Food
Florence Beer Market
Downtown Florence’s community hub pairs cold craft beer with a from-scratch Italian kitchen. Owner Charles Montgomery grew up here, worked for the original owner and bought the place at 20, before he could legally order a beer. Now he runs it with his family and 23 beers on tap. Get the stromboli. The dough is made fresh every day, and it comes loaded with ricotta, meat, more meat and the whole produce department. Add the garlic Parmesan wings if you’re as hungry as I was.
The Vineyard at Florence
Can’t make it to Tuscany? The Vineyard at Florence is the next best thing. What started in 2009 with a few grapes and one barn now spreads across 30 acres, with a hotel, a tasting room built from an 1850s barn and Farmers Commons, a farm-to-fork restaurant. The chef and the gardener plan each season’s menu together, so the tomatoes on your plate grew right outside. I sipped Haven, a Texas Albariño, then dug into Gulf shrimp and grits. It’s a mini trip at the end of your day trip.
Culture
Gault Site
This unassuming ranch outside Florence is one of the most important archaeological sites in North America. For about a century, the story went that the Clovis people were the first humans on the continent. Then digs here turned up the largest trove of Clovis material ever found, plus tools left thousands of years before Clovis. I held engraved stones that are basically prehistoric doodles and threw a spear with an atlatl. Turns out I’m more gatherer than hunter. It’s private land, so book a guided tour ahead of time.
Firefly Aerospace
SpaceX and Blue Origin grab the headlines, but Firefly Aerospace has been quietly setting records from its facility in Briggs, just outside Florence. They build ultralight carbon composite rockets, spacecraft that move cargo between orbits, and the first commercial lander to successfully touch down on the moon. I stood by for a test fire of their Miranda engine and felt it rattle my whole body. Fair warning: Firefly doesn’t offer scheduled public tours, though it opens its doors to school and community groups.
Outdoors
Staccato Ranch
Staccato builds some of the most accurate handguns in America right here, starting from a block of American steel, and every single one is test fired before it ships. Their ranch outside Florence invites everybody in on the fun, with indoor and outdoor ranges and a dusty Western town course. I ran it with an XC and three magazines. The color of each door tells you which targets to hit, and the crew keeps safety front and center. When I missed, I definitely couldn’t blame the gun.
