Keke's Breakfast Cafe has put a Hollywood cafe on its map at 5301 Sheridan Street, west of I-95 near Emerald Hills, and has it flagged as coming soon. When it opens, it will be the southernmost Keke's anywhere. The chain serves Florida and several other states, and until now it has never had a cafe south of Parkland.

What the company has posted

The Hollywood location page is already up on kekes.com. It gives the Sheridan Street address, a local phone number, (754) 343-1917, and the same hours every Keke's keeps: 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., seven days a week, closed only on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. The page lists dine-in, pickup, delivery and catering. It also tags the cafe for cocktails, which at Keke's means brunch drinks like mimosas and not a bar scene.

No opening date has been posted. The company's full location list still files Hollywood under coming soon, next to new cafes in Jacksonville, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas. There is a waitlist button on the Hollywood page, and the careers link there points to openings at the new cafe. A restaurant that is hiring and taking waitlist sign-ups is usually weeks away, not months, but treat that as a reading of the signs, not a date.

Why the map matters here

Keke's is a Florida-born chain, and most of its cafes are in this state. In Palm Beach County it is a familiar name, with cafes in Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Wellington and Palm Springs. Broward has had exactly one, on State Road 7 in Parkland, which is a long drive from Hollywood. Miami-Dade has none.

That makes the Sheridan Street cafe the first Keke's in central or south Broward. The company's own page for it lists the neighborhoods it expects to serve: Hollywood and Emerald Hills, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Cooper City, Davie and West Park. For a lot of people in those ZIP codes, the closest Keke's until now has been the Parkland cafe, a drive of 20-plus miles each way for pancakes.

What Keke's actually is

The company's own history is short. Two brothers, Keith and Kevin, opened the first cafe in Orlando in 2006 because they could not find the kind of neighborhood breakfast place they had grown up with in Philadelphia. The name is the first syllable of each brother's name stuck together. The chain now counts more than 80 locations.

The pitch is a daytime diner run tighter than most. Keke's says its kitchens have no microwave, grind coffee in-house, crack eggs by hand, cut fruit to order and use real butter and whipped cream. The menu leans on the classics: buttermilk pancakes that come three to a stack and famously large, Belgian waffles, thick-cut French toast, build-your-own omelets and Eggs Benedict. Lunch covers paninis, burgers, wraps and salads. There is a kids' menu for children 12 and under, and the brand offers gluten-free bread on request.

If the Hollywood cafe opens this fall, it will open into the fall 2026 menu. That means Cinnamon Roll Pancakes, back for the season, a new Pumpkin Pie Coffee served hot or iced, and a new Apple Cider Mimosa for guests 21 and older, which the company says is offered at most but not all cafes.

The Sheridan Street stretch

Sheridan Street is one of Hollywood's main east-west roads, and the section west of the interstate is built around shopping plazas and the neighborhoods that feed them. A breakfast-and-lunch place that closes at 2:30 p.m. fits that pattern well: it wants the before-work crowd, the weekend family table and the late-morning meeting, and then it is done for the day. Parking is the usual plaza arrangement, and the company already lists takeout and delivery for people who would rather eat at home.

It also arrives in a city that has been working to keep its dining scene busy. Hollywood is running its Dine Out Hollywood promotion through October 31, with participating local restaurants offering three-course prix-fixe menus. Keke's is a chain and will not be on that list while it is still dark, but its opening adds one more reason to eat west of the beach.

What to watch for

  • The opening date. It will appear first on the Hollywood page and the cafe's Facebook page.
  • The waitlist. The Hollywood page has a sign-up link for people who want notice before the doors open.
  • Hiring. Anyone looking for daytime restaurant work close to home can check the careers link on the same page, which points to openings at the Hollywood cafe.

For Hollywood, this is not a fancy arrival. It is something more practical: a reliable weekend breakfast spot that a good part of Florida already knows, now a short drive down Sheridan instead of a trip up I-95. When the first stack of pancakes goes out on Sheridan Street, south Broward stops being the gap on the Keke's map.