29 Things People From Miami Love

Yes, it's all true. We love pool partiesstrip clubs, and happy hours. And we also have a ton of guilty pleasures out-of-towners simply wouldn't understand. However, if you dig a little deeper, beneath our white linen shirts and tanned skin, you'll find we're slightly more complex than surface-level observations. We have unique hobbies, and passions, and friends with luxurious party boats! And to prove it, we've aggregated a list of 29 undeniable things everyone in Miami not-so-secretly loves.  

305
Flickr/Daniela Z.

1. Our area code

Not only does 305 lend itself to clever hand signs, if you go to the beach at 8th St, you’ll see it looks great anywhere you get it tattooed.

2. Not working

In other cities, people like to humble-brag by talking about their 80-hour work weeks. In Miami, we like to not-so-humble-brag by posting pictures from the beach at noon on a Tuesday.

3. Spanglish

Because using only one language in a sentence es para tontos.

Publix Subs
Publix

4. Publix subs

Ask any Miamian why the deli subs at Publix are better than the sub sandwiches at any other grocery store, and we have only one answer: “I don’t know. They just ARE.” Making it perhaps the most existential food item in history.

5. Talking about Miami

Sit down with a group of people who’ve lived in Miami for more than six months, and within an hour, you’ll know why every single person simultaneously loves and hates it here.

Yachts
Flickr/Sasha Nabs

6. Boats

Not actually owning a boat, but having a “boy” with a third cousin who has a boat, inviting every girl you meet out on it, and still referring to it as “mine”.

7. Having “a guy who does that”

Doesn’t really matter what your “guy” does. Could be VCR repair. Could be forged passports. But Miamians never, ever pay retail -- or anything other than cash -- for a service.

Cuban Coffee
Flickr/Chris Goldberg

8. Cuban coffee

This is the reason Miami’s never had much of a problem with crystal meth.

9. Making fun of Hialeah

They just make it so easy with their nonsensical street grid, a mayor who gets in fights on the freeway, and a store called “Nnnnnno, Que Barato”. That, and the fact that otherwise, the butt of all our jokes would be Kendall, which doesn’t sound nearly as funny.

10. Plastic surgery

We are, by all accounts, the birthplace of the ass implant. You’re welcome.

11. Humidity

We might say we hate it, but there's nothing like that first blast of hot, wet air when the doors slide open at MIA to say, “Welcome home!”.

12. Those weather maps that show the whole country in a polar vortex. Except us.

Last winter, you saw this in your newsfeed roughly 437 times a day.

Miami house
Flickr/Paolo Gamba

13. Living at home

Who says no innovation comes out of Miami? We’ve figured out how to drive brand-new cars, have personal chefs and laundry service, and still go to the beach on a Tuesday. It’s called sharing a bedroom wall with your Grandma.

14. Live DJs

Because it wouldn’t be a Jiffy Lube opening without the funky sounds of DJ Irie on the 1s and 2s.

15. Weekend cruises to the Bahamas

This weekend you could A) hit a club full of $22 drinks and girls who won’t talk to you unless you own an oil company, or B) smuggle your own drinks onto a cruise ship bound for Nassau full of girls who paid $189 for their annual vacation and you’ll probably never see again. Tough call.

Miami Heat
Miami Heat

16. The Heat

You thought they'd go back to being the Marlins with better uniforms once LeBron left? Have you seen Hassan Whiteside?!

17. Working out

Look at the last 10 Miamians you texted in your phone. You know what more of them do for exercise than what they do for a living.

18. Trick Daddy

How could we not love “The 305 Mayor”, who, if you talk to guys from Liberty City, Miami Gardens, or Richmond Heights, is "boys" with EVERY SINGLE DUDE in the city?!

Flags in Miami
Flickr/Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

19. National flags

Look at the rear view mirrors in any Miami parking lot, and you can learn the flag of every country in the Western Hemisphere. Except the United States.

20. Bottles, bro

Not that any self-respecting local's enough of a sucker to actually buy a bottle. But being invited to LIV by an out-of-towner who IS? THAT we love.

21. Grey Goose and soda

With lime. Has to be Goose, preferably from one of the aforementioned bottles someone else paid for. Gotta watch those carbs.

Pollo Tropical
Pollo Tropical

Saying “I don’t know what the big deal is about Pollo Tropical” around a group of Miamians gets you a reaction similar to telling a group of people from Texas you don’t like Lonestar.

23. Leased cars

How do people in Miami drive cars that cost more than their annual salary? The magic of leasing and, usually, #13.

24. Being late

Though “late” is kind of a relative term. Showing up at 10:30pm for an event that starts at 7 is apparently considered rude in some places.

Cocaine Cowboys
Cocaine Cowboys | Magnolia Pictures

25. Cocaine Cowboys

Outside Miami, you might meet one person a week who’s seen this doc about the 1980s coke trade. In Miami, there are people who can recite it backwards.

26. Driving

We don't pay $499 a month to lease a 5-Series so we can WALK to Publix.

27. Telling people we’re from Miami

When you’re out of town and tell someone you’re from Miami, it immediately makes you cool, sexy, and exotic. Unless that person’s actually lived here. Then they pity you.

Pig Roast
Flickr/Matthew Roth

28. Pork

Our signature sandwich -- The Cuban -- has two different kinds of swine on it, and burying an entire pig in a black box and roasting it in your backyard is pretty much a Sunday tradition.

29. Not being New Yorkers

New Yorkers take note: Boston, Chicago, and Philly might rip on you out of some sort of cold-weather inferiority complex. We do it because no matter how bad the traffic, humidity, corruption, and everything else that makes this city borderline-unlivable gets, we know it could always be worse. We could be living in New York.

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Matt Meltzer is a staff writer for Thrillist. Follow him on Instagram @meltrez1.