(FORTUNE Small Business) – Key West is one of those places in perpetual danger of declining into self-parody, a bland pastiche of palms and pastels adrift in the whatever daze of Margaritaville. Still, you can find pockets of scruffy authenticity. One such redoubt is Blue Heaven, a restaurant steeped in tropical funk and located in a 120-year-old building that once housed a billiard hall, an ice cream parlor, and a bordello.

In the '30s, Blue Heaven was home to a "down and dirty bar scene," says co-owner Suanne Kitchar, who runs the restaurant with her partner, Richard Hatch (not the notorious Survivor schemer). Back then the bar scene included Friday night boxing matches, refereed on occasion by Ernest Hemingway, who lived down the street.

Kitchar and Hatch arrived in 1992, she an artist, he an out-of-work journalist. The property had been empty for a year. To put food on the table, they literally put food on the table--cooking lunches for the locals like rice and beans, tofu burgers, and homemade corn bread. Lunch has since evolved into three meals a day, but if you go for breakfast, as I did, try the shrimp omelette with sun-dried tomatoes, asparagus, and hollandaise, and wash it down with fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice. Or if you're looking to bulk up for a day of snorkeling out on the reef, the pecan pancakes provide both fuel and ballast.

Blue Heaven doesn't take reservations, and in the high season the wait for dinner can be two hours. Plenty of people will tell you it's worth it. 729 Thomas St., Key West, Fla.; 305-296-8666.

--Ed Welles