The Boat Ramp Went Quiet the Same Summer Hobe Sound's Oldest Kitchen Came Back
August 20, 2026
August 20, 2026
The corner of US-1 and Bridge Road in Hobe Sound sits where the Intracoastal Waterway pinches to its narrowest point in the area, close enough that the building on that corner used to double as waterfront dining whenever it rained. That building is made of native tidewater pecky cypress and has stood there since December 7, 1941, the day it opened as The Cypress Cabins and Restaurant. It's been Harry and the Natives since 1989, and it very nearly wasn't anything at all by the end of 2024.
That near miss is worth knowing about right now, because this is turning into an unusual summer for anyone who treats Hobe Sound as a place to live rather than a place to visit. Two things are happening at once, and they are pulling in opposite directions. The town's food scene, anchored by buildings that have been feeding people since the 1940s and 50s, is getting louder and more crowded. Meanwhile the town's default outdoor plan, a Saturday drive into Jonathan Dickinson State Park for a rented kayak or bike, ran into a wall this summer that hasn't come down yet.
For decades, the building at 11500 SE Federal Highway was the Catfish House, run for about 30 years by Bud Johnson and another decade after that under different ownership, closing for good in 2023 after 25.5 years under its final operator. In February 2026, two owners known locally as the Salty Sisters reopened it as the Salty Pelican Fish Shack. They kept the bones of the place intact, including the bone-in "little ones" catfish that regulars remember, and added live music on the covered outdoor patio during events. It's a rare case of a 70-year-old dining address getting a second life instead of turning into something unrecognizable.
That reopening isn't happening in isolation. Ask around and you'll hear the same handful of names come up as recent arrivals or recent reinventions on the town's short restaurant row along Federal Highway and Dixie Highway:
None of this is a coincidence of timing so much as a pattern. A town that spent years known mostly for one legendary bar and grill and one fading catfish house now has enough turnover on its restaurant row that residents are comparing notes on which corner changed hands most recently.
The reason that comparison matters is that the anchor tenant on this corner almost didn't make it to see any of this. In October 2024, owner Harry MacArthur announced on Facebook that Harry and the Natives would close, saying he'd put $400,000 of his own money into keeping it open after four years of post-COVID struggles and couldn't do it anymore. The restaurant had been in his family since his parents, Jack and Pauline MacArthur, took it over in 1952, and Harry had run it himself since 1989. His son Wyatt organized a GoFundMe campaign to try to save it.
The public response is the reason there's still a pecky cypress building on that corner to point to. Donations, national press attention, and a wave of customers determined to keep the place full turned the closing announcement into a save. Harry MacArthur is now well past his 60th year in the restaurant business, and the restaurant is still open every day but Monday, still serving hot meals, still hosting live music several nights a week.
That's the context that makes the current run of restaurant openings mean something more specific than just growth. Hobe Sound isn't simply adding restaurants. It's a town where the newest arrival occupies a building that sat empty for years, next door to an older one that came within weeks of joining it, and both are open right now because enough people decided they should be.
The other half of a typical Hobe Sound weekend has had a rougher few months. Jonathan Dickinson State Park has always been the default outdoor plan here, ten thousand acres wrapped around the Loxahatchee River with trails, a swimming beach, and rentals that made it easy to show up without your own gear.
That easy access disappeared this summer. As of June 30, 2026, every concession at the park, including canoe, kayak, and bike rentals, boat tours, and general food and drink service, is unavailable. The Loxahatchee Queen tour boat concessionaire has also closed, and it's not yet clear if or when tours will resume. If you own your own kayak or bike, the park itself hasn't gone anywhere. Trapper Nelson's Interpretive Site, accessible only by water, is still open to personal watercraft Wednesday through Monday from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., closed Tuesdays, as of a July 2026 schedule update. But if renting was ever part of your plan, that plan is currently on hold, with no announced timeline for a new concessionaire to take over.
For anyone who wants a kayak without owning one, the nearest alternative right now is upriver at Riverbend Park on Indiantown Road, where a separate outdoor outfitter still runs Loxahatchee River rentals and tours. It's a longer drive than the park entrance most Hobe Sound residents are used to, and it's a real adjustment if a rented kayak was ever your Saturday morning routine.
Two things haven't slowed down at all, and they're worth knowing about precisely because the state park concessions have.
The Hobe Sound Nature Center, working in partnership with the Nathaniel P. Reed Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge, remains free to visit and keeps a running calendar of hands-on programs. As recently as August 6, the center hosted a "Bubbles and Bites" fish feeding at its reef and lagoon tanks, and the center's two resident juvenile alligators, Luna and Sol, are a standing draw for anyone bringing kids by. None of this requires a rental fee or a reservation months out. It's the kind of low-key outdoor option that quietly picks up slack when the bigger park's rental counter goes dark.
Hobe Sound Farms is running its own recurring draw a few times a year: a Saturday Night Line Dancing evening with lessons from Country Heart Dance Company and music from local DJ John Lindz, the farm grounds turned into an outdoor dance floor from 6 to 11 p.m. One of these nights lands today, August 17, with another scheduled for October 17. It's not a substitute for a kayak trip, but it's a reminder that the town's calendar of things to actually do on a Saturday hasn't shrunk. It's just redistributed itself away from the state park gate and toward a handful of smaller, locally run venues.
Put those two storylines side by side and the shape of the summer gets clearer. Hobe Sound's restaurant row is proving more resilient than a casual visitor would guess, with a 70-year-old building back in business and an 83-year-old institution still standing because enough people refused to let it close. At the same time, the park that residents have leaned on for free-form Saturday plans has pulled back its easiest points of entry, at least for now, with no firm date for when rentals come back.
Neither trend is permanent. Concessionaires get replaced. Restaurants that survive one hard year sometimes don't survive the next. But right now, this week, the town looks less like the sleepy stretch of US-1 it's often described as and more like a place actively renegotiating which of its old standbys stay standing and which routines its residents have to rebuild around something new.
If you're weighing what any of this means for property here, whether you already own in Hobe Sound or you're watching it from a distance, that's a conversation worth having with someone who tracks these details as they happen rather than after the fact. The team at Hughes Browne Group follows northern Palm Beach and Martin County neighborhoods this closely because the texture of daily life, not just the listing sheet, is what tells you whether a place still fits. Start a Conversation whenever you're ready to talk through it.
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