Where to Buy Beach Supplies on Scenic Gulf Drive
Beach Tips · 5 min read · ScenicGulfDr
Two beach stores sit on Scenic Gulf Drive itself, and the useful difference between them is not what they carry. It is what time they close.
It happens on the first afternoon, usually around four o'clock. You are unpacked, the kids are already asking, and somebody says it out loud: we didn't bring chairs. Or sunscreen, or a boogie board, or the one thing you swore you'd remember this year.
Good news is you do not have to drive to Destin for any of it. There are two beach stores on Scenic Gulf Drive itself, plus a grocery run that is cheaper than both. The part worth knowing before you get in the car is which one is actually open.
The two stores on Scenic Gulf Drive
Where is the closest place to buy beach stuff?
Both of them are on the road you are already staying on.
Alvin's Island sits at 1976A Scenic Gulf Drive, in the thick of the Miramar Beach stretch. It is the big one: chairs, umbrellas, boogie boards, floats, sunscreen, hats, towels, sunglasses, plus an entire back half of the store devoted to souvenirs, shells and t-shirts. If you need a physical object to take to the sand, they have some version of it.
Surf Style is at 143 Scenic Gulf Drive, toward the Destin end. It leans more toward apparel than gear: swimsuits, boardshorts, rash guards, sunglasses, bags, cover-ups. Good for the thing you forgot to pack rather than the thing you need to sit on.
There are two more Alvin's within a few minutes of here if the Scenic Gulf Drive one is picked over: one at 632 Old Highway 98 and another out at 9539 Emerald Coast Parkway.
What is the trick to actually finding something in there?
Ask at the front. That is the whole tip, and it will save you twenty minutes.
These stores are enormous and they are packed to the ceiling. If you walk in looking for one specific thing — a particular size of rash guard, a certain float, a replacement umbrella pole — you can wander a long time and conclude they do not carry it, when they do. The people working there know exactly where everything is. Ask on the way in rather than after you have given up.
Honestly, the stores are more alike than different. What varies is what happens to be on sale that week, so if you are price-sensitive it is worth a look in both. But do not overthink which one to drive to. Drive to whichever is open.
Which one is open when you actually need it?
This is the part nobody tells you, and it is the whole reason to read this before you drive.
Surf Style is open 10am to 6pm, seven days a week (as of August 2026). Read that against how a beach day actually goes. At 7am, when you are loading the car and discover there are no chairs, they are closed. At 7pm, walking back up with a broken umbrella, they are closed again. Surf Style is open exactly during the hours you are already on the sand.
Alvin's Island is open 8am to 11pm. Fifteen hours a day against Surf Style's eight, and the extra hours are exactly the ones that matter: open before you load the car, still open long after dinner.
So the practical rule: if it is the middle of the day and you want a swimsuit, either works. If it is early, late, or urgent, go to Alvin's.
One caveat worth more than the hours themselves: those are peak-season hours. Both stores publish a single set of hours and neither says a word about the off-season, but this is a beach town, and beach retail here contracts once the crowds go home. If you are down in November or February, assume shorter days and check before you make a special trip for something you need. The August version of this road is not the January version of it.
What to buy, what to rent, and what not to buy at all
Should you buy beach chairs or rent them?
Before you buy a single chair, check what is already waiting for you.
The rental umbrellas and loungers set up in front of the buildings every morning are a service, not something you provide yourself, and on our stretch that is handled by a beach company with its own pricing. If you are planning to use that, buying chairs is money spent twice.
And a lot of condos on this road already stock the basics. Ours has five beach chairs and a small beach umbrella in the unit. For most families that is the whole problem solved before you have unpacked, and it is the kind of thing guests find on their own rather than hearing about it from us.
So you have three options, not two: use what is in the closet, rent the set-up service on the sand, or buy your own. Ask your host what is already there before you spend forty dollars on the third one.
What about a tent or umbrella?
Different question, and it depends on where you like to sit. The rented umbrellas live down near the water in tidy rows. The pop-up tents you see set back toward the dunes are people's own, and there are rules about what is allowed and when it has to come down that are worth knowing before you buy one.
If you are here for a week and you have small kids who need real shade in the middle of the day, a tent from Alvin's pays for itself. If you are here for a long weekend, rent.
Can you buy beach supplies at the grocery store instead?
Yes, and it is usually cheaper.
Winn-Dixie at 65 Poinciana Boulevard and the Publix nearby both carry a seasonal beach aisle through the summer: sunscreen, floats, cheap chairs, sand toys, coolers, boogie boards. The selection is smaller and it thins out by late August, but you are not paying beach-store markup for a bottle of SPF 50.
The move a lot of people land on: groceries and sunscreen at Winn-Dixie on the way in, and Alvin's only for the things the grocery store does not carry.
The honest short version
Buy sunscreen and consumables at the grocery store. Buy gear at Alvin's, because it is open when you need it. Use Surf Style for clothes, during business hours. And before any of it, look in the closet of wherever you are staying, because the chair you are about to buy may already be sitting in there.
More stories from Scenic Gulf Drive · Live beach cams · The condo