Best Restaurants in Brevard County
Brevard has come a long way as a food destination. It is a county of small towns along a long stretch of coastline, so there is no single restaurant row. What you get instead is eight or nine pockets, each with its own character, separated by a causeway or fifteen minutes of US 1. This guide runs north to south, the way you would drive it.
One warning first. Restaurants here open and close at a quick clip, and several places that showed up on every Brevard list five years ago are gone. Everything below was checked as currently operating, but call ahead anyway, especially Monday and Tuesday, when many independents are dark.
Titusville and North Brevard
North Brevard eats early and eats unpretentiously. The anchor is Dixie Crossroads at 1475 Garden Street, open since 1983 and built around rock shrimp, a deep-water shrimp with a lobster-like texture landed off this coast and hard to find elsewhere. They butterfly and broil them, and the corn fritters keep coming. It is the one restaurant in the county people drive down from Orlando for.
Sunrise Bread Company at 315 South Hopkins Avenue is the other reason to be downtown, a small bakery and coffee counter doing real bread and a short breakfast and lunch menu. Third Culture Kitchen at 1000 Cheney Highway pulls from Mexican, Asian and Southern cooking at once.
For beer, the old Playalinda brewhouse at 305 South Washington Avenue, a restored century-old hardware store, now operates as Hardware Store Brewing Company, while Playalinda Brewing Company runs its larger Brix Project taproom and kitchen at 5220 South Washington Avenue. If you are house hunting in Titusville, the grid between Hopkins and Washington is the walkable version of the town.
Cocoa Village and Cocoa
Cocoa Village is the most complete pedestrian dining district in the county, six or so blocks of brick storefronts off Brevard Avenue with the Indian River at the end of the street. Cafe Margaux at 220 Brevard Avenue has been the special-occasion room here for decades, doing creative French and European cooking with a serious wine list. Ossorio Bakery and Cafe at 316 Brevard Avenue is where the village starts its morning.
The beer sits a block over on King Street: Dirty Oar Beer Company at 329 King Street brews in house and leans on food trucks and live music, and Bugnutty Brewing Company now pours at 225 King Street.
Drive west on SR 520 toward the St. Johns River marshes and you reach Lone Cabbage Fish Camp at 8199 King Street, a screened-porch fish camp attached to an airboat operation, serving gator tail, frog legs and catfish with live music Sunday afternoons. It is the least polished room here and one of the most memorable.
Cocoa Beach
Cocoa Beach dining splits in two: the surf-town casual places you eat at in a swimsuit, and the handful of rooms worth changing clothes for. In the second group, The Fat Snook at 2464 South Atlantic Avenue is the best restaurant on the barrier island, a tiny dining room doing Caribbean-inflected seafood, open nightly from 4pm.
For the first, Coconuts on the Beach at 2 Minutemen Causeway puts you as close to the sand as a restaurant can legally get, and Florida's Seafood Bar and Grill at 480 West Cocoa Beach Causeway is the unfussy local seafood house: grouper, oysters, a bar that stays busy. Squid Lips at 2200 South Orlando Avenue is the Cocoa Beach outpost of the Brevard waterfront chain, built over the water.
Heidi's Jazz Club at 7 North Orlando Avenue is the outlier: a real jazz room with a supper menu and a calendar that pulls touring players. If you are looking at Cocoa Beach to live rather than visit, most of this is walkable from the Minutemen Causeway core.
Port Canaveral
Port Canaveral is the county's most concentrated waterfront dining, in an odd and enjoyable setting: you eat while cruise ships the size of city blocks slide past. Almost everything sits on Glen Cheek Drive in The Cove.
Fishlips Waterfront Bar and Grill at 610 Glen Cheek Drive is the largest, with a two-level deck and the best ship watching. Rusty's Seafood and Oyster Bar at 628 Glen Cheek Drive is the oyster and beer version. Grills Seafood Deck and Tiki Bar at 500 Glen Cheek Drive does simply grilled fish, including invasive lionfish when they have it. Seafood Atlantic at 520 Glen Cheek Drive is half fish market, so it is also where you buy rock shrimp and blue crab to cook at home.
The tradeoff is crowds. On a double cruise turnaround day these places are slammed from late morning on, so locals go weekday evenings. Living in Cape Canaveral puts all of it a few minutes away.
Merritt Island
Merritt Island dining is quietly good without being loud about it. Nitro Kitchen and Cocktails at 225 North Sykes Creek Parkway is the standout, an Asian fusion kitchen with a serious cocktail program in a strip-center space that gives no hint of what is inside. Kelsey's at 1850 North Courtenay Parkway is the pizzeria people stay loyal to.
Marker 24 Riverfront Grille at 1360 South Banana River Drive sits at a working marina on the Banana River, about as close to old Florida waterfront dining as the island gets. Merritt Island buyers underestimate how central it is, sitting between Port Canaveral, Cocoa Village and Cocoa Beach with a short drive to each.
Rockledge, Viera and Suntree
Ashley's of Rockledge at 1609 South US 1 is a 1930s Tudor roadhouse with a long local reputation and a ghost story the staff will tell you. Worth a stop as a piece of Rockledge history.
Central Brevard's newer dining clusters at The Avenue in Viera, on Town Center Avenue. Pizza Gallery and Grill at 2250 Town Center Avenue does wood-fired pizza, local art on the walls and a weekday lunch buffet. 28 North Gastropub and Scratch Kitchen, also at 2250 Town Center Avenue, is the from-scratch pub, and Bonefish Grill at 2251 Town Center Avenue is the reliable seafood dinner. Just off the Avenue, Urban Prime at 2435 Metfield Drive is the steak and market concept.
Long Doggers at 1970 Viera Boulevard is the Viera location of the Brevard-born surf-shack grill, and the casual default for much of central Brevard.
The tradeoff in Viera and Suntree is that the dining sits in shopping centers and closes earlier than the beach or downtown. What you get back is parking.
Downtown Melbourne
New Haven Avenue is the county's best restaurant street, roughly six blocks of independents with almost no chains. Crush XI at 923 East New Haven Avenue is the chef-driven contemporary American room and the reservation to make for an anniversary. Meg O'Malley's at 810 East New Haven Avenue is the Irish pub that has anchored the street for years. Hell 'n Blazes Brewing at 1002 East New Haven Avenue brews on site in a historic building and runs a full kitchen. Melbourne Seafood Station at 31 East New Haven Avenue handles snow crab and boils.
A few blocks toward the water, Chart House at 2250 Front Street sits on Melbourne Harbor and is the county's most reliable waterfront white-tablecloth dinner, with Sunday brunch and an early dining window from 4pm to 6pm daily. Foxtail Coffee at 522 Babcock Street covers the downtown-adjacent morning.
Downtown Melbourne is the one place in Brevard where you park once and walk to dinner, a brewery and live music.
Eau Gallie Arts District
EGAD, the Eau Gallie Arts District along Highland Avenue and Eau Gallie Boulevard, is the county's other walkable pocket and its most volatile. The roster turns over faster than anywhere else in Brevard, so check before you drive.
Squid Lips Overwater Grill at 1477 Pineapple Avenue is built on pilings at the Eau Gallie causeway and has the best sunset seat in Melbourne. Pineapples at 1434 Pineapple Avenue is the open-air bar and kitchen that works as the district's living room, with live music most weekends. Intracoastal Brewing Company at 652 West Eau Gallie Boulevard is the neighborhood brewery: small, dog friendly and food-truck fed.
Indialantic, Melbourne Beach and the beachside towns
The barrier island south of the Eau Gallie causeway runs through Indian Harbour Beach, Satellite Beach, Indialantic and Melbourne Beach. Its dining is deliberately low key.
The Original Bizzarro Famous NY Pizza at 4 Wavecrest Avenue in Indialantic is the pizza most Brevard natives grew up on. Djon's Steak and Lobster House at 522 Ocean Avenue in Melbourne Beach is the classic special-occasion room down here, on the tiny Ocean Avenue commercial strip. Cafe Coconut Cove at 4210 South A1A in Melbourne Beach does German and Continental cooking unlike anything else on the island.
Long Doggers at 1201 South Patrick Drive in Satellite Beach is the original location of the local chain and still the beachside default after the water.
Palm Bay, West Melbourne and Malabar
South Brevard's dining is catching up rather than leading, but two places are worth the drive. Yellow Dog Cafe at 905 US 1 in Malabar has been the south county's fine-dining answer for years, a small riverfront room with a deck on the water. The Shack Riverfront Restaurant and Outback Tiki Bar at 4845 Dixie Highway NE in Palm Bay is the opposite: a sprawling casual seafood and tiki operation with live music and a boat dock.
In West Melbourne, Melbourne Seafood Station at 865 Palm Bay Road NE is the second location of the downtown boil house, easier to reach from the west side of I-95.
Where to eat by district
| District | Where it is | Best known for |
|---|---|---|
| Downtown Titusville | Hopkins and Washington Avenues | Bakery breakfast, two taprooms |
| Cocoa Village | Brevard Avenue and King Street | Walkable blocks, French dining, craft beer |
| Downtown Cocoa Beach | Minutemen Causeway and A1A | Beachfront casual, seafood, live jazz |
| The Cove, Port Canaveral | Glen Cheek Drive | Four waterfront seafood houses, a fish market |
| The Avenue Viera | Town Center Avenue | Easy parking, earlier close |
| Downtown Melbourne | East New Haven Avenue | The densest run of independents |
| Eau Gallie Arts District | Highland Avenue and Eau Gallie Boulevard | Overwater dining, open-air bars, brewery |
| South beaches | A1A, Indialantic to Melbourne Beach | Pizza, steakhouse, beach cafes |
The brewery scene
The breweries are one of Brevard's real strengths, and most towns have one. North to south: Hardware Store Brewing and Playalinda in Titusville, Dirty Oar and Bugnutty in Cocoa Village, Hell 'n Blazes in downtown Melbourne, Intracoastal in Eau Gallie. Most are small taprooms leaning on rotating food trucks rather than full kitchens, with Hell 'n Blazes the exception.
Coffee and bakeries
The coffee and bakery layer is thinner than the restaurant layer but improving. Ossorio in Cocoa Village and Sunrise Bread Company in Titusville work as neighborhood institutions rather than caffeine stops, and both sit in walkable historic downtowns. Foxtail on Babcock Street covers Melbourne.
The food scene is real
Buyers relocating from larger metros sometimes worry about the food. The fair answer: Brevard is not a culinary capital, and if you want a dozen tasting-menu rooms you will be driving to Orlando. But downtown Melbourne, Cocoa Village, the Eau Gallie Arts District and The Cove punch above the size of the towns they sit in, and the seafood is landed locally. What Brevard lacks is late nights: kitchens close early outside downtown Melbourne, and Sunday and Monday closures are common.
Dining access is a fair tiebreaker between towns, because it tracks walkability. Cocoa Village, downtown Melbourne, downtown Titusville and the Minutemen Causeway area of Cocoa Beach are the four places you can live without driving to dinner. Everywhere else, budget ten to twenty minutes.
Tell us your taste
If a walkable food and drink scene is high on your list, say so early and we will point you at the neighborhoods that deliver it rather than the ones that look close on a map. Rachel and her partner Nichole know these streets block by block and will build a scouting itinerary around where you would want to eat on a Friday night. Call or text (321) 212-7676.
Rachel Langley, REALTOR
Blue Marlin Real Estate
321-212-7676 | rachel@livingspacecoast.com
