Most Miami itineraries lead straight to a restaurant or a cocktail lounge. But photographer and art show curator David Gary Lloyd, a genuine South Florida local, has a different playbook — one that covers a vintage treasure hunt, a shaded outdoor skate, and a proper night at the movies.
Lloyd's first pick is Turn Back the Clock on Bird Road, a vintage shop that functions more like a curated museum where every piece has a price tag. Fashion sorted by decade, art, memorabilia, and rotating displays make it the kind of place where an hour vanishes before you notice. For a bit of outdoor movement, he recommends the 2.3-mile loop around the Granada Golf Course in Coral Gables — the oldest operating nine-hole course in Florida, dating to 1923 — where banyan-shaded paths welcome walkers, joggers, cyclists, and skaters without a tee time. If an ocean backdrop sounds better, the South Beach boardwalk makes a solid alternative.
For evenings, Lloyd points to Miami's surprisingly strong independent cinema scene. O Cinema is a nonprofit art house at 1130 Washington Avenue in Miami Beach's Art Deco District, screening first-run indies, documentaries, and community events. The Coral Gables Art Cinema, a 141-seat theater at 260 Aragon Avenue, runs American independent, foreign, and classic films seven days a week right in the heart of downtown Coral Gables — and the whole night costs roughly what a single cocktail would elsewhere.
String all three together and you have a genuinely full Miami day: rollerblade the Granada loop in the cool of the morning, dig through the racks at Turn Back the Clock in the afternoon, then settle in for whatever is on screen at the Gables cinema or make the causeway run to O Cinema for a late showing.
These picks were shared by David Gary Lloyd in the debut episode of the Local Series interview feature on Coral Gables Love, written by Paola Mendez.
