The Best of Both Worlds: Surfside
Looking for some seaside sophistication but with a balance of small-town friendliness? Look no further than Surfside, on the shores of southeastern Florida, a community that prides itself on a vibrant blend of modern luxury and know-your-neighbor coziness.
Since its incorporation in 1935, Surfside — situated between Miami Beach and Bal Harbor, on the city of Miami's barrier island — has grown into a shopping, eating, and (of course) a beach-vacation destination. At about 5,000 residents, and a crackling combination of cultures, the town can boast several worlds in one.
Start with its coastline. Approximately one mile of white-sand beach stretches along Collins Avenue from 87th Terrace to 96th Street. Lifeguards dot the brilliant expanse, chairs and umbrellas are up for rent, and a scenic, uninterrupted walking/jogging path follows the emerald waters all the way.
Surfside's Collins Avenue and the area immediately around it are also among the Miami region's favorite boutique shopping strips, with plenty of clothing, artwork, salons, and accessory spots to help ensure that your afternoon stretches into evening. That's when the restaurants come in.
Eating
Surfside is as much about cuisine, and different kinds of it, as it is about sun, fun, and treating yourself to something new and stylish. As home to a wide age range of people from North, Central, and South America — Surfside can trace deep cultural veins to Brazil, Columbia, Cuba, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago — the town is bursting with flavors, from traditional to cutting edge. Beyond the influence of those countries, there is also well-loved Italian, Greek and Japanese dining to be found, and Surfside is even home a five-star kosher steak house.
The whole restaurant district gathers around outdoor culinary events, and the local business association organizes frequent Surfside Spice discount nights — "Taste the World on Two Blocks," or so the slogan goes — to encourage eaters to expand their palettes in new places. Timing your night out right can lead to a gamut of free entertainment, from mariachi bands to flamenco dancers.
Schools
If all of that is enough to entice a visit, it's also worth noting that Surfside is a town in which people live, work and raise families. Officials are proud of the community center that residents helped finance; it opened in June 2011. The Surf-Bal-Bay Farmers Market comes to town every other week — Surfside shares it with the Bay Harbor Islands, just to the west — so organic produce and small-batch locally made crafts are always in supply.
Education and good citizenship is a focus as well. Children attend either private schools or classrooms within the Miami-Dade County Public School District. One example is the Ruth K. Broad K–8 Center in Bay Harbor Islands. Beyond the standard public-school classes, Center educators get kids involved in charitable activities such as its recent Pennies for Peace effort, which in June 2011 sent hundreds of dollars in humanitarian aid via collected coins to Pakistani and Afghani schools and villages.
Location
Surfside abuts some very exclusive communities — the massive and elegant estates and country club of Indian Creek is just across the 91st Street bridge, in Biscayne Bay — but the town itself represents a mixture of working class and wealth. The median family income, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is about $89,000. The median value of a Surfside home is an estimated $510,000. The town is careful to preserve its early-20th Century seaside-town feel: local ordinance prevents the construction of high rises along the oceanfront; the current mayor and town commission have never once issued a zoning variance that would increase neighborhood density.
If you live or stay in Surfside, the most desirable parts of Florida become your backyards.
To the north of Surfside is the beach-and-hotel resort village of Bal Harbor, and over a bridge beyond that is the state's Haulover Beach Park — beloved for its kite-making events and its fine tennis courts.
South of Surfside, just a few miles, is the sizzling strip of South Beach, where some of the world's most fabulous characters — and families — summer in style.
And of course, Miami itself, with its arenas, music, theater, and cosmopolitan shopping — is just over the Broad Causeway.
