Coral Isle Bar

The Coral Isle Bar had “free beer tomorrow” painted on the outside of the unassuming cinder-block watering hole on U.S. 1 on Stock Island. On any given day, you could find the hardscrabble nearby working class—shrimpers, boat captains, trailer park residents, vagabonds— hanging out together like characters in a Jimmy Buffett song (the bar boasted about their “three tooth minimum”). A lone pool table, bar stools and Busch beer on tap was about all they offered, and the Coral Isle was torn down before “tomorrow” could arrive, having been turned into con- dos for snowbirds and tourists in 2004. But it served full-price beer from 1971 to thousands of grateful patrons on their way into (and back out of) Key West.