Love Greek culture? This Florida town offers a slice of the Mediterranean.
Tarpon Springs offers authentic Greek food, culture, and history right on Florida’s Gulf Coast, no passport required.
In a small coastal community in Florida, less than an hour’s drive from Tampa, historic riverside docks where sea sponges dry in the sun transport visitors to Greece.
Tarpon Springs grew from a small fishing village into a globally recognized sea sponge hub in the late 1800s, propelled by Greek immigrants who brought with them harvesting traditions and knowledge from the Dodecanese Islands of Kalymnos and Simi.
(Five lesser-known islands in the Dodecanese, Greece.)
Wooden boats loaded with mesh bags full of sea sponges still bob on the water at the docks, while family-run shops along aptly named Dodecanese Boulevard and surrounding streets draw visitors with natural sea sponges for sale. Used for bathing, cleaning, and decorating, the sponges here, known as “wool” sponges, are prized for their softness as well as their gentle exfoliating and hypoallergenic qualities.
“The fishermen have to go out a lot further into the Gulf these days to find the sponges, but when they bring them in on their boats and spread them out on the sponge docks to dry, it’s just such a nice celebration,” says Diane Wood, a longtime resident and the former director of the Cultural & Civic Services Department for the City of Tarpon Springs. “The town is beautiful. It’s really neat to see.”
These days, visitors can spot Greek influences everywhere. Restaurants with waterside terraces plate up traditional Greek food, and each January, the Tarpon Springs Epiphany draws thousands of people for a procession from St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral to Spring Bayou, a 12-acre natural spring and historic landmark. Started in 1906 by the town’s original sponge divers to commemorate Jesus Christ’s baptism, the event is now considered the largest Greek Orthodox celebration in the western hemisphere.
Here’s how to experience a slice of Greek life in Tarpon Springs.
How Greek immigrants shaped Tarpon Springs
Sea sponges, aquatic invertebrates found on natural sea beds, have a long history in Greece. Since ancient times, they were prized for a variety of uses, from bathing to medicine. They were even mentioned in Homer’s epics—the Iliad and the Odyssey. On the Greek island of Kalymnos, locals have been diving for sponges since the 1800s.
In Tarpon Springs, fishers discovered sea sponge beds just offshore in 1873. Soon after, immigrants from these Greek islands arrived, hoping to make their mark in Florida’s burgeoning sea sponge industry with their knowledge and equipment.
In time, sea sponge harvesting overtook the state’s citrus industry, until algal blooms killed off many of the sponge beds near Tarpon Springs in the 1940s and ’50s. Fortunately, new beds discovered in deeper waters farther offshore in the 1980s revived the business. Only a handful of commercial sponge boats are left, but Tarpon Springs retains its strong Greek cultural ties.
(Florida is actually a top farming state.)
Today, the town of about 25,000 residents is known for having the highest percentage of Greek American residents of any city in the United States. More than one in 10 residents have Greek ancestry—many descended from the original immigrant sponge divers.
Where to eat and drink in Tarpon Springs
The Limani
Open for lunch and early dinner, this no-frills, cash-only outdoor spot on the sponge docks is perpetually packed. Visitors and locals place their orders at the window for heaping platters of grilled chicken and pork souvlaki served with creamy tzatziki, fries topped with crumbled feta, and fresh Greek salads.
Hellas Restaurant & Bakery
This local favorite has been run by the same family that immigrated from Sparta in the 1980s. Inside, white tables and blue chairs welcome diners, while outside a shaded patio looks out on Dodecanese Boulevard. On the menu, visitors find all the hits: grilled octopus and dolmades, spanakopita, baklava, and the wedding cookies called kourabiedes.
Dimitri’s on the Water
The outdoor tables looking out on the Tarpon Springs Sponge Docks and Anclote River are particularly popular on Sunday afternoons, when locals stop by for lunch after church. The upscale restaurant is owned by Tarpon Springs native, Demetrios Salivaras, who trained in classic culinary techniques at the Culinary Institute of America. The menu features fresh, local seafood, including Gulf grouper, mahi mahi, and octopus, which is grilled and served with olive oil, lemon, and oregano. Do as the Greeks do and order the fish of the day, fried or broiled, and served whole.
Mr. Souvlaki
A few blocks off Dodecanese Boulevard, Mr. Souvlaki has been dishing up classics like avgolemono soup and the flaming cheese dish called saganaki for decades. But locals love the Greek Chow Mein—a rice pilaf with grilled peppers, chicken, pork, or Gulf shrimp, and fresh feta. Save room for the cinnamon-spiced rice pudding—it’s free.
Tarpon Springs Distillery
Inside this converted sea sponge warehouse, visitors sample whiskeys and spirits that were aged in barrels at a 130-year-old church originally built by enslaved Bahamian spongers. The distillery tips its hat to the area’s Greek history with Papou’s Ouzo, an anise-flavored spirit, with notes of coriander and orange zest.
The best experiences in Tarpon Springs
Sail aboard the St. Nicholas for a sponge-diving demo
This 45-to-60-minute cruise aboard a wooden sponge boat sets sail from the Sponge Docks along the Anclote River and includes a demonstration with a sponge diver—dressed in traditional gear—harvesting a live sea sponge.
Visit Tarpon Springs Heritage Museum for local art and history
This small museum in Craig Park overlooking Spring Bayou preserves a wealth of Indigenous artifacts from the region as well as artwork from locals, such as Christopher Still, whose landscape paintings bring the area to life.
Celebrate with locals at the Tarpon Springs Epiphany
Every January, this Greek Orthodox festival marks Jesus Christ’s baptism in the River Jordan. The festivities begin when a young woman releases a dove into the air, symbolizing the Holy Spirit’s descent. The procession then winds its way downtown to Spring Bayou, where the Archbishop of America offers a blessing and tosses a cross into the bayou. Local boys dive for the ceremonial cross, said to bring good luck to whoever retrieves it.
Marvel at Tarpon Springs’ Greek Orthodox Cathedral
Beyond the sponge docks, St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral plays a key role in local life. Built in 1943, the church dazzles with white marble sourced from a quarry near Athens, Greece; chandeliers from Czechia; neo-Byzantine votive lamps; and a dome crowned with a glowing cross. Services are held in both English and Greek, with Sunday morning’s Divine Liturgy drawing over a thousand people.
Shop for locally sourced sea sponges
Many shops in Tarpon Springs sell locally sourced natural sea sponges. Greek native and longtime sponger Anastasios “Taso” Karistinos still harvests sponges sold at charming Sponge Diver Supply, the blue-fronted shop decorated with a smiley face made of sponges run by his son. Karistinos received the Florida Folk Heritage Award in 2010 for perfecting the sea sponge diving tradition.
Spongeorama Sponge Factory also carries a fine selection of natural sea sponges harvested in the Gulf. Founded in 1968, this quirky museum claims the world’s largest selection of natural sea sponges and serves as a living time capsule of the city’s historic Greek sponge-diving industry.
