Green Dining

 

To celebrate Green Business Month, we are highlighting how you the consumer can find green businesses. According to Trip Advisor there are 340 restaurants in Key West. With that many choices, how can anyone decide where to eat? Try using the lens of sustainability: eating in a way that is viable for the planet and ourselves.

 

Distance makes a difference. Living in the Keys, we are 100 miles away from the mainland, and thousands of miles away from where most of our food is produced. Those long supply chains equate to a significant carbon footprint and higher prices from environmental and economic perspectives. Restaurants that source from closer resources get fresher food and help the South Florida economy. Take fish for example.  

 

Our food decisions have effects on the local economy’s sustainability. The Keys provide a bounty of fresh seafood. and if we buy from local fisherman, not only do their families benefit but they also spend their dollars here. If our restaurants and grocery stores buy their fish from large commercial distributors instead of our local fisherman, they are likely getting fish from outside the U.S. where regulations are lax or nonexistent. Those fish may be bathed in chemicals to keep it fresh from the country of origin until it arrives here. Instead of supporting jobs locally we are supporting jobs halfway around the world.

 

Back to the original question of which restaurant should we spend our hard earned dollars. Let me be bold and suggest we support those eating establishments who feature fresh local seafood from right here in the Florida Keys. We would be supporting our local economy and eating healthy all at the same time. To find these restaurants, we called the fish houses in town that distribute to Key West and the Lower Keys: Dock to Dish, Eaton St Seafood, Fishbusterz, and Rusty Anchor.

 

Drum roll please…here’s the list:

2 Cents

915

Abbondonza

Antonia’s

Andy’s Cabana

Backspace

Bad Boy Burrito

Bistro Sole

Black Fin Bistro

Blue Heaven

BO’s Fish Wagon

Café Sole

Commodore Steak House

Duffy’s Lobster House

Eaton St Seafood

El Siboney

Fausto’s on White and Fleming

Firefly

Grand Café

Harpoon Harry’s

Hogfish

Hyatt Key West

Kelly’s Caribbean

Key West Harborside

Key West Yacht Club

Latitudes

Little Palm

Loggerheads

Louie’s Backyard

Ocean Key

Pepe’s

Pisces

Roostica

Rusty Anchor

Salute

Sarabeth’s

Seven Fish

Skipper’s Dockside

Southernmost Beach Café

Square Grouper

Square One

Stoned Crab at Ibis Bay

Sunset Culinaire

Turquoise

Westin Bistro

 

If you serve local fish at your restaurant and are not listed here and you would like to be added, please contact Diane Johnson at: [email protected]

 

In honor of Green Business Month, the City of Key West is unveiling a new Green Business Certification that is online and comes with lots of help and resources. It works for home offices, large employers, restaurants, hotels and everything in between! To learn more send an email to [email protected].

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