Kermit’s Key West Key Lime Shoppe

Kermit’s Key West Key Lime Shoppe has built one of the most recognized names in Key West’s dessert scene around a single, specific product, key lime pie in every conceivable form, from the classic slice to frozen, chocolate dipped versions, candies, and pie bars, all built around the tart, distinctly Florida citrus that gives the whole category its name.

The original shop sits at the corner of Elizabeth and Caroline Streets in the heart of Old Town, close enough to the Historic Seaport and the main Duval Street corridor that it catches a steady stream of visitors specifically seeking out a taste of the island’s signature dessert before heading home.

Key lime pie itself carries genuine local significance, made with the small, intensely flavored key lime that grows in the Florida Keys rather than the larger, milder Persian lime found in most supermarkets elsewhere, and the dessert has become so closely associated with the region that it was named Florida’s official state pie.

Kermit’s has expanded well beyond its original Key West storefront over the years, with additional shops now operating in Pigeon Forge, Charleston, Savannah, and DeLand, a genuine regional growth that visitors and researchers should weigh when considering whether the original shop still functions as a purely independent, single location Key West business or as the flagship of a small but real multi state brand.

That expansion does not erase the shop’s Key West origins or its continued presence at the original address, and the Elizabeth Street location remains the shop most closely associated with the brand’s founding story, but the broader company structure is worth noting for anyone evaluating it strictly by the standard of a small, single location, independently owned business.

Frozen key lime pie on a stick, dipped in chocolate, has become one of the shop’s more popular novelty items, giving visitors a portable, walk around version of the dessert suited to a hot afternoon exploring Old Town rather than a sit down dessert course after dinner.

For a taste of Key West’s signature dessert from the shop most closely tied to popularizing it, Kermit’s Key West Key Lime Shoppe remains a near mandatory stop for dessert focused visitors, though its growth into a small multi state brand is worth keeping in mind alongside its Key West roots, a detail future reviewers of this directory should weigh when deciding how to categorize it alongside the many other small, single location businesses that make up the rest of this list.