You would think that a bar on a tiny island that is a 20-minute boat ride from the coast of Florida would need all the publicity it could get –– not the case with Cabbage Key Inn. The island bar, restaurant and inn located on Cabbage Key in Pine Island Sound, Fla., relies solely on word-of-mouth, grassroots marketing to attract visitors, and there are plenty of them. Despite the lack of traditional tourist targeting, this destination under the sun is a profit paradise.
    “We have an advertising budget,” says Cabbage Key’s General Manager Ken Wells, “we just never use it.”
    This is probably because Cabbage Key operators already have all the volume they need. Spring is the busiest time of year for the inn, mostly due to spring breakers and snowbirds, and from February to April, the restaurant and bar average 500 customers per day. Wells adds that patrons who can’t fit in the bar or the restaurant areas “are welcome to overflow onto the whole island.”  Such freedom of movement is possible because Wells’ parents own the island, and they have for the past 30 years.

Dollars Everywhere
    “I'm only 26,” Wells explains, “so my parents have owned the island since before my time. I went to school by boat.” Cabbage Key is only 100 acres of land, and although people do rent out the seven cottages owned by the inn from time to time, the restaurant and bar is the main attraction. Termed the “Dollar Bill Bar,” every inch of Cabbage Key Inn’s bar area is covered in –– you guessed it –– dollar bills.
    Traditionally, customers write their name on a $1 bill and mount it wherever they can find room on any surface in the bar; even the piano is covered. Wells explains that the tradition began nearly 60 years ago, when a simple fisherman’s bar stood in the place of the inn. Legend has it that when a fisherman had a successful day on the water, he would go to Cabbage Key’s bar to celebrate. In honor of his luck, he would write his name on a dollar bill and stick it to the wall. That way, when he had an unsuccessful day fishing, at least he could go back there and buy a beer with his saved-up dollar.
    Cabbage Key no longer is just a local fisherman’s joint. Wells characterizes the clientele as a diverse group ranging from those who pull up in ancient motorboats to those who arrive in multi-million-dollar yachts.
    Famous patrons of the island include baseball players from the Red Sox and Twins involved in spring training in nearby Fort Meyers. And since the waters around Cabbage Key are famous for tarpon fishing, Cabbage Key still is drawing fishermen. It’s even rumored that Jimmy Buffet played at the Cabbage Key bar before he got famous.
    Due to the Dollar Bill Bar’s constant traffic, the inn is so fully covered with bills that there has to be a plan for those dollars that no longer stick. “The ones that fall off go to charity, usually something involved with marine biology or children,” Wells says. After Hurricane Charley hit the area, the money went to a different cause: a family from nearby Pine Island that had lost everything to the storm.

Made Without Shade
    Cabbage Key Inn is open for business everyday, often with live music at night, and despite its level of popularity, it employs a relatively small staff, Wells says.
     “We only have three bartenders, which is a pretty small number. But, the staff lives on the island. So, if we employ them, we have to house them.”
Money-covered walls, a 26-year-old general manager and an entire island to itself –– what more could a bar need? NCB