Surprisingly Decent Wine at a Beach Bakery
Simonton Street / Old Town · Key West · Cafe & Bakery · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · July 23, 2026
RagingWine reviewed Moondog Cafe & Bakery’s wine list and gave it The Wild Card — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
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Wingman Metrics
You walk into what is essentially a Key West bakery and cafe, and somehow there's a real wine list waiting for you. Eleven labels isn't deep, but for a spot that leads with pastries and morning fare, we weren't expecting Torre La Moreira Albariño to be on the menu. It's a pleasant surprise — the kind that makes you reconsider your assumptions about where to grab a glass in Old Town.
The list covers a respectable amount of ground for its size: Italian Pinot Grigio, Spanish Albariño, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Argentine Malbec, a California Chardonnay, a Chilean Cab, and a French rosé. It's not adventurous exactly, but someone made deliberate choices here rather than just phoning in the Kendall-Jackson and calling it a day. The gaps are obvious — no bubbles, no reds beyond Pinot Noir and Malbec — but what's here is more considered than a cafe of this scale has any obligation to be. The inclusion of a non-alcoholic Albariño from Missing Thorn is a thoughtful touch that most full-service restaurants still haven't figured out.
Eight of the nine alcoholic bottles are available by the glass, which is a genuinely generous ratio for a list this compact. Glass pours run $11 to $15, landing in a range that feels right for Key West without gouging the tourist walking in off Simonton Street. There's no rotating program here — what you see is what you get, week after week — but the options cover white, red, rosé, and even that N/A pour, so most tables can find something.
Torre La Moreira Albariño — $40/bottle
Albariño from Rías Baixas at $40 a bottle is a fair price in any context, and in a Key West cafe it's practically generous. It's a briny, citrus-driven white that was basically built for hot weather and seafood — exactly what you're doing in the Keys.
Missing Thorn N/A Albariño
Most restaurants treat the non-alcoholic option as an afterthought — a sparkling water in disguise. Missing Thorn's NA Albariño is an actual wine-adjacent option worth considering, and the fact that Moondog even stocks it puts them ahead of spots with three times the list size.
Ö-61 Cabernet Sauvignon
A Cab in a Key West cafe is already a tough sell when it's 85 degrees and humid, and a Chilean Cab at $56 a bottle doesn't give you much reason to fight that instinct. Nothing wrong with the wine in the abstract, but this is the wrong list and the wrong climate for it — order the Albariño.
Social Bird Rosé + A light pastry or morning fare from the bakery case
Dry rosé and a mid-morning bite on a Key West patio is basically the platonic ideal of a Florida vacation. The Social Bird is soft enough not to fight with anything coming out of a bakery case, and at $13 a glass it doesn't feel reckless at 10am.
🎲 The Bottom Line
Moondog isn't a wine destination, and it doesn't pretend to be — but it offers a surprisingly considered little list at prices that don't insult your intelligence, which puts it well ahead of the tourist-trap cafes clustered around it. If you're in Old Town and want a glass with your morning or a light lunch, there are worse decisions you'll make in Key West.
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