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Key West: All about change |
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Written by Knight Ridder
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Wednesday, 17 May 2006 |
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KEY WEST – The greeter at the Blue Heaven led me through the open courtyard’s seating area toward the enclosed dining room.
The courtyard was crowded with diners. There was a wait at the bar for tables. There was a buzz.
But the dining room was buzzless. Some tables were empty.
Was I missing The True Blue Heaven Experience?
“Well, maybe,” the greeter said. “But some people don’t like the `too much nature’ thing — the chickens and the cats ...”
Chickens and cats? Just walking around the restaurant?
Can there be a more Key West dining experience than that?
Ah, but wait ...
At the dining room’s little bar, seated confidently on a barstool like a regular, a large black Doberman-like dog calmly lapped ice-water from a salad dish set in front of her. Alongside, also seated on a stool, was a man cutting into a steak.
Key West may not be exactly what it was. Hemingway stopped refereeing boxing matches in what’s now the Blue Heaven’s courtyard 70 years ago. Into the 1980s the town was still a haven for dropouts, dopers, artists and writers and the aggressively non-conventional, and that, in pockets, it remains.
But even here in the Blue Heaven — among the cats and chickens and slurping dogs and same-sex handholders — a symptom of change: a family of 12, all ages, all smiles, beautifully dressed and looking like something out of old-money Winnetka, Ill., is celebrating a birthday.
Key West, where change is as much a part of its history as pirates, smuggling and hurricanes, is at it again.
Marginal hotels are being converted into luxury resorts. Rustic lodgings are being converted into luxury inns. There are strong rumors the town’s lone youth hostel is — like a lot of places here — headed toward condo-conversion.
More than anything, Key West has become: cleaned up. Duval Street remains a pretty good party, and at the Green Parrot, not far off the main drag, music still stirs the soul.
But freshly painted charm has overwhelmed the back streets’ comfortable scruffiness. | Only registered users can write comments.
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