Yearling Restaurant, Hawthorne

A decade after moving to Cross Creek, a "half-wild, backwoods country" where she felt right at home, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings published her Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Yearling, which tells the tale of a boy who adopts a fawn as a pet. It inspired an award-winning film in 1946 and, in 1952, a restaurant just down the road from Marjorie's house. That's where Yearling Restaurant—named one of the best places to eat in Northern Florida by the Orlando Sentinel—still stands today.

Specializing in traditional southern cuisine that captures the spirit of old Florida, the culinary team serves up everything from venison and quail to frog legs, deep-fried clams, and an alligator dish that Ocala Style says is "done right." Meals unfold among Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings memorabilia and the bluesy riffs of Willie Green, who plays tunes daily. Visitors who want even more of the spirit of old Florida but who don't want to buy all the candles required to summon Ponce de Leon's ghost can spend the night in Cross Creek in a restored cottage at The Secret River Lodge.