Mermaids, Mallets and a Boat to Dinner: 30 of the Most Fun Places to Eat and Drink in Broward and Palm Beach

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• Great with kids
• Where the kids can play while you eat
• Both, depending on when you go
• Adults' night out
• Ones you may still see on older lists
• How to use this list
• Sources
• Frequently Asked Questions

Most restaurant lists are about the food. This one is about the part you tell people about afterward.

A restaurant you can only reach by boat. A bar where mermaids swim past the portholes. A bar top with live fish swimming inside it. A speakeasy you get into with a hotel key and a password. A dining room built out of bathtubs that washed up on Hollywood Beach. A sundae that arrives in an actual kitchen sink while a siren goes off.

These are thirty places across Broward and Palm Beach County where the experience is at least half the reason to go. They are sorted by who they work for, because that is where people get caught out: a few of these are completely different places depending on the day or the hour.

One standing note: restaurant hours, show times and prices change constantly, and several of these run ticketed shows on specific nights. Everything below is what each place currently publishes. Call before you go, especially if you are bringing kids.

Great with kids

Jaxson's Ice Cream Parlor and Restaurant

Dania Beach

The red-and-white striped landmark on Federal Highway turns 70 this year. Monroe Udell opened it in 1956, and his daughter Linda Udell Zakheim runs it now.

The walls are covered in decades of donated license plates and antiques under Tiffany lamps, and the whole place is built around one moment. The Original Kitchen Sink is a sundae served in an actual sink, roughly a pound of ice cream per person, and just before it reaches your table the staff light a sparkler and sound the Jaxson's siren. Everyone in the room turns around. That is the point.

All 50-plus ice cream flavors, the toppings and even the soda fountain syrups are made on site daily. There is a full menu of burgers, hot dogs and deli sandwiches, a kids menu, and a country store full of penny candy on the way out.

The detail that matters: the Kitchen Sink is built for parties of four or more.

Details: 128 S. Federal Highway, Dania Beach. 954-923-4445. Sunday through Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday and Saturday to midnight. Free on-site parking, though the lot fills at peak times. Nights and weekends are busy; weekdays and earlier hours are easier.

The Jungle Queen Riverboat

Fort Lauderdale

Sailing the New River since 1935. The Island Dinner and Show cruise is a narrated trip through the "Venice of America" and past the mansions and megayachts of Millionaire's Row to the company's private island.

Dinner there is all-you-can-eat barbecue: baby back ribs, chicken tenders, baked beans, waffle fries, coleslaw and cornbread, with live entertainment. Afterward the island hosts "Ignite the Night," a Polynesian show with hula dancers, fire eaters and drummers. Then you cruise back in the dark.

There is also a shorter 90-minute sightseeing cruise if dinner is more than you want.

Details: Departs Bahia Mar Yachting Center, 801 Seabreeze Blvd, Fort Lauderdale. 954-462-5596. The dinner cruise leaves in the early evening and runs about four hours. Book ahead.

15th Street Fisheries

Fort Lauderdale

A seafood restaurant inside historic Lauderdale Marina, and the reason most kids remember it is the tarpon. Giant tarpon gather under the docks, and feeding them straight off the dock is one of the best-known small attractions in Fort Lauderdale.

It is really two restaurants. Upstairs is the more refined dining room, where reservations are recommended. Fisheries Dockside downstairs is casual, right on the water, walk-ins only, with live music Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The water taxi stops here hourly.

Order this: the tomato-based Bahamian conch chowder.

Details: 1900 SE 15th Street, Fort Lauderdale. 954-763-2777. Dockside seating is first come and limited to parties of 12. Free valet or self parking. Arriving by boat, free dockage is available for restaurant customers with vessels from 25 to 100 feet.

Rustic Inn Crabhouse

Fort Lauderdale

A Broward landmark since 1955 that started as a roadhouse saloon. You sit at a newspaper-covered table, put on a bib, and smash garlic crabs open with a wooden mallet. The restaurant says it serves more than 161 tons of crab a year.

It is loud, it is messy, and it is supposed to be. If it is somebody's birthday, the whole room bangs their mallets on the tables.

Ask for the dock, which sits on the Dania Cutoff Canal a few minutes from the airport.

Details: 4331 Anglers Avenue, historically Ravenswood Road, Fort Lauderdale. 954-584-1637. Stone crab is seasonal and only on the menu from mid-October through mid-May. Arrive early for outdoor seating.

Benny's on the Beach

Lake Worth Beach

Not beside the beach. On the pier. Benny's has sat on the historic Lake Worth Beach Pier since 1986, with the Atlantic under your table.

It is best known for breakfast, which starts at 7 a.m. every day: the Nutty Almond French toast, the Stuffed Red Raspberry French toast and oversized omelets. Lunch and dinner lean seafood. There is upstairs indoor seating and outdoor tables on the pier itself.

Details: 10 S. Ocean Blvd, Lake Worth Beach. 561-582-9001. Opens at 7 a.m. daily. Closing times vary by night, so check before a late visit.

Rainforest Cafe

Sunrise

The one on this list your kids will ask for by name. An indoor rainforest inside Sawgrass Mills, with waterfalls, simulated tropical rainstorms, and animatronic elephants and gorillas that come to life periodically through the meal. The Volcano dessert is the finale.

Worth knowing: some recent reviewers say the animatronics and decor are showing their age. For younger kids it still delivers.

Details: Inside Sawgrass Mills, 12801 W. Sunrise Blvd, Sunrise, in the West End area of the mall. Reservations available.

Cap's Place Island Restaurant

Lighthouse Point

The only restaurant in Broward you have to take a boat to get to. You park, board the restaurant's own launch, and a five-minute ride later you are at a 1920s rum-running speakeasy.

It opened in 1928 as Club Unique, built by Eugene "Cap" Knight and Al Hasis out of Dade County pine on top of a beached dredging barge. It was a casino and speakeasy during Prohibition. Today it is recognized as Broward County's oldest restaurant and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1990. The captain gives a short history on the way over, and the bar walls are lined with photographs from those years.

The fun detail: it is not actually on an island. It sits at the tip of a residential peninsula between Lake Placid and the Intracoastal. You still cannot drive there.

The menu is local fish, native seafood, steaks and a hearts of palm salad the place has served for decades. Save room for the key lime pie.

Details: 2765 NE 28th Court, Lighthouse Point. Catch the launch at the designated dock next to Lighthouse Point Yacht Basin and Marina. 954-941-0418. Dinner only, from 5:30 p.m. Published operating days differ between sources, so call to confirm. Reservations recommended. One reviewer's tip: if you want a quiet table, ask when you arrive.

Old Key Lime House

Lantana

Bright lime green with pink and blue shutters, and hard to miss. Southern Living recognizes it as the oldest waterfront restaurant in Florida.

The precise version: the building went up in 1889 as the family home of the pioneering Lyman family, who sold fish and oysters decades before Lantana was incorporated. It has been a restaurant since 1989. The house is a maze of archival photographs and memorabilia, and if you keep walking you come out at what is described as the largest tiki bar in South Florida, an authentic Seminole chickee hut on the Intracoastal.

The detail that matters: tables have a two-hour time limit.

Details: 300 E. Ocean Ave, Lantana. 561-582-1889. Open daily from 11 a.m. Valet parking. Boat access. Order the key lime pie.

Where the kids can play while you eat

The holy grail of eating out with small children: somewhere they can run while you actually finish your food. These six have a real play element built in, verified against each venue rather than a roundup. One more, 15th Street Fisheries, where kids feed giant tarpon off the dock, is listed above.

The Burger Shack at Lighthouse Cove

Jupiter

The most complete version of this idea on the list. An open-air pavilion restaurant with an attached, enclosed playground, cornhole and big screens, sitting inside Lighthouse Cove, a 36-hole mini golf complex themed as a tropical fishing village with boats, waterfalls and caves. There is an ice cream shop, 3 Scoops, on site with 24 flavors.

The Lighthouse Cove app lets you order drinks and ice cream from anywhere on the mini golf course and have them delivered to you.

The detail that matters: only some tables overlook the playground, so ask for one if that is the point.

Details: 617 N. A1A, Jupiter, at the entrance to DuBois Park. Pair it with DuBois Park next door, a shallow beach park that is popular with families with little kids.

The Park

West Palm Beach

A public golf course that is genuinely built for families, not just tolerant of them. Alongside the championship course there is a two-acre golf area just for kids, an 18-hole putting course, and the Lit 9, a lighted nine-hole par 3 course that takes walk-ups only, with no tee times, until 9 p.m.

Two places to eat: The House Kitchen and Bar, with views of the course, and The Cabana, an outdoor spot for lighter food and drinks. Palm Beach County's tourism office describes The Cabana as sitting beside a turf lawn where kids run around, and reports movie nights on the lawn.

Details: 7301 Georgia Avenue, West Palm Beach. 561-530-3810. Lit 9 open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. The tourism office lists The Cabana as open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Check the events page for movie nights.

CityPlace

West Palm Beach

Not one restaurant but a whole district of more than 60 shops and restaurants, built around one of the best free splash features in the county.

The name, first: if you know it as The Square or Rosemary Square, it officially went back to CityPlace in 2024, and some guides still use the older names.

At the center is the Water Pavilion, a 1,400-square-foot interactive fountain by Danish artist Jeppe Hein. Two intersecting rings of water rise and fall, forming curtains that briefly create little "rooms." Kids run in and out, trying to time it so they stay dry. A separate show fountain runs timed displays choreographed to music.

Details: 700 S. Rosemary Avenue, West Palm Beach. Free to enter. Pack a towel and a change of clothes, then pick a restaurant within sight of the fountain.

The Wharf Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale

A sprawling open-air venue on the New River at the west end of Las Olas, with turf lawns, lawn games like cornhole, communal tables under shaded tents, several bars and a rotating lineup of local food vendors. There is dockage if you arrive by boat.

The rule that matters, and it is a firm one: children are welcome with a parent or guardian before sundown. After sundown the venue is strictly 21 and over. Leashed dogs follow the same before-sundown rule.

So this is an afternoon spot for families, not a dinner one.

Details: 20 W. Las Olas Blvd, Fort Lauderdale. Open Thursday through Sunday. The venue asks for proper attire. Parking at the One Parking Garage a block away, on the street, or valet out front.

Sullivan Park and The Cove

Deerfield Beach

A park rather than a restaurant, but it earns a place here because the combination works so well. Sullivan Park has a 2,200-square-foot splash pad and two shaded playgrounds split by age, on the Intracoastal, and a waterfront promenade connects it straight to The Cove shopping center, so you can walk over for lunch once the kids are worn out. Check what is open there before you go.

The free boat shuttle to Deerfield Island Park also leaves from this dock, Friday through Sunday.

Details: 1633 Riverview Road, Deerfield Beach. Splash pad currently Monday through Friday sunrise to sunset, weekends sunrise to 4 p.m. The city notes it is not guaranteed during facility rentals and sometimes goes down for maintenance. Parking is free for up to four hours, but register your plate at the kiosk.

Puttshack

Dania Beach

The rainy-day answer. Indoors, air conditioned, with four nine-hole mini golf courses that score themselves using built-in ball tracking, plus a full restaurant and bars.

Afternoons skew toward families; later it turns into a night out. Junior tickets for ages 12 and under are bought online, and there is an All You Can Putt deal Sunday through Friday.

Details: 1825 Way Pointe Place, Dania Beach, inside Dania Pointe. 954-758-7888. Free parking.

Both, depending on when you go

This is the section where people get caught out. Every place here works for families and for adults, but not at the same time.

The Wreck Bar

Fort Lauderdale

Built in the 1950s as the Yankee Clipper, the hotel now called B Ocean Resort was designed to look like a large ship. Inside, the Wreck Bar is designed to resemble the interior of a shipwrecked Spanish galleon, and behind the bar, large portholes look directly into the hotel pool. Live mermaids swim past them.

Get the day right, because it changes completely.

• Sunday, all ages: the Mermaids and Mimosas Brunch, with a meet and greet at 11 a.m. and a Pirate and Mermaid Show at 11:30 a.m. This is the family version.
• Friday: the Sirens of Glamour show in the evening.
• Saturday, 21 and over only: "Mermaids After Dark," a burlesque show.

The venue is 21 and over after 9 p.m. regardless of the night.

Details: Inside B Ocean Resort, Fort Lauderdale Beach. Private events and groups, 954-245-3853. Shows are ticketed and seats fill, so book ahead. An automatic 18 percent gratuity applies to all checks. Mermaid appearances are weather permitting.

The Mai-Kai

Oakland Park

The return of a legend. Brothers Bob and Jack Thornton opened the Mai-Kai in 1956, and it became one of the country's great Polynesian restaurants. It closed in 2020 after water damage and a roof collapse, sat dark for four years, and reopened in November 2024 after a renovation estimated at more than $20 million. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

You arrive past a 20-foot replica of a volcanic caldera with lighting effects simulating bubbling lava. There are eight themed dining rooms.

Two ways to do it:

• The Polynesian Islander Revue is billed as the longest-running show of its kind on the U.S. mainland, with music, dance and fire performances. It requires a dinner purchase and a reservation.
• The bars need neither. The outdoor Bora Bora Bar and indoor Molokai Bar have no reservations and no minimums, and most signature cocktails are half price from 4 to 7 p.m. every day. Then walk the gardens.

Details: 3599 N. Federal Highway, Oakland Park, between Commercial and Oakland Park boulevards. Reserve the show through maikai.com.

Le Tub

Hollywood

A former Sunoco gas station on the Intracoastal, built out of antique clawfoot bathtubs, driftwood and shells that washed up on Hollywood Beach. It opened in 1975 and the burger recipe has not changed since.

That burger is the reason people wait. It is 13 ounces, char-grilled, on a Kaiser roll. GQ named it America's best burger in 2006, and Oprah followed.

Details: 1100 N. Ocean Drive, Hollywood. 954-921-9425. Open daily from 11 a.m. until midnight, and until 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Parking is limited and the wait for outdoor seats can be long. An 18 percent service fee applies to parties of five or more. Daytime is family friendly; it gets more bar-like at night.

Margaritaville Restaurant

Hollywood

Jimmy Buffett's world, on Hollywood Beach. The Cheeseburger in Paradise, a long margarita list and ocean views. There is live music daily, and every Wednesday from 8 to 11 p.m. you can sing karaoke with a live band.

Details: At Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort. Restaurant validation covers reduced-rate valet for up to three hours. Military and first responders get 15 percent off food and beverage with ID.

Seafood Bar at The Breakers

Palm Beach

The bar top is an aquarium. Live fish swim underneath your drink while the Atlantic breaks outside the windows. It is inside The Breakers, one of the grandest hotels in Florida, and the dining room carries a yachting theme with more aquariums built into the decor.

You do not need to be a hotel guest. Sit at the aquarium bar for a cocktail even if you eat elsewhere.

Order this: the banana cream pie, which is famously large, or the blue crab nachos.

The detail that matters: reservations are not accepted, so go at an off-peak hour. It fills up on Friday and Saturday nights. Children are welcome when accompanied by an adult. Daytime dress is resort chic; evenings lean polished and elegant.

Details: The Breakers, 1 S. County Road, Palm Beach. 561-655-6611. Open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and until 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, with food service ending at 10 p.m.

Emily's Garden

Fort Lauderdale

A restaurant set in the garden of a 1920s Las Olas estate, tucked on a side street in the Himmarshee district a short walk from the Riverwalk and the Broward Center. Palms, twinkling lights, indoor rooms where no two tables have matching chairs, and a menu that changes with the hour.

What makes it fun is the cast of characters in the garden. Mornings, On The Run Coffee Bar parks in the garden serving coffee, loose teas and pastries. It was founded by Bertha Hurtado, originally from Lima, Peru, who worked as a forensic anthropologist before going into coffee, and it bills itself as the first fully electric mobile coffee bar in Florida. In the afternoon, Roman-style pizza comes out of an oven built into a Piaggio Ape, the tiny three-wheeled Italian truck. Evenings shift to steak, seafood and wine.

There is a garden juice bar by day, weekend brunch with a DJ, and monthly events that have included Wild Bloom Poetry Night, garden yoga and open-air farmers markets.

Details: 327 SW 2nd Street, Fort Lauderdale. 954-955-9582. Sunday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 8 a.m. to midnight. Happy hour weekdays 4 to 6 p.m. The patio is dog friendly. City parking behind the building. Reservations online.

The Guitar Hotel at Seminole Hard Rock

Hollywood

A 450-foot hotel shaped like two guitars standing back to back, billed by the resort as the world's first and only Guitar Hotel. It opened in 2019 as the centerpiece of a $1.5 billion expansion of the Seminole Hard Rock, which is owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida and is the flagship of Hard Rock International.

Plan dinner around the light show. Every night, the LEDs built into every side of the building run a show choreographed to music, while six high-powered beams shoot at least 20,000 feet into the sky to mimic the strings of a guitar neck. The newest show as of early 2026, "Our Legacy in Lights and Music," runs through two decades of hits. It plays on the outside of the building, so you watch it from the grounds.

Arrive through the Guitar Hotel valet entrance and there is a second show indoors: the Oculus, a floor-to-ceiling display of water, light and projections set to music.

The resort has a long list of restaurants, so eat wherever suits your group and time it to finish before the show.

The detail that matters: the casino floor has age limits, so with kids, stick to the restaurants, the grounds and the shows.

Details: 1 Seminole Way, Hollywood. As of early 2026, the resort listed the light show Sunday through Thursday at 7 p.m., and Fridays and Saturdays at 7 and 7:30 p.m. Show times can shift with the season and special events, so check the resort's entertainment page before you go.

Square Grouper Tiki Bar

Jupiter

An open-air tiki bar at the end of Love Street with front-row views of the Jupiter Inlet and the Jupiter Lighthouse. It officially opened on Super Bowl Sunday in 2003, and Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett filmed the "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" video here.

Live music six nights a week, and Palm Beach County's tourism office describes its crowd as spanning all ages. It is an open-air marina bar, so bring the kids early rather than late.

Order this: the smoked fish dip, or the Chubby Cuban.

Details: 1111 Love Street, Jupiter. 561-406-6417. No dress code.

Guanabanas

Jupiter

Opened by Jupiter surfers as a sandwich shop in 2004, it grew into something closer to a jungle. It is entirely open air, with woven tiki huts, banyan trees overhead, hand-chiseled coquina stone paths underfoot and illuminated waterfalls, on a quiet stretch of the Intracoastal.

Caribbean-leaning menu, tropical drinks and live music from local and national acts.

Details: 960 N. Highway A1A, Jupiter. 561-747-8878. Square Grouper is a few minutes away, so you can do both in one evening.

Adults' night out

Room Nine01

Fort Lauderdale

First, a clarification. It is easy to mistake this for a rooftop bar, because the hotel has one. It is not on the roof. It is a reservations-only 1920s speakeasy inside the Hyatt Centric Las Olas, styled as a vintage hotel room. The hotel's actual rooftop is a separate pool bar called ELEV8, on the eighth floor.

Here is how it works. You reserve by email, check in at the front desk, ask for Room Nine01, and receive an unmarked key and a password. Inside: dim lighting, plush furniture, antique rugs, vintage art, craft cocktails with names like Smoke and Mirrors and Late Check Out, and small plates from the hotel's chef.

The detail that matters: seatings are small and time-limited, and there has been a per-person food and beverage minimum. Published seating times and group sizes differ between sources, so confirm both when you book. No walk-ins.

Details: Hyatt Centric Las Olas, 100 E. Las Olas Blvd, Fort Lauderdale. Reserve at 901@hyatt.com. Hotel main line 954-353-1234.

The Library at Lilo's

Lake Worth Beach

A bookish speakeasy hidden behind Lilo's Streetfood and Bar, with enough wizard-school decor that reviewers routinely describe it as semi Harry Potter themed. Eclectic living-room seating, mood lighting, a rotating cocktail menu and live music. OKA Sushi now serves its menu inside.

How to find it: the entrance is on South K Street in downtown Lake Worth Beach, or walk through Lilo's.

Details: 701-A Lake Avenue, Lake Worth Beach. 561-518-7880. Closed Mondays. Happy hour Tuesday through Sunday, 4 to 7 p.m. Lilo's out front is a relaxed street-food restaurant if part of your group wants dinner rather than cocktails.

Dada

Delray Beach

A restaurant inside the Tarrimore House, a home built around 1924, with its original floors and windows, and a patio under a banyan tree roughly a century old. It opened in 2000 and takes its name from the Dada art movement of the World War I years and early 1920s, a nod to the era the house was built.

There is live entertainment seven nights a week, and not just bands: indie rock, acoustic singer-songwriters, poetry, comedy and spoken word. It feels more like being at a party in someone's house than at a restaurant.

Order this: the bacon-wrapped, goat cheese-stuffed dates.

Details: 52 N. Swinton Ave, Delray Beach. 561-330-3232. Monday through Thursday 4 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday to 11 p.m., Sunday brunch 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. then dinner from 4 p.m. Valet and a city lot nearby.

Elbo Room

Fort Lauderdale

A bar, not a restaurant, but no list of Fort Lauderdale places with a story is complete without it. Fred and Hazel Schultz opened it in 1938 at the corner of Las Olas Boulevard and A1A, where it served World War II sailors. Then the 1960 film "Where the Boys Are" put it at the center of the spring break era for three decades.

The history keeps going. In 1996 it became the first commercial establishment in the world to stream live on the internet with webcams, which it still runs. And it was where the Florida Panthers celebrated the night they won the Stanley Cup in 2024, and again in 2025.

Set your expectations: it is a beach dive bar with live music every day. Food is limited, and it has been described as cash only, so bring cash.

Details: 241 S. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd, at Las Olas. 954-463-4615. Adults.

Radcliffe's Speakeasy and Supper Club

Delray Beach

The way in is what the restaurant calls a secret alley entrance behind The Wine and Spirits Kitchen, part of The Wine Room on East Atlantic Avenue. The password is shared through the speakeasy window. Inside: low ceilings, velvet, plush vintage-inspired furnishings and limited seating.

It is a supper club rather than just a bar, with an upscale menu, whimsical cocktails, live music on select nights, and access to a wine list that holds a Wine Spectator award.

Details: Inside The Wine Room Kitchen and Bar on East Atlantic Avenue, Delray Beach. Seating is limited, so book ahead.

The Lab at Sourbon

West Palm Beach

A hidden cocktail bar on the second floor of Sourbon Kitchen and Bar on Clematis Street. The twist is that there are no menus. The bartender asks what you like and builds a drink around it, or improvises something if you would rather be surprised.

Details: Inside Sourbon Kitchen and Bar, 215 Clematis Street, West Palm Beach. Adults.

Stanza Lounge

Palm Beach Gardens

Tucked beside Lynora's, and about as far from a beach bar as this list gets: gilded mirrors, red-lacquered walls, velvet lounges and candlelight, with cocktails and light bites.

Details: 5320 Donald Ross Road, Suite 132, Palm Beach Gardens. Seating is limited and reservations are recommended.

Ones you may still see on older lists

Banko Cantina in West Palm Beach, the Mexican restaurant and rooftop inside a 1921 bank building on the National Register, is no longer there. It occupied the American National Bank Building from 2016 to 2025. A New York restaurant and nightlife concept, Ketchy Shuby, is expected to open in the building this fall. Banko's old website may still read as if it is open.

Kreepy Tiki on South Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale, the punk-rock tiki bar that once made a national list of the country's best tiki bars, has permanently closed. Its own social account says so, though some directories still list it.

How to use this list

Taking the kids and want the biggest reaction: Jaxson's Kitchen Sink, or the Sunday mermaid brunch at the Wreck Bar.

Want dinner to be the whole evening: the Jungle Queen, which runs about four hours. For something shorter with the same boat-to-dinner thrill, Cap's Place.

Grandparents in town: Cap's Place, Old Key Lime House or the Mai-Kai show. Each has the history to carry a conversation.

Date night: Room Nine01, the Library, Dada, Emily's Garden, Radcliffe's or Stanza. Book Room Nine01 well ahead.

Out-of-town guests who want the history: the Elbo Room for spring break lore, Cap's Place for Prohibition.

A drink with a view and a gimmick: the aquarium bar at The Breakers.

Breakfast with a view: Benny's on the pier, from 7 a.m.

Rainy day: Rainforest Cafe, where it rains on purpose, or Puttshack.

A free show with dinner: eat at the Seminole Hard Rock and stay for the Guitar Hotel light show.

You need the kids to burn off energy: the Burger Shack playground, the kids' golf area at The Park, or the fountain at CityPlace. Bring a towel for that last one.

Before you go anywhere in the "both" section: check the day. The Wreck Bar on Sunday and the Wreck Bar on Saturday night are not the same place.

🔗 Related: 50 Places in Broward and Palm Beach Worth a Saturday, and 20 of Them Are Free

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Sources

• Jaxson's Ice Cream Parlor, official site and FAQ
• Visit Lauderdale, "70 Years of Sweet Tradition: The Story Behind Jaxson's," March 2026
• Jungle Queen Riverboat
• 15th Street Fisheries, Fisheries Dockside
• Rustic Inn Crabhouse
• Benny's on the Beach, The Palm Beaches listing
• Rainforest Cafe, Sawgrass Mills
• Cap's Place Island Restaurant
• Atlas Obscura, Cap's Place Island Restaurant
• SoFloDining, "Cap's Place: A Historic Boat-In Culinary Adventure"
• Old Key Lime House
• B Ocean Resort, Mermaids and Mimosas Brunch
• B Ocean Resort, Mermaids at the Wreck Bar
• The Mai-Kai
• Visit Lauderdale, "Fort Lauderdale's Mai-Kai Returns," December 2024
• The Atomic Grog, Mai-Kai frequently asked questions
• Le Tub
• Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort, Margaritaville Restaurant
• Square Grouper Tiki Bar
• Guanabanas
• Hyatt Centric Las Olas, dining and Room Nine01
• Lilo's Streetfood, The Library
• Dada, Delray Beach
• American National Bank Building, West Palm Beach
• Emily's Garden
• Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood, The Guitar Hotel Light Show
• Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood newsroom, January 2026 events
• Lighthouse Cove Mini Golf and The Burger Shack
• The Park West Palm, dining
• The Palm Beaches, "The Best Family-Friendly Restaurants in The Palm Beaches," May 2026
• CityPlace, West Palm Beach
• Martin Aquatic, Water Pavilion West Palm
• The Wharf Fort Lauderdale, FAQs
• City of Deerfield Beach, Sullivan Park
• Puttshack, Dania Beach
• The Breakers, Seafood Bar
• Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Hollywood
• Elbo Room, About
• Fort Lauderdale Life, "Fort Lauderdale Spotlight: Elbo Room," October 2025
• The Wine Room Delray, Radcliffe's Speakeasy
• Boca Raton Observer, "21 Secret Bars of South Florida," February 2026