genuine wildlife encounter rather than an aquarium exhibit.

Feeding them by hand is a lively business. The fish lunge and roll at the surface, water splashing, while brown pelicans crowd the dock hoping to steal a bait fish and the occasional nurse shark or ray drifts through below. It is a little chaotic and a lot of fun, and it leaves visitors with a vivid, close-up sense of these great fish.

Away from the feeding dock, Robbie's spreads into an open-air market of stalls selling the work of local artists and craftspeople, from jewelry and art to Keys souvenirs, alongside a waterfront restaurant serving fresh seafood. It has the relaxed, browse-and-linger feel of a good waterfront market anywhere, with the bay always in view.

The marina is also a working gateway to the water. From here, visitors can join fishing charters into the famous flats and reefs of Islamorada, take boat tours to backcountry islands and sandbars, or rent kayaks to paddle the mangroves. That combination of a wildlife spectacle, a market, and easy access to the water is what makes it such a natural stop on a Keys trip.

Islamorada bills itself as the sport-fishing capital of the world, and for good reason: its position between the shallow backcountry flats of the bay and the deep water and reefs of the Atlantic puts an extraordinary variety of fish within reach. Anglers come from around the world to chase bonefish, tarpon, and permit on the flats, and sailfish and dolphin offshore.

The surrounding Keys offer far more than fishing, from the coral reefs and wrecks that draw snorkelers and divers to the quiet mangrove creeks made for paddling. Robbie's makes a fine base or a fine stop within all of that, a hub of the easygoing, water-centered life that defines Islamorada.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.