In the game
Nothing official points at Card Sound Road, so this is a travel idea. What the trailers show is a highway that leaves the mainland and threads through mangroves and water before the islands proper begin, and the way into the Leonida Keys looks like it draws on both of the real roads in: the busy one (US-1) and this one, the quiet one, which is exactly the sort of road a game about running things up and down a coast would want.
If Leonida has a back road with a bar on it, a bar where boats tie up, bikers stop and nobody asks questions, then Alabama Jack’s is the real-world version and has been since the 1950s.
The real place
Card Sound Road peels off US-1 south of Florida City and runs east and south through the mangroves to a high bridge over Card Sound, then down past Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge to rejoin US-1 at mile marker 106. It was the original road into the Keys in the 1920s, before the direct highway opened in the 1940s, and it’s a two-lane strip through nothing, in the best way: no buildings, no signal, mangroves to the horizon and the occasional crocodile crossing.
Alabama Jack’s sits on the mainland side of the bridge, on stilts over the water. It opened in 1953 as a fishing camp and bar and hasn’t changed its mind since: open-air, tin roof, boats tied up alongside, conch fritters, and a country band on weekend afternoons that draws bikers, boaters and Miami families in equal numbers. The detail a GTA fan will recognize is the whole scene: a bar at the end of nowhere with a parking lot full of Harleys and a dock full of skiffs, the sort of place Rockstar has been writing since Vice City.
Go there
Take it on the way in rather than out. From Florida City follow the signs for Card Sound Road; the turn is easy to miss. The bridge toll is electronic only, a couple of dollars, and you’ll need a SunPass or expect a toll-by-plate bill in the mail; check the current arrangement before you go. Stop at Alabama Jack’s for a late lunch (it closes early, around 7pm, so check the day’s hours), then carry on to Key Largo with the afternoon ahead of you.
Between the bridge and Key Largo you pass the gate of Ocean Reef, a private club you can’t enter, and the crocodile refuge, which you also can’t enter but which explains the crocodile crossing signs. Drive slowly at dusk.
One honest warning: this road has no services, no shade and no one to help if you break down. Fill up in Florida City, carry water, and don’t try it on a bike in summer unless you know what 95 degrees and a headwind feel like.
Nearby
- The Overseas Highway: Card Sound rejoins it at the top of Key Largo, and the real road trip starts there.
- Canal homes of the Upper Keys: the first neighborhoods you’ll pass once you’re on the island.
- The mangrove backcountry: Card Sound itself is the northern end of the same water.
Updated September 12, 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us.