Walk down Duval Street and you'll find roughly $28 platters, $18 cocktails, and $34 bowls of pasta that traveled about 1,200 miles to get here. On the tourist strip, the price and the food stopped talking to each other a while ago. Wild, honestly.
Here's the move: do the Duval scene if you want the photos, then eat where the locals eat. The people who live here eat every day at the places that have been feeding them for years — simple food, honest prices, no stage show. This guide is those places.
Nearly every pick below lands around $15 or less, most closer to $10. You'll see the same faces at the counter every visit, because locals don't move on from a good thing.
Price Comparison — Tourist Strip vs. Local Spots
| Meal | Tourist Strip (Duval) | Local's Pick | You Save |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conch Fritters | $16.99 | Mallory Square Cart — $8 | $9 |
| Cuban Sandwich | $19.95 | Cuban Coffee Queen — $9 | $11 |
| Fish Tacos (3 pcs) | $22 | Sandbar Sports Grill — $12 | $12 |
| Key Lime Pie Slice | $12 | Fausto's — $5 | $7 |
| Grouper Sandwich | $27 | Eaton Street Seafood — $14 | $15 |
| Fish Sandwich | $26 | B.O.'s Fish Wagon — $14 | $20 |
| Breakfast (full) | $24 | Seashell Cafe — $10 | $14 |
*Tourist strip prices sourced from publicly posted menus near Mallory Square and mid-Duval, June 2026. Local prices reflect full meal with drink.
Resident-Curated Picks
The Cuban plates here fill a table for cheap. This family spot on Stock Island (roughly a 15-minute drive from Old Town, at 5501 5th Ave) has been turning out roast pork, ropa vieja, and black beans and rice from family recipes for years. The pork is the definitive Key West cheap lunch — slow-roasted, a mountain of it, two sides included. They'll even cook your catch for about $15 a person. Portions are honestly a little absurd.
★ Local tip: Open Monday through Saturday. Come hungry — you'll be taking half of it home.
You want breakfast that fuels a day on the water, this is it. No-frills spot near the Garrison Bight marina — eggs, grits, biscuits and gravy, and a short-order lunch menu that's held steady for years. The grits are quietly legendary among locals. Nothing fancy: plastic menus, counter service, cash register. That's exactly why the food's good.
★ Local tip: The breakfast burrito is the move. Ask for it "loaded" — they'll know what it means.
Fausto's is a grocery store that happens to run one of the best food counters in Key West. The key lime pie — made in-house daily — is the real thing: not tourist-bright, not artificially tart, just right. Grab a slice for about $5 and a Cuban sandwich off the deli counter that costs roughly a third of the tourist-strip version. Stock up on your beach cooler supplies while you're there and knock out two errands at once.
Tucked behind Pickles Pub at 511 Greene Street, a block off Duval, this is where you eat when everything else has closed. The kitchen runs late — like 2am late — and the fish tacos are the value pick: hand-battered fish, house slaw, chipotle aioli, roughly $12. Two full bars, a wall of TVs, and a crowd that's half locals off shift. Do the Duval crawl, then land here and actually eat something.
★ Local tip: Happy hour runs weekday afternoons. The kitchen stays open long after the tourist places lock up.
A working seafood market at 801 Eaton that also runs a little counter kitchen, and the fish here was swimming basically yesterday. Everything's caught by local independent Key West fishermen. The grouper sandwich is the star — simply prepared, genuinely fresh — and the lobster roll gets talked about well past the county line. Order at the counter, eat on the patio, pay roughly what a Duval side salad costs. Easy win.
The open-air shack at 801 Caroline looks like it was assembled out of driftwood and license plates, and that's the whole charm. The fried fish sandwich — hand-cut, fresh, around $14 — is a Key West rite of passage, and the cracked conch holds its own. Live music spills out on Friday nights. It's loud, it's a little chaotic, and it's about as Key West as a plate of food gets.
The Rules of Cheap Eating in Key West
These aren't suggestions — they're how the locals actually eat. Follow them and you'll eat well every day:
- ✓ Go where there are no signs. If a restaurant has to advertise on Duval Street, you're paying for the advertising.
- ✓ Ask a fisherman, not TripAdvisor. The best food advice in Key West comes from anyone who owns a boat. They know every spot on every key.
- ✓ No plastic menus. A restaurant with a laminated menu in a plastic sleeve on the sidewalk is charging you for the sleeve.
- ✓ Cash is always better. Most of these places prefer cash — and cash-only places have lower overhead, which means lower prices for you.
- ✓ Eat where it's not convenient. If you have to drive to Stock Island or walk 10 minutes from Duval, the price drops and the food gets better.
Want to Do a Food Tour Instead?
If you'd rather let someone else do the navigating, Key West food tours take you straight to the local spots with context and history built in.
Frequently Asked Questions
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