Green Parrot Bar

The Green Parrot has operated at the corner of Whitehead and Southard since 1890, making it one of the oldest continuously running bars in Key West and a genuine dive bar in the best sense of the term, a place that has built its reputation on live music, cold drinks, and a self described identity as a sunny place for shady people rather than any pretense of polish.

The building itself carries more than a century of history, having served various purposes over the decades in a town that has repeatedly repurposed its older wood frame structures rather than tearing them down, and the bar has leaned into that history rather than renovating away the worn, lived in character that regulars specifically value.

Live music remains central to the bar’s identity, with a regular lineup of local and touring acts that has made the Green Parrot a genuine fixture of Key West’s music scene rather than simply a bar that happens to book bands, and the crowd tends to include a real mix of longtime locals, musicians, and visitors specifically seeking out the bar’s reputation.

Hours run late, ten in the morning until two on weeknights and stretching to four on weekends, a schedule that reflects the bar’s role as both a daytime hangout and a proper late night destination depending on when a visitor happens to walk through the door.

An adjacent liquor store and gift shop rounds out the operation, giving visitors a chance to take home a piece of the bar’s branding, which has become recognizable enough on its own that Green Parrot merchandise shows up on people who have never set foot in Key West but simply liked the design.

Being located a block off Duval Street on Whitehead gives the Green Parrot a slightly quieter setting than the bars directly on the main strip, while still keeping it within easy walking distance of the rest of Old Town’s restaurant and bar scene, a positioning that has suited its dive bar identity for well over a century.

For a genuine, unpolished slice of old Key West nightlife, with live music and a history stretching back well over a hundred years, the Green Parrot remains one of the island’s essential bars, a place locals recommend to visitors specifically because it has never tried to be anything other than exactly what it is, decade after decade, regardless of whatever new trend happens to be sweeping through the rest of the island’s bar scene.