Living in South Florida creates an interesting relationship with Miami Beach hotels. We drive past them, meet friends at their restaurants and occasionally disappear into their pools for an afternoon, but rarely do we experience them the way a visitor does. An overnight stay changes the perspective. You stop looking at the hotel as a destination and begin noticing how it actually feels to live there, even if only for a night.

That was the premise behind Sleepover at Surf, an overnight experience at Kimpton Surfcomber Hotel earlier this year. I checked in expecting an enjoyable evening, dinner and perhaps a little preview of what the hotel had planned for the summer. Instead, the stay reminded me why the Surfcomber occupies an interesting place on Collins Avenue.

It is unmistakably South Beach, but it doesn't seem particularly interested in performing South Beach.

There is history here—the Art Deco building dates to 1948—but the hotel has resisted becoming precious about it. The atmosphere is casual and social, and the property unfolds naturally from Collins Avenue toward the ocean. You move from lobby to restaurant, through the pool and garden, and eventually onto the beach without ever feeling as though you've entered a giant resort complex.

Over the course of our sleepover, that backyard became the center of the experience.

Watching Solei Take Shape

One of the reasons for our visit was an early look at what was then the transformation of High Tide Beach Bar & Grill into Solei Beach Club. At the time, we were being shown a vision of what the space would become. Several months later, that vision has become a particularly important part of the Surfcomber's identity.

Solei Beach Club draws its inspiration from coastal Spain, but what interested me during that first preview was less the theme than the intention behind it. This wasn't an attempt to turn the hotel's backyard into another velvet-rope Miami Beach club. The idea was to create somewhere guests could spend an afternoon eating and drinking by the pool while still feeling connected to the beach.

Miami has become very good at luxury hospitality, but luxury doesn't always translate into hospitality. Sometimes what you actually want from a beach hotel is surprisingly uncomplicated: a comfortable cabana, a cold drink, something good to eat, music at the right volume and the ability to spend several hours doing very little.

The next morning reinforced that feeling. After breakfast, we settled into a cabana by the pool, and without the evening's programming around us, I got a better sense of the property itself. The Surfcomber works because the pool and beach don't feel like amenities attached to the hotel; they function more like its communal living room.

With Solei now open, that space has a more developed identity, and this fall the hotel is using it for something else I like about the Surfcomber: programming designed to give Miamians a reason to come through the doors even when they aren't checking into a room.

Dinner at The Social Club

The other memorable part of our stay was dinner at The Social Club.

Hotel restaurants have a difficult job. They need to feed travelers at breakfast, work for a business lunch, satisfy someone who doesn't want to leave the property for dinner and somehow remain interesting enough that locals voluntarily walk past dozens of South Beach restaurants to eat there.

The Social Club feels most convincing when it embraces that last audience.

Our dinner included chef-led introductions and a chance to understand the kitchen rather than simply work our way through a tasting menu. Executive Chef Gastón Javier's cooking is ingredient-driven and carries some of the South of France sensibility found throughout the restaurant, but it isn't overly formal. That suited the hotel. After cocktails by the pool, I didn't particularly want dinner to become a ceremony.

Breakfast the following morning was similarly relaxed, which completed one of those rare hotel experiences where the different parts of a property actually feel connected to one another.

That continuity is worth mentioning because it explains the Surfcomber's new fall programming better than any individual event does. Rather than manufacture a completely different personality for the season, the hotel is using the spaces we experienced during Sleepover at Surf—the backyard, Solei and The Social Club—and giving people new reasons to return to them.

Fall in Miami, Without Pretending It's Vermont

Fall has always required a little imagination in Miami. Our palm trees don't change color, sweaters remain largely aspirational, and a pumpkin-spiced menu can feel slightly absurd when the temperature outside is still in the 80s.

The Surfcomber appears to understand the joke.

Beginning in October, Solei becomes the setting for a series of Halloween Murder Mystery Dinners on October 10, 17 and 24. Each evening places diners inside a different mystery, with actors, suspects and clues unfolding around a three-course dinner. The themes move from a wizarding-world whodunit to a witches' pact and, finally, a Clue-inspired murder mystery.

The menu leans appropriately into the season without forgetting where we are: a harvest salad with roasted butternut squash, goat cheese and candied pecans; herb-roasted chicken with pumpkin-Parmesan risotto and sage brown butter jus; and a cinnamon-roasted apple dessert with mascarpone mousse, salted caramel and vanilla ice cream. Two cocktails are included in the $150++ experience.

A weeknight at the beach solving a fictional murder over cocktails is exactly the sort of slightly eccentric Miami interpretation of autumn I can get behind.

Solei will also turn its lawn into an outdoor movie theater on October 16, 23 and 30, screening Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice and Hocus Pocus. Tickets are intentionally accessible—$10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under, including popcorn—and guests can bring their own chairs or towels. Hot dogs, nachos, chicken tenders and other movie-night food will be available separately.

The result feels less like hotel programming and more like something you might actually decide to do on a Thursday night.

A Glass of Rosé That Does Some Good

Throughout October, Solei is also putting its proprietary rosé to work for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Created with DAOU Vineyards and inspired by the Mediterranean character of Marbella, Solei Rosé will generate a donation from each purchase to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

It's a relatively simple initiative, but it fits the broader approach: you don't necessarily need an event ticket to participate in what is happening at the hotel. You can come by for a glass of wine, spend an afternoon at the beach club or make dinner the occasion.

The Social Club Gets Its Own Taste of Fall

Back inside, Chef Javier has taken a similarly measured approach to autumn at The Social Club. His seasonal menu, running through December 21, introduces butternut squash arancini with smoked mozzarella, Parmesan and brown-butter sage aioli; maple-miso glazed salmon with sweet potato purée, charred Brussels sprouts, apple-fennel salad and cider beurre blanc; and, at brunch, a decidedly indulgent pumpkin waffle with hot honey chicken, cinnamon whipped butter and pickled apple.

The bar joins in with the Toasted Flame, combining RumChata, vanilla vodka and cinnamon whiskey. It may not make the temperature outside drop, but after one or two, you may care considerably less.

There are also some compelling reasons to visit that have nothing to do with fall. The Social Club runs happy hour Sunday through Thursday from 5 to 7 p.m., with $12 cocktails, $10 wines, $7 beers and a menu of small plates. Daily brunch offers two hours of bottomless Bloody Marys, Aperol Spritzes, margaritas, mimosas and Santi Spritzes for $39. On Friday evenings, Shaken After Dark turns the bar into a martini destination, with $10 espresso, dirty, French and classic martinis, cosmopolitans and lemon drops from 5 to 10 p.m.

Those are the kinds of offers that can turn a hotel restaurant into a neighborhood restaurant, which is ultimately what I find most interesting about the Surfcomber.

The Reason to Come Back

Looking back at Sleepover at Surf several months later, what stayed with me wasn't one particular cocktail or dish. It was how easy the hotel was to inhabit.

We arrived in the afternoon, wandered the property, had drinks outside, previewed Solei, settled into dinner at The Social Club, went upstairs rather than getting into an Uber, woke up for breakfast and eventually found ourselves back by the pool. There was no need to manufacture an itinerary because the hotel itself provided one.

Now that Solei is open and Surfcomber is heading into its first full fall season with the beach club, Miamians have an opportunity to experience much of the same thing without necessarily booking a room.

Go for a murder mystery and dinner. Bring the kids to Hocus Pocus under the palms. Meet friends for Friday martinis. Spend a Sunday over brunch and allow it to migrate toward the pool. Or, if you're overdue for the peculiar pleasure of being a tourist in your own city, do what we did and stay the night.

Sometimes the best way to rediscover Miami Beach is to stop driving home from it.

Kimpton Surfcomber Hotel
1717 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach
Kimpton Surfcomber Hotel

Solei Beach Club
Explore Solei Beach Club

The Social Club
The Social Club at Surfcomber