7 Mile Cafe & Kava Bar

7 Mile Cafe & Kava Bar sits at 30200 Overseas Highway on Big Pine Key, right around mile marker 30 in the Lower Keys. The doors open at 7 in the morning, ahead of most of the island, and the place runs as a coffee shop and a kava bar at the same time.

The coffee side is barista built: espresso drinks and specialty lattes, herbal teas, organic smoothies and smoothie bowls. Food runs to breakfast sandwiches, paninis, pastries and small savory plates, and there are non dairy milks, vegan options and raw vegan desserts on the menu, which is not a given this far down the highway. The kava bar works alongside all of it, serving traditional kava by the shell along with shots, punch and mixed kava drinks.

Big Pine Key is the island of the National Key Deer Refuge, so the cafe lands in a useful spot: an early stop before you go looking for deer, a break on the run between Marathon and Key West, or coffee before a morning out on the backcountry flats. Call (305) 783-1357 for hours, which shift between weekdays and weekends.