Over the years the Vero Beach Book Center has hosted a president, an astronaut and Emeril Lagasse, who once kept signing books past 1 a.m. This Sunday it welcomes Brian Kilmeade back, and anyone who starts their day with Fox & Friends can meet him in person, right on 21st Street. Kilmeade last visited the Book Center in 2019 with his book on the Alamo. He returns this Sunday, Oct. 25 at 11 a.m. with Uniting the States, published just last week. Vero is his only stop on the Tr

Remember back in July, when Vero landed at #2 on Travel + Leisure’s list of beach towns to buy a home in before prices climb? Well this time, also according to Travel + Leisure, we took the top spot on Skyscanner’s list of the top trending travel destinations for Americans in 2027! Searches for round-trip flights to Vero tripled over the past year, more than any other place on the list. That put us ahead of everywhere from Bimini to Da Nang, Stockholm to Glasgow, with Olbia i

In our recent reader survey, classical music came up as one of the top things Vero Minute readers want more of. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center has just the thing. CMS recently launched The Art of Listening, an essay series bringing some of the world's best writers on music, including Paul Griffiths, longtime chief classical critic of The New York Times, and Jan Swafford, Beethoven's biographer, to tell the stories behind the pieces we hear in concert. A few to st

The Vero Beach Museum of Art is getting ready to move into its new space on A1A, and if you have a soft spot for the building you know and love in Riverside Park, this winter is your last chance to see it as it is. In mid-February, the museum hands everything but its Collections Wing over to construction, and the galleries you've wandered for years won't look the same again. Meet The Hub, the 6,000-square-foot building located at 1716 Highway A1A, the former location of Hazel

The wild have officially come out to play at McKee. A baby hippo, a giraffe, a cheetah, an elephant, a zebra, a bear, an arctic fox and a giant tortoise staked their positions along the Garden's paths this past Saturday, and you should go have a look. This weekend its only $5, but if you can't make it, relax, because they plan on sticking around through December 2027. If you read our previous article, you know Gillie & Marc Schattner, the internationally acclaimed British-Aus

If you want your kids to trade screen time for stage presence this season, Riverside Theatre is rolling out the ultimate roadmap. From toddlers taking their first creative steps right on up to pre-teens building original characters, the theatre's education programs give young performers the tools to grow and have fun doing it. Led by Jenni Norton, the upcoming six-week classes kick off this Wednesday, October 14, offering age-specific sessions designed to build confidence, sp

Beginning this Saturday, the region's dead rise, dress for the occasion, and start talking. They've had a hundred years to get their stories straight. And what a guest list! Main Street Fort Pierce has rounded up the region's most storied dead, cast them with volunteers in period dress, and posted them around the old downtown to tell all in the first person. Zora Neale Hurston, the Harlem Renaissance star who spent her last years there. Edwin Binney, the Crayola tycoon. A tri

That insatiable urge to look up to the stars is the oldest one we humans have, and you can indulge it right down the street at Indian River State College's Hallstrom Planetarium, where the cosmos come to life across a 40-foot dome, along with thousands of stars we never see due to light pollution. Just $7 buys an experience serene enough for an hour alone with your thoughts, yet awe-inspiring enough for a family outing or an incredible date night. The stars told the first far

Alma Lee Loy won it, the red-haired Vero girl who sold war bonds as a child and grew up to greet the whole town with a “hello darlin’.” Bud Adams won it, with a St. Lucie County ranch his father bought for $1.50 an acre and a breed of cattle he invented himself. Bob and Marygrace Sexton won it for Natalie’s juice, a century after the Sextons started building Vero. Bob’s grandfather Waldo Sexton arrived before Vero was even a town, planted citrus, put up the Driftwood Inn and

Forty-plus years is a long tour of duty, and the Veterans Council of Indian River County just signed up for another one. The Council has joined forces with United Way of Indian River County and has a new name to go with it: Mission United. It took more than a year to put together, and the programs, staff and services are all coming along for this next chapter. If you've never seen the Veterans Council at work, picture an army of passionate volunteers who get up in the morning

Ask Sebastian La Rocca why anyone should come to The Blu Fin, and he does not answer the question. He throws one back. Why, he asks, would you drive 30 or 45 minutes past a hundred restaurants to get here? Then the Argentine-born chef, Italian by blood, global by résumé, and visibly incapable of doing anything at half volume, answers himself. “We don’t sell food,” he says. “We offer you an experience.” Sebastian La Rocca That is Sebastian La Rocca: a chef with 27 years in int

This Thursday, Oct. 8 at 4PM, Meet Me on Main takes you inside the $14 million downtown campus Shannon McGuire Bowman spent years willing into existence, just about five weeks before the first child walks in. The mayor will be there. You should be too! Main Street Vero Beach's monthly social features Mayor John Cotugno, and the host is Childcare Resources, whose new home opens Nov. 12. Shannon McGuire Bowman Bowman took over Childcare Resources in 2012, when it reached about

Jack Donahue's ghost is tap-dancing across the Riverside Theatre stage starting next week and you have until Nov. 22 to catch him. The two-person musical draws on the true story of Jack's letters home as he climbed the brutal early 20th-century vaudeville circuit. You know vaudeville better than you think. It gave us terms like "big time" and "a tough act to follow," plus the mix of monologue, sketch and musical guests that late-night TV shows like Saturday Night Live still r

Forget the great snowbird migration. Downtown Vero's season really starts with the First Friday Gallery Stroll in October. This year that's October 2, when Gallery 14 opens its 19th season with a two-artist show you won't want to miss. John H.C. Davis is a Tulane-trained printmaker who carves Florida wildlife into linoleum, in reverse, one gouge at a time. He prints each piece by hand, paints it in acrylic, and then, if that wasn't labor-intensive enough, builds the wooden fr

Five tropical storms. Zero hurricanes. As of mid-September, the traditional peak of hurricane season, that's where the Atlantic stood this year, the slowest start since satellites began watching the tropics in 1966. The ocean hasn't cooled and the tropics haven't gone dormant. A strong El Niño has stacked up wind shear across the Atlantic, and that shear keeps tearing storms apart before they can organize. It's a pattern with precedent. El Niño years have produced some of the

Tickets for the Vero Beach Museum of Art's 45th International Lecture Series go on sale Thursday, and the lineup would make even a Manhattan cultural calendar jealous. The best-known name on the bill is Pico Iyer, the best-selling author and travel writer whose byline has run in The New York Times, Harper's and The New York Review of Books. He has spent decades explaining Japan to the rest of the world, and on February 1 he'll explain it to Vero. He's joined by two leading sc

Somebody left a baked potato at South Beach Park. Wrapped in foil, just sitting there, until the Dyer Subaru crew found it on September 19. It won them a trophy. It's no brick of drugs, which is what turned up last year, but we'll take a slower year on the contraband front. The potato was also the least worrying thing pulled off of our coastline that morning. Coastal Connections, Inc. just released the final numbers from this year's International Coastal Cleanup, and almost a

Backstage Access offers an exclusive, first-rate passport into the inner workings of Riverside Theatre. Designed for established and budding connoisseurs of the craft, these classes take you beyond the curtain of every mainstage production this season, with most courses including rare access to a tech rehearsal. Seating is limited, so only a small group gets into each class. Each production in the lineup has its own dedicated class, spanning two or three sessions, most on Thu

The artists arriving at McKee next month have been called the most prolific and successful creators of public art in New York's history by the Times. Marc and Gillie Schattner in front of The Last Three Gillie & Marc Schattner have installed bronze animals in over 250 cities, from Singapore to Shanghai to London. Best known for their recurring characters Rabbitwoman and Dogman, the British-Australian duo work as self-described eco-warriors, using sculpture as a platform for w

The Humane Society shelter on 77th is back at it for Empty the Shelters. Third round this year with the Bissell Pet Foundation, which either means the formula works or the shelter just doesn't stay empty for long. CEO Nichola Redmond's take, from the shelter's own press release: "Unfortunately, our shelter never is actually empty, as we receive animals almost daily." Pricing remains unchanged from July. Puppies 6 months to a year, $70. Dogs 1 to 8 years, $50. Kittens under 6