cauley square

I have been here twice in the past two weeks. What a wonderful discovery I made. No, this is not busy, hectic Miami,nor some tacky tourist trap. It is a beautiful, quiet, restful spot set in a Florida hammock where one can walk through an oasis of trees and tropical plants and flowers,listening to water splashing in fountains. The sculptures add to the ambiance. Park benches to just sit and listen to one's own thoughts. The food in the restaurants is home-made and delicious. I marveled at both the original pine plank floors and he tile. Enjoy the starched white tablecloths and helpful, pleasant waitstaff. One doesn't shop here for touristy junk; this is a spot of Florida history. Returned this past weekend to a fairyland of twinkling lights to listen to an oldies group; superb.

Nice and peaceful spot. Little dirty.it was very quiet. It seems a good place to organize an event, wedding or birthday party.

This place could be fixed up a lot better than what it was .. cute but trash was everywhere and the shops just didnt have what I thought to be any quality artwork. If you need to stretch your legs after Miami , good spot but other than that ... not much to see , sorry

I’ve been to the Tea Room a lot since it recently reopened with a new owner and I really like it! It is owned by the same person who owns Kris’s Restaurant in Palmetto Bay. I live nearby, so we usually go there several times a week. Everyone who works there is very nice and attentive. It seems like it’s changed a lot for the better with the new owner and management. My husband and I enjoy dining at the Tea Room, and so have guests that I have brought at various times. The food is made with fresh ingredients, from scratch and prepared in a flavorful and sometimes unexpected way. The sandwich I like best is prepared on a fresh baked baguette with fresh roasted vegetables, goat cheese and a pesto sauce. I’m a vegetarian and I wish they had more vegetarian entrees, since I don’t really eat things like quiches, but at least the chef has been kind enough to modify some of their menu items like the cheese quesadillas to include all sorts of roasted vegetables to my liking. I really love the soups too. There’s a good assortment of vegetarian soups, as well as meat based ones. My daughter in law especially liked the tea sandwiches platter that came with fresh ambrosia and banana bread. My son, who lives by the Gables said he wished they had a place like this near him, because he said you couldn’t find a really good place to go up there that had really good sandwiches to eat for lunch.As I said, the food is really good, but the décor is enchanting. If you go, you really need to check out all of the distinct rooms, decorated in vintage style, with different themes and memorabilia. You’ll see lots of different china patterns, lace, vintage cross stitched pictures, as well as other historic pictures and pieces like vintage eye glass collections, butterfly collections, pipe collections, a little bit of everything. Cauley Square is a historic place and the Tea Room is a perfect part of it. If you like freshly prepared GOOD food with fresh in season ingredients, that's very affordable too, it’s definitely worth a drive to try it out!

We finally visited Cauley Square while passing by on the way to the Keys. Firstly, parking is free. Walking down the quiet shaded streets is like stepping back in time to the old old pioneer days. The little pioneer type cottages and gift shops were cute and kinda reminded me of key west gift shops. I don't know how they stay in business though with so few visitors? The gardens were beautiful. It was very nice to see that they have left so much of the natural foliage intact for so many centuries. That being said, I wouldn't recommend making a separate trip just to visit this location. Everything can be seen in under an hour, unless you go to the restaurant, which I've heard is pricey. They recently added a parrot pet store, which kind of ruins the affect of an old pioneer town. When was the last time you saw a movie taking place in the early 1900s with pet stores of exotic parrots? I've heard some folks complain about the frequent presence of raccoons wandering about Cauley Square, but this land was their home first, and at least a lot of the forest on this property still remains.

Has anyone ever gone to a restaurant and been treated so badly you didn't even wait for your food to arrive? This was what my wife and I experienced this past Saturday the Village Chalet at Cauley Square. After asking a waitress where to sit and being told anywhere (there were literally only 3 other people in the restaurant at this time), ordering drinks and food, this manager/hostess comes in and says "this is a table for 4 you are only two. You need to sit in the back of the restaurant where we have tables for two." Polite reply by my wife "we would like to sit close to the band" reply "you can't you can hear from the back" our reply "never mind we are leaving" their reply "Ok" and turns around and leaves... Then to add insult to injury after placing a comment to the friend about leaving early, I note that the comment was removed and I receive an email saying "...we are terribly sorry this behavior took place. But we were completely reserved and was not aware that you were friends with xxxx". REALLY????? So if I am friends with someone I would be treated better? Then they had the audacity to write: "we hope can continue to dine at our place". NOT A CHANCE!!!!

Cauley Square sets back off of US 1 (Old Dixie Highway.) Known as Historic Cauley Square Railroad Village because the cottages were hand built and lived in by Flagler's railroad workers in 1905. The old, colorful Florida cottages are now antique shops, a tea room, restaurants, etc. and are nestled in lush Florida vegetation where there are fountains, gardens, and walkways. And, there are raccoons galore roaming around. We spent about an hour or so looking through the stores. Worth a visit.

Cauley Square is a different place; Its like no other in South Florida. It is small but with various amenities; from antique shops to art galleries/studios. It is not a commercial Mall, it is a Village in which people used to live in the 1900s in cottages. You can see artists at work, art exhibitions (including ceramics) and if you have a little time you can take one hour class with some of the artists. They even have a Zumba place! There are two restaurants, The Tea Room and the Village Chalet. Prices are reasonable and very good kitchen. Every second Friday of the month you have the Art Walk in which all galleries/studios are open, and artists/artisans friends of the place show their work in the streets and mingle with visitors. If you visit Cauley square late march and early April, you have the Renaissance festival on ween-ends. It is a place very much real and alive, not like other Historic villages that look like a Museum. Some raccoon, squirrel and street cat around? Yes, but that gives Cauley Square a different flare. I have seen amazing weddings, university reunions and parties with live music all the time. I simply love it! If you want to know what's going on there, just visit their website and be informed.

We walked around thru the village and the building were disgusting the buildings had holes in them many raccoons live in the buildings. There are raccoons all over the place but that was not the problem since they are used to people. We went to the tea room we saw a hugh rat. It was horrible. The there was a roach that crawled across the table cloth. They need to shut down this village it is a hazard to people. I cannot even rate this one star please FDA get out there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I should have taken pictures but it was a business meeting and I couldn't take the time.

I went here with my husband and daughter in aug on a sat night. they said they had a jazz band and dinner out side and i would need a reservation,the band started at 7:30. I made the time for 7:15. Got there, tables were set up,but no one was around,at 7:30 someone appeared and we sat at a table. They were still getting ready. Band stasrted at 8:00, played elvis songs,not bad but we came for jazz,which on the phone they said that was what was playing. We odered drinks and dinner- the dinners we oder were horrible. to much spice and not the way it said on menu. My salmon was raw and my daughters cesar salad had so much anchiove paste on it you couldn't taste anything else. We try to tell someone, final when they did show up it was to late. Servce was bad and slow. nothing good, except it was a beautiful evening out side Save you money go for a walk on beach.

After completing my Redland Trail tour, my friend and I decided to stop by and grab a bite to eat. The entire square seemed like a ghostown since mostly all stores and restaurants were closed. The location is definitely pretty but in major need of some tender loving care! I would love to return when the area gets cleaned up.

This is honestly one of the weirdest places I have ever visited. If you are allergic to cats or fearful of raccoons stay far away.The two artist galleries were interesting with artists-in-residence at both. Evidently there is live music Friday (Rock) and Saturday (Jazz) both of which seem to miss the mark. The weirdest are the vintage tea room and doll shop. It's like you went back into time... but what time I don't know. wait, there was one good thing -- i was able to purchase a pretty good cuban coffee. take away... skip it and go to coral castle instead.

We signed up to be a vendor at their annual "Arts and Crafts Fair". Their BS rules for vendors said ""Publicity: Widespread, intensive, multimedia coverage, including press release. Expected audience of 1500+", but when we checked all the places on the web people look when they are seeking something to do on a weekend in south Florida, we could find nothing. A few days before the supposed Arts and Crafts Fair day, I emailed my concerns to Cauley Square, and they replied that there was a "misunderstanding", sending me a 5 or 6 places they had supposed advertised on, but even then I could find nothing, other than a poster placed on Cauley Square's own website that had no further information other than the time and day. Even their roadside sign, hung sloppily on a fence was bent and wrinkled, hardtop read and had the wrong times posted. The place is not readily visible from the road (US1) as it is set back from the highway, and behind a second lesser road, so unless you knew where the place was, most passing vehicles would have had no idea any daytime event was happening there. They also instructed vendors that the set up was to be complete well before the 10 am supposed start time, with no vehicles to be allowed on the grounds after 9:30am. That was blatantly untrue too as vehicles went through the area where vendors had erected their displays. We stopped ounting at 25 but it didn't matter as there was really no attendance. In fact, one end of their supposedly shut road was left open to anyone who wished to drive through. "1500" expected turnout? Laughable. We could have set up bowling pins at one end of their complex and rolled a bowling ball from the other end and not hit anyone other than the few vendors or raccoons the entire disgusting waste of time we were there. Worst of all, Cauley Square is located on a 20 acre wooded complex filled with raccoons and cats. (We saw many more raccoons than people there). While I have nothing against these cute creatures, their droppings were everywhere and instead of Cauley Square staff cleaning them up in the area where the vendors (all 9 who, like ourselves were duped by these people) were set up, or at least spraying them to cover the subtle odor, the immense amount of raccoon droppings were covered with horse flies that ate us alive until we retrieved insect spray with which we had to cover ourselves with and used a second can of insect spray to cover all the droppings within 30 feet of our display so the supposed 1500 guests their nonexistent advertising was supposed to attract wouldn't be eaten alive either. Bottom line: We had exactly 6 people stop at our display, (yes 6), and two of them I think were other vendors. No one even picked up a single thing from our display. The day cost us a lot of money, time and effort and it was worse than awful. This was supposed to be an art fair, but much of what the handful of vendors displayed was not hand made but low end import stuff, things that belonged at a flea market not an art fair (there was no jurying of vendors like real art fairs most often do)....but that did really didn't matter as no one was really selling anything. A little after 1pm we became the 5th. of the 9 vendors there to pack up and leave. I couldn't be more disgusted. Cauley Square is a lovely location, but in terrible disrepair, and its somewhat remote location, between south Miami and Homestead demanded that for any event there to be even moderately successful, required advertising and press releases, which were not done. Unfortunately we paid for our space in cash, so we are not able to cancel a credit card payment to this dump, as we heard other vendors said they were going to do. All and all it was a total waste of a day and we left as disgusted as we could be with the way this place is run. We wouldn't recommend anyone go to this place if it were the last place on earth, and I'm only sorry I couldn't give them a rating less than 1 on a 5 scale as they don't deserve even a one rating. Who would I recommend to visit this place?.... no one other than the health department.

First let me say I am from Key West and at the moment it is being run over by crowds, too much of everything. So for me and my husband finding Cauley Square is a quiet little reprieve. My husband and I ate at the Village Chalet and the food was very good, service excellent and half of the cost for the same in Key West. We actually enjoyed the cats and seeing racoons. They were never a problem and kept their distance. I never smelled cat urine. There are art studio's where you can meet the artist that make their work. I happened to fall in love with the hand made wooded pens made by Joe Dion. The artist that owns the studio, The Children's Gallery and Art Center, Natalie, and her husband have several different artist's work there, along with their own art.Ivana's Artisan carries very nice handbags and other accessories from Colombia, all priced very reasonable. The trees and plants reminded me of a tropical hammock in the Florida keys. For me and my husband, Homestead and the Redlands is always a great place to get away for a weekend, away from the crowds of cars, scooters, bicycles, trash and loud drunks in Key West. Cauley's Square could be better, but it is still worth a visit.

I got the sense that there might be some good music at night, but that's just from all the posters they had up promoting the fact that there's live music at night. We were there mid afternoon on a Friday and there was nothing going on.There are a few odd art shops that all seem to basically have the same sorts of wares, an exotic bird store, one little frozen drink shop, and a couple restaurants that were completely empty. The buildings are all run down and it's not always immediately obvious about what's open and what's not. As it stands the most interesting thing are all the fat raccoons and cats all over the place. One place we couldn't get within 20 feet of without being overwhelmed by the smell of cat urine. There are a few really interesting sculptures scattered about if you venture off the road just a little bit.This place is a little far from more major attractions like the Coral Castle and there's really nothing else touristy around, so I'm sure it's hard to draw a crowd, but it has potential. It needs way more diversification in the types of shops. Maybe some sort of small museum to tie in to the history of the place. It needs fixed and cleaned up a little. The empty shops need filled. Parking areas need defined. It could be a really cool place to shop for unique items and have a nice meal, but as it stands, it's not worth stopping.