Pepe's Cafe — Restaurant in Key West

Pepe was the restaurant that I was most excited about for our Key West trip because of its history and what I have read. It is cool to come to a place with that much history and has been standing since 1909!! How many restaurants in Florida could do that? Or even in the entire United States!!

1. Food: I had peeled shrimps because I am not much of a steak person, and I do not eat fish. For my partner, I recommended blackened fresh caught of the day for him because I spent half an hour reading all the reviews here. He went with my suggestion, and the fish came out PHENOMENON! Guess what? I was the one who kept eating his fish. Did I say I don't normally eat fish? Yes, I did. I normally can't stand the fishy smell but this fish was an exception!! I think because the fish was so fresh!! You could taste the freshness inside, while the outside is so flavorful!! This speaks volume for the quality of this dish coming from someone who doesn't eat fish!!

2. Service: both the host and the waitress were very nice and welcoming, especially the host! We made small talks and we asked her for recommendation if we want to stop by for breakfast. She even showed us how to walk to Duval st from there.

3. Setting: we were sitting outside. There were plenty of seatings, so maybe that's why they didn't ask for my name when I mentioned I had a reservation? No big deal, the point is reservation might not be needed. We chose to sit outside so that we can look at sunset as we enjoyed our dinner.

I love Key West so much that I already planned for another trip. We will definitely come back here, and I will get a blackened fresh caught of the day myself (so that I don't have to steal...

There was a lot of hype about this restaurant being the oldest continually run restaurant in Key West at 109 years old. Figured if it was running that long it had to be good. My first trip to Key West. My daughter and I decided that we would go to Pepe's. We were highly disappointed. First of all, we stood there for about 5 minutes before anyone even acknowledged us. Then we were led to a table that was infested with some kind of fleas. We had to ask to move to another table. We found another table close to a fan. My daughter ordered the turkey and bacon club and I had a simple BLT. Both dishes were just mediocre. Nothing to write home about. The waitress we had was pleasant enough. I really don't have any complaints about her. But the hostess was scowling the whole time. There was nothing friendly about her at all. And the restaurant itself was completely and disgustingly filthy. The bathrooms were so disgusting that I was forced to use the men's room and there was urine all over the floor. One of the staff ushered me into the restroom and I was literally standing in urine on the floor. The bathroom reeked a foul odors. I will tell anyone that wants to visit this restaurant because of its 109 year history to stay away. I don't think I've ever been to a more disgusting restaurant in my entire life and both my daughter and I were highly disappointed. ☹️ I don't usually write bad reviews about restaurants, but this restaurant is one you should stay away from. Other than our waitress who was pleasant at most, every other staff member I saw looked absolutely miserable. I will give credit to the key lime pie. It was...

We were really excited to eat here as we did a lot of research and was told they had the best Key Lime Pie in the Keys, as well as was the oldest restaurant in the area.

We came in around 3pm. There were around three other parties there. It did not seem busy and we were seated within 5 minutes. When the waiter greeted us, she seemed very rushed and busy. We were understanding as she said she was the only one working. This was a strange statement as we seen two other waiters running around.

She got our drink order and returned about 10 minutes later. My mother in law order coffee and noticed that the mug had a lipstick mark on it. She didn’t drink the coffee as she was waiting on the waiter to return so she could let her know. About 12 minutes passed and we finally had to track down another waiter. They said “Lipstick is hard to get off now, sorry about that”. She brought her another cup.

We then ordered our food. My fish tacos were really good. Everyone else seemed to enjoy the food. We then wanted to get dessert. We started asking questions to the waiter and she kept acting like she could not hear us, grabbed plates and walked off. Finally, my father in law got her full attention and we ordered dessert.

The Key Lime Pie was decent, but unfortunately, we found a blonde hair in the pie. We let the waiter know and the manager removed it from the bill.

Overall, I would have given at least 3 stars as it was good food, but the cleanliness and service was extremely lacking. I would encourage to walk a little further into town and experience some of the other restaurants available. There are a lot of really cool...