Oakland Park doesn’t ask for attention; it earns it slowly. Drive north from downtown Fort Lauderdale and the skyline gives way to a patchwork of low warehouses, old oak canopies, and mid-century storefronts painted in sea-glass tones. This is the city’s creative cousin, a place that learned long ago how to turn modest materials into personality.
Life here moves at an easy cadence. Mornings begin with cyclists on Dixie Highway dodging sprinklers, the scent of Cuban coffee drifting from corner windows. By afternoon, the air thickens with bread from the local bakery and faint hops from the breweries along the tracks. Locals talk about the weather the way others talk about family; it’s the glue of every conversation.
Oakland Park sits just three miles inland from the beach, close enough to feel the salt but buffered from the tourist churn. It’s Broward County without the gloss — a living grid of side streets where gardens overflow with bougainvillea and mango trees, and neighbors still wave from driveways. The city’s charm comes from its scale; it’s big enough to surprise you, small enough to remember your name.
History and Character
The land that became Oakland Park was once a sprawl of pine flatwoods and vegetable farms. In the 1910s, when the Florida East Coast Railway extended northward, settlers followed the tracks and cleared the land for tomatoes, beans, and citrus. A cluster of farmers formed a cooperative, selling produce to nearby towns, and by 1925 they incorporated as Oakland Park — named for the native oaks that lined the canals.
Hurricanes in 1926 and 1928 flattened most of what they’d built, but the residents rebuilt with concrete block and persistence. Through the 1940s and 50s, the area filled with small homes for war-returning veterans and their families. Mom-and-pop shops popped up on Main Street, giving the city a self-contained rhythm separate from Fort Lauderdale’s beach economy.
The 1980s brought decline: malls pulled customers away, and the downtown lost its pulse. Yet the bones remained strong. The city invested in streetscapes, new zoning, and, eventually, a wild idea — to brand itself around culinary arts. What sounded far-fetched became Oakland Park’s turning point.
Today the city feels like a collage of its eras: railroad bungalows, 1950s ranches, 1970s concrete boxes, all threaded together by canals and oaks. There’s pride in its rough edges. Residents describe it as “the Fort Lauderdale you can still afford,” though that window is closing as word spreads.
Nature and Outdoors
You don’t need to leave town to touch nature here. The Middle River winds lazily through Oakland Park, its surface glittering beneath royal palms and sea grapes. Early mornings, paddleboarders glide between backyards while green iguanas sun themselves on seawalls. In the stillness you can hear the splash of mullet and the hum of pool pumps waking up the neighborhood.
Royal Palm Park is the city’s social backyard. On weekends families pitch tents near the water, barbecues hiss, and kids chase ducks through the grass. Joggers loop the trails that trace the canal, passing fishermen casting for peacock bass. When the afternoon storms roll in, everyone scatters beneath the pavilions, laughing as the rain drums the tin roofs.
Just west lies Easterlin Park, one of Broward’s oldest preserves. It protects a stand of ancient bald cypress and longleaf pines that once blanketed this region. Walk its loop trail at sunset and you’ll catch the resin scent of pine sap mixing with the damp musk of earth. The contrast is striking: high-rises shimmer a few miles away, yet inside the park it could be 1880 again.
Oakland Park also anchors the county’s greenway network. Cyclists can connect from the Powerline Trail south to Wilton Manors or east toward the beach. Locals talk about the day the trails will link entirely from the Everglades to the Atlantic — a dream that feels right at home in a city that keeps reinventing its connections.
Food and Drink
If Broward County has a flavor, Oakland Park might be its kitchen. The Culinary Arts District, just off Dixie Highway, has turned a handful of warehouses into a living lab for chefs and artisans. Food trucks idle outside breweries, farmers’ markets fill the side streets, and the city’s community garden teaches schoolkids to grow herbs between the tracks.
At the center of it all stands Funky Buddha Brewery. When it opened in 2010, few imagined a microbrewery could anchor a town’s identity. Today its name appears on menus statewide. The taproom still feels local — picnic tables, board games, and the buzz of conversation that swells at twilight. Their Maple Bacon Coffee Porter became a legend, but regulars swear by the crisp Floridian Hefeweizen.
Beyond beer, Oakland Park’s food scene thrives on contrasts. There’s Venezuelan arepas from a family stand beside a minimalist vegan café run by twenty-somethings. Thai takeout hides next to a Haitian bakery. At dawn, old-timers gather for Cuban coffee at the bakery counter; by night, young couples share craft cocktails in the same building.
What ties it together is scale — everything feels close and human. You can walk three blocks and taste four countries. And you can tell that the people cooking here actually live here.
Arts, Culture and Community
Art in Oakland Park isn’t confined to galleries. It spills onto walls, fences, and food trucks. Murals bloom under highway overpasses, painted by local collectives who trade supplies more than they sell them. The city’s art walks are humble affairs — folding tables, live guitars, kids chalking sidewalks — yet they feel authentic because they belong to the people who show up.
Jaco Pastorius Park, named after the world-renowned jazz bassist who grew up nearby, is the cultural heart. Every year it hosts the Oakland Park Music and Arts Festival, a grassroots blend of funk bands, local painters, and Caribbean food stalls. The sound drifts through the palms late into the evening.
Community pride runs deep. The city sponsors cleanup days along the canal, native-tree giveaways, and neighborhood block parties that still end with everyone dancing to a local DJ. It’s civic life at eye level — informal, sweaty, and joyous.
Even the city hall murals tell a story of resilience: fishermen, jazz musicians, railroad workers, and gardeners side by side. Oakland Park celebrates creation over perfection, and that might be its most enduring art form.
Regional Character
Broward County often lives in the shadow of Miami-Dade, but its personality is distinct: less flash, more familiarity. Oakland Park embodies that difference. It sits squarely in South Florida’s coastal plain, where canals outnumber streets and the soil smells faintly of salt and iron.
To the south, Fort Lauderdale leans toward luxury marinas; to the north, Pompano Beach edges back toward working-class grit. Oakland Park threads the needle, capturing the creativity of both. It has the same tropical palette — pink sunsets, silver palms, summer storms that arrive on schedule — but it processes them differently.
While other Broward towns race to redevelop, Oakland Park advances at its own rhythm. The city’s planning meetings are full of residents, not just investors. People argue about bike lanes and tree canopy percentages as if the future of the republic depended on it. Maybe that’s the secret: engagement. The city never surrendered to anonymity.
This regional stance has made Oakland Park a magnet for small-scale entrepreneurs priced out of Miami. Photographers, brewers, and designers settle here for the same reason the farmers once did — good land, good light, and space to breathe.
Local Highlights
1. Funky Buddha Brewery
Still the city’s cultural anchor. The brewery occupies a former electronics warehouse and spills out onto a shaded patio where strangers share tables and trade beer flights. Tour groups mix with locals playing shuffleboard. The smell of malt lingers for blocks.
2. Jaco Pastorius Park
A modest green space with outsized spirit. Its amphitheater hosts jazz nights, art fairs, and civic picnics. Locals still talk about the 2015 festival when a storm cut the power and a brass band finished the set acoustically by lantern light.
3. Culinary Arts District
A micro-neighborhood of bakeries, studios, and co-ops that keep expanding northward. Artists share tools; chefs share kitchens. It’s what every city says it wants to be: collaborative without a committee.
4. Easterlin Park
Forty-six acres of old-growth cypress, a short drive yet a psychological leap from traffic. Tent campers wake to woodpeckers tapping in the canopy. Boardwalks wind through still water that mirrors the sky.
5. The Middle River Canals
Hidden arteries that define local life. Residents use them like country lanes, cruising in jon boats or kayaks at dusk. From the water, you see backyards with hammocks, string lights, and the quiet hum of air-conditioners.
6. City Hall and Main Street Revitalization
The city’s investment in civic architecture pays off here. Native landscaping, public art, and pedestrian plazas create a space that feels like a town square reborn.
Lodging and Atmosphere
Oakland Park doesn’t chase the hotel crowd. Most visitors base themselves in Fort Lauderdale, but those who stay within city limits discover a slower, truer rhythm. Small motels from the 1950s line the backstreets near Dixie Highway, their neon signs restored instead of replaced.
Airbnb hosts outnumber hotels, offering guest cottages behind bungalows where hosts greet you with mangoes from the yard. Some houses back directly onto canals, and at night the reflections of palms ripple across bedroom ceilings.
The atmosphere after sunset is distinct. You can hear distant train horns, the occasional crackle of a backyard grill, and the low rustle of palm fronds. There’s nightlife if you want it — live music, open-mic nights, late pizza — but mostly there’s comfort in how ordinary evenings feel. It’s South Florida without the pretense.
JJ’s Tip
Oakland Park rewards patience. Skip the highway and arrive the slow way, drifting north through neighborhood streets with the windows down. Stop for a coffee, wander the murals, or watch the paddleboarders trace the canal bends.
The best hour comes just before dusk when the heat lifts and the sky turns watercolor pink. Stand on the bridge over the Middle River and listen. You’ll hear crickets, dogs, maybe a faint guitar from a porch. That’s the real music of the place. Oakland Park doesn’t perform; it breathes.
