The Bubbas are Back!
June 27, 2025
It is once again time to place your votes for the best among the diverse mix of great businesses and nonprofit organizations that form the backbone of our Key West community. Bubbas nominations are flooding in and Bascom Grooms Real Estate is in the race for Best Realtor & Best Real Estate Company.
The Key West People’s Choice Awards
It is certainly familiar news to regular readers of this blog that this time of year brings around one of the island’s favorite long-running events: The Keys Weekly Key West People’s Choice Awards, affectionately known as the Bubbas. Voting for 2025—the 12th annual running of the fun and friendly competition that showcases so much of what makes Key West so unique and inviting—began this month, on June 19, and remains open until 8:59 PM Mountain Time on July 6, 2025.
The Bubbas honor the diverse mix of great restaurants, bars, businesses, service providers, and nonprofits that make Key West such a fun and interesting place to live. It is all about promoting healthy competition that boosts recognition of our island businesses and providing the perfect excuse to party at an always-packed People’s Choice awards banquet that is legendary for delivering lots of laughs and just an all-around good time.
The Bubbas banquet tickets are always a hot item, and all proceeds go to a worth cause. This year it is Florida Keys Area Health Education Centers (Keys AHEC), providers of no-cost medical care and low-cost dental services for school age children in Monroe County regardless of their financial circumstances. For the 2023–2024 school year, Keys AHEC provided 5,988 medical clinic visits and 3,431 dental clinic visits, helping to keep local children healthy and reducing school absenteeism. A good effort indeed!
As the perennial favorite and undisputed title holder of Best Realtor since the competition was launched in 2014, Bascom is delighted and grateful to see that nominations from Key Westers and fans around the world have moved Bascom Grooms Real Estate into position among the Top 3 rankings for Best Realtor & Best Real Estate Company. Be sure to vote daily and know that Bascom and the team appreciate your ongoing support.
July Sparkles in Key West
The mid-summer season in Key West is arguably the busiest, most festive time of year after the Christmas holidays. The month starts right off with the Key Lime Festival, scheduled this year for a full 5 days of fruity fun July 2–6. Family fun activities, various markets and vendors, plenty of citrus-centered celebrations and characters, lots of delicious pie and other treats, and of course the classic July 4th pie-eating contest.
It’s a perfect way to warm-up for the traditional Rotary Club 4th of July Spectacular featuring a classic picnic and fireworks show combination at Sonny McCoy Indigenous Park, 1801 White Street on the island’s south shore. A long-standing Key West tradition, this event is the ideal way for Key West visitors to get a real sense of the great community spirit we have here in America’s Caribbean Paradise. Get there early on foot or by bike if possible because several streets are closed and parking is limited. Smathers Beach and Higgs Beach are the hot tips for excellent firework viewing, but claim your spots well ahead of time.
Another classic July event that should not be missed is the 44th annual Hemingway Days celebration held in honor of the July 21st birth date of the legendary author and one-time Key West resident. Ernest Hemingway pursued his love of fine Cuban rum and serious big game fishing while living in Key West throughout the 1930s (1928–1939). He wrote several of his most famous novels while living at the house he and his wife Pauline purchased at 907 Whitehead Street, now the famous Hemingway House Museum.
Hemingway Days commemorates the author with a 5K run, literary events and a short-story competition, a fishing tournament, a whacky ‘running of the bulls’ parade featuring contestants from the Sloppy Joe’s Hemingway Look-Alike Contest, a street fair, and more. It’s the perfect time to have some fun and make a toast or two to the author of such classics as For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea, and To Have and Have Not, the latter two of which were written in Key West.
Key West Fun in the Summertime
Summer is a wonderful time to visit the Lower Keys and Key West. The hot sun is tempered by ocean breezes, the weather is perfect for getting in the water, many hotel and restaurant prices are discounted for the traditional off-season, and there are special events galore to enjoy.
If you have been considering a tropical island home, why not combine a Key West summer vacation with some house-hunting? The team members here at Bascom Grooms Real Estate are your local experts at all things Key West and Lower Keys real estate. Look around our website, enjoy beautiful photos of our listings, learn more about Key West, then contact us to plan a visit beginning with some virtual tours of your favorite Key West properties.
Bascom Grooms Real Estate—1110 Truman Avenue, Key West Florida—(305) 295-7511—info@bascomgrooms.com
