Lower Keys Chamber November Social at Grimal Grove

Wednesday, November 4, 2026, 5:30 p.m.

The Lower Keys Chamber of Commerce holds its November Social at Grimal Grove on Big Pine Key, and the invitation is open to everyone, not just chamber members. There is no cost to attend. Complimentary light fare and refreshments are served, and the evening includes the chamber’s business card raffle and a 50/50 drawing.

Grimal Grove is a two-acre tropical fruit grove a few blocks off the Overseas Highway on Big Pine Key. It was started in the 1950s by Adolf Grimal, a Detroit-born inventor, engineer and machinist who left Michigan for the Keys and began collecting rare tropical trees after meeting Rare Fruit Council founder Bill Whitman in Miami. Grimal cut planting holes into the limestone, trucked in soil, and built water catchment and irrigation systems to make the rocky, alkaline ground hold a grove. He died in 1997 and the property went untended for years.

Patrick Garvey found the abandoned grove in 2011 and bought it through his nonprofit, the Growing Hope Initiative, restoring it with volunteers over the following two years. Hurricane Irma pushed roughly three feet of storm surge across the site in 2017 and killed many of the original trees. Roughly half of Grimal’s plantings survive, alongside trees Garvey has added and propagated, including mamey sapote, Malay apple, jackfruit, starfruit, atemoya, Key lime and several mango varieties. Breadfruit has become the grove’s research focus because of its salt tolerance.

The grove normally operates as a working agritourism attraction with guided tours, so the social doubles as a chance to walk the orchard for people who have not been. For anyone who wants to come back and see it properly, Grimal Grove runs guided tours at 258 Cunningham Lane.

Questions go to the Lower Keys Chamber at 305-872-2411.