We islanders saw tragedy after Hurricane Ian. Many, like myself, went homeless for a year or more. The storm not only damaged our beaches, causeway and beloved lighthouse, it also wrecked our vibrant dining scene. For me, a food lover and writer, the sudden loss of restaurants around Sanibel and Captiva Island made my stomach sink.
Now, here we are, nearly two years later, and it feels miraculous. More than half our dining establishments are back in some form, and new creations have popped up along the way.
I think back to when I returned to Sanibel after being displaced for eight months. My husband and I were living out of a tiny FEMA trailer next to our shell of a home, any lingering possessions covered in muck. We didn’t have so much as a coffee maker at the time. Even the pared-down menu at the restaurant inside Jerry’s Foods felt like a blessing. The grocery store had reopened shortly after the storm. It’s hard to understand the bliss of sitting down for a cup of coffee and greeting neighbors until life’s simple comforts are stripped away.
In those first few months, a sprinkling of reopenings offered locals glimmers of hope. Those of us who could showed up in earnest to support tenacious restaurateurs like Cielo. The fine-dining locale, housed in a sturdy, second-story perch, welcomed guests back in November of 2022 and only recently stopped the lunch service created post-Ian to fill the gap in daytime dining for those of us working to rebuild.
Local favorite Traders also opened in time for Thanksgiving, reprising its popular lunch and dinner menus, starring horseradish salmon and bourbon- and figbraised short ribs. Nearby, stalwart Bleu Rendezvous French Bistro was destroyed by 4 feet of water. Being the undaunted hosts and entrepreneurs they are, chef Christian Vivet and his wife, Mari, moved around the corner, rebuilt and reopened by the spring of 2023. With an open-kitchen format, redolent plates of fine French fare and Mari greeting guests at the door, the new Bleu Rendezvous manages to capture the close-knit feel and inimitable brand of authentic Francophile cuisine that’s enthralled diners for the couple’s more than two decades in the area. Few dinners have been more rewarding than those my husband and I shared at Bleu Rendezvous last summer—a respite of normalcy and finery while we were sweating it out, waiting for the second round of contractors to make progress on our gutted home of nearly 35 years.
Captiva Island, farther north, fared better in the storm—the hurricane veered east and inland, sparing the upper islands from some of the more devastating flooding. But, local restaurants took a beating. The Mucky Duck has since bounced back to its beachy, kitschy glory, but the fantastical The Bubble Room Restaurant remains shuttered (fans of the famed layered cakes are appeased at the sister Boops by the Bubble Room ice cream parlor next door).
Consummate restaurateur Sandy Stilwell Youngquist is steadily reviving her kingdom of restaurants, most of which are in historic buildings—part of her drive to preserve Old Florida charm. Early on, she held fans over with Rico Suave’s Food Truck, parked in front of the now-reopened Cantina Captiva. While two of her five restaurants are still on the way, Sandy notably relaunched her intimate, 12-table Sunshine Seafood Café and Wine Bar, with a fresh indoor-outdoor look and lauded Ryan Kida—a local favorite since his days running Yabo restaurant in Fort Myers—at the helm of the kitchen.
Amid the roster of returning staples— Gramma Dot’s; my favorite seafood spot, Timbers Restaurant & Fish Market; Over Easy Cafe, where the owners are like family for half of Sanibel; longtime friend Richard McCurry’s The Sanibel Café and its trademark seashell tables, which survived the storm; and our neighborhood hangout MudBugs Cajun Kitchen— newcomers continue to delight islanders.
By summer 2023, ’Tween Waters Island Resort & Spa was back on track with its pre-Ian plans for a cosmic shift to its dining scene. The resort’s Old Captiva House reopened two months after the storm in its same gracious landmark space, while the longtime Crow’s Nest restaurant refined its casual, nautical feel and changed its name to The Shipyard. Overhead, the team built out the elevated-in-all-ways chophouse, which claimed the name of Crow’s Nest Steakhouse and introduced a new paradigm for island dining. One of the few second-floor eateries on the island, the restaurant offers a heightened level of sophistication and panoramic views of the beach. It’s the perfect backdrop for digging into the smoked appetizers, dry-aged steaks and Gulf-caught seafood, along with a heady collection of nearly 50 whiskeys.
Rosalita’s Cantina filled another hole for islanders when it debuted in April 2023 with a modern take on Tex-Mex (try the pumpkin seed-encrusted salmon with butternut squash hash and crispy pickled red onions). Perhaps the biggest news of all is the arrival of Wickies Lighthouse Restaurant. People were already lamenting the loss of Island Cow when the tourist favorite burned down a month before Ian. Then, the storm came along and swept away the fine-dining institution Mad Hatter. The Alice in Wonderland-themed, upscale dining locale had been breaking all the molds for decades with chef Max Kolshak’s honed skill and fanciful flair.
We breathed a collective sigh of relief this April when the groups unveiled two joint projects, coffee and ice cream shop The Magic Bus and Wickies Lighthouse Restaurant, the latter of which took over the Lighthouse Cafe space in the island’s East End area. (Lighthouse moved to a glittering new location down the road.) Gone are the old building’s weathered carpets and wall-to-wall lighthouse paraphernalia; in are glossy blue floors, an intimate bar nook and a menu that reflects Island Cow’s laid-back approach elevated with Mad Hatter’s finesse and whimsy. The decor is simple, but what shows up on your plate is anything but— especially during dinner service when the team turns out top-notch specials, like the slightly sweet, piquant shrimp with Parmesan horseradish grits.
After months of being displaced across the bridge, where it felt like most of the dining options in the early days post-Ian were chain restaurants, we were grateful to be back on Sanibel. Here, nearly 100 percent of the reopened restaurants are locally owned. The sheer ecstatic delight we felt biting into Wickies’ panko- and truffle-crusted scallops with shallot beurre blanc and coconut risotto left us feeling hopeful and happy our treasured dining scene has made a much-welcomed comeback.
