5 Fancy Publix Stores in Florida and How They Compare to Upscale Competitors

Not every Publix in Florida is built the same.

Some have a wine steward, a sushi counter, and a dining balcony over the registers.

Others just have a parking lot and a Pub Sub line.

These are the Florida Publix stores that feel like a splurge, and how they hold up against their upscale chain competitors.

1. Publix at Dadeland

The Publix at Dadeland is the store Miami shoppers name when they argue about the best store in the state.

It earns it.

Locals rate it 4.6 stars across nearly 3,000 Google reviews, which is Michelin territory for a grocery store.

You can step off the Metromover and walk right in.

Inside, the aisles run wide, the shelves stay full, and the Pub Sub line moves fast even at noon on a Saturday.

There’s a Starbucks and a Publix Liquors under the same roof.

So your coffee, your groceries, and your wine for dinner all happen in one stop.

For a store this size, it never feels like a warehouse, and that’s the trick Dadeland has pulled off.

2. Publix at Riviera Plaza

The Publix at Riviera Plaza in Coral Gables is the brand’s newest showpiece, and it shows.

Two stories, a two-level garage, and elevators big enough for a loaded cart.

Upstairs, there’s an olive and salad bar and a window-lit spot where you can eat your sub before you brave U.S. 1 again.

The floral section is the tell.

It’s lush enough to rival The Fresh Market, which is the whole point of a store like this.

It wants you to forget you came in for paper towels.

Sitting right across from the University of Miami, it draws a crowd that treats a grocery run like a small outing.

3. Shoppes at Bay Isles

The Publix at Shoppes at Bay Isles on Longboat Key is where Publix drops the grocery-store act entirely.

The deli overflows with artisanal cheeses and gourmet grab-and-go, the kind of spread you’d expect at a specialty market three times the price.

Then there’s the wine department.

It has its own wine steward and stocks high-end reds, whites, and Champagnes you normally only see on a fine-dining list.

Longboat Key money shops here, and the store is built for it.

Sarasota Magazine ranked it the best Publix in the whole Sarasota area. One look at the cheese case explains why.

Bring a list, because it’s easy to walk out with a $40 wedge of cheese you never planned on.

4. Water Street Tampa

The Publix at Water Street Tampa is the chain's downtown flagship, tucked into the ground floor of a high-rise with apartments stacked above it.

It's a city store.

The 26,000-square-foot space opened as an upscale GreenWise Market, with kombucha on tap and a curated wall of imported cheese and wine.

Publix is now converting those GreenWise Market stores back to the regular Publix banner, though the GreenWise name lives on as its organic store brand.

The polish stays either way.

You still get the sleek downtown layout and the specialty shelves, just with the familiar name over the door.

Drop in after a walk along the Riverwalk, and it feels more like a market in a big city than a Florida strip-mall Publix.

It opened in 2021 as one of the first Publix stores built into the base of a downtown high-rise, and the crowd skews younger than at the suburban stores.

5. Venice Village Shoppes

The Publix at Venice Village Shoppes proves a fancy store doesn't have to be a mega-store.

A renovation turned a store locals used to skip into a genuine draw.

The headliner is upstairs.

There's a full dining balcony for eating in, plus a ramen bar you won't find at the Publix down the road.

Ramen at a Publix in Venice sounds made up.

It's real, and it's the kind of touch that turns a weekly errand into an outing worth lingering over.

The renovation added that balcony a few years back, and it made the store the spot Venice locals point newcomers toward.

How They Compare to Whole Foods

These fancy Publix stores are after the same shopper that Whole Foods and The Fresh Market chase, and they land somewhere in between.

The old GreenWise concept was pitched as a Whole Foods with better price points. That's still the pitch.

Between the two big specialty chains, The Fresh Market usually rings up cheaper than Whole Foods, thanks partly to its local sourcing.

Publix splits the difference.

You get the artisanal cheese, the wine steward, and the sushi counter without the full Whole Foods markup, and you keep your beloved Pub Sub.

Trader Joe's and Sprouts attract the same health-minded shopper, but neither one hands you a hot sub on the way out.

The competition isn't sitting still, though, and Whole Foods just opened its first Doral store—a massive one—right in Publix's backyard.

The Catch on Price

Fancy has a cost, and at these Publix stores, it shows up on customers' receipts.

Even loyal Miami shoppers admit Publix runs pricey next to Aldi or Walmart, and the upscale locations don't fight that.

What you're paying for is the room, the service, and the flowers.