FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. — While many restaurants and bars on Fort Myers Beach have a long road to recovery, some business owners are making their meals mobile by purchasing food trucks.
La Ola Surfside Restaurant could be the first business in the Times Square area of Fort Myers Beach to bounce back from Hurricane Ian and reopen in some capacity.
Owner Tom Houghton has invested in a new 16-foot food trailer that will serve as his temporary restaurant while the long process of rebuilding his brick-and-mortar business takes place.
“It’s hard to think about what you lost,” Houghton said. “So that’s why I’m trying, I try to concentrate on the future. This is step one, I guess, in the recovery.”
Right now, the La Ola restaurant is just a pile of mangled metal with only part of a single wall still standing. Like many of the other businesses in Times Square, everything was a complete loss.
“There’s nothing left. It’s a big pile,” he said.
He is left with only memories and pictures of the restaurant he ran for the last seven years. Those memories are the inspiration for his new food trailer.
“They are all pictures from either my camera roll or a few of my staff members,” he said. “This is the view where I stood most, so I was looking out onto the restaurant.”
For the better part of the next year, his team will be cooking in the trailer. It’s brand new with all of the newest technology.
“Got a stand-up freezer and cooler. Two fryers. A hood system, of course, over the top. It’s got two burners, a 24-inch grill, 36-inch griddle and then worktop cooler here at the end,” he said. “We’ll be able to project what ever menu that we’re running with that day on to the screen.”
It won’t be long until the grill is fired up. He plans on opening in the next 7-10 days, depending on when the state approves his permits.
The plan is to start with off-island locations with the goal of getting back to the beach when the time is right.
“Before the beach is ready for buildings, it might be ready for a food trailer,” he said.
Fort Myers Beach Town Council voted to allow food trucks on the island for the time being as a temporary measure.
There is a catch, however. Only businesses established on the beach before Hurricane Ian will be allowed to set up shop.
“It’s everybody that was there working already, that had stores or locations, at the time of Hurricane Ian, exclusively. I mean that’s it,” said Fort Myers Beach Mayor Ray Murphy. “Those are our merchants, our restaurants and our bar owners.”
While the mayor said food trucks were approved to be on the island, it won’t be an immediate opening.
“There has to be a process and that’s being developed right now,” the mayor said. “It’s not going to be tomorrow. Before Christmas maybe, before Thanksgiving would be kind of a rush, I would think.”
That’s why Tom is looking to build another La Ola restaurant, somewhere else in the area.
“I do have a particular property in mind, but it’s going to take a complete build-out,” Houghton said.
If you’re wondering what will happen to their original location, there’s good news there as well. La Ola and The Sandal Factory next door both say they’re building back.
“It could be possible that La Ola gets some expanded seating, maybe a rooftop bar,” Houghton said.
It’s part of the vistion Tom shared with his landlord, who also owns the building The Sandal Factory is in.
Their vision is: we’re not going anywhere.
“That’s what makes us the beach, is that character,” said Mayor Murphy.
“I think we will be back,” Houghton said. “We’ll keep the small-town feel. And what people keep coming to Fort Myers Beach to see.”
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