Exactly 23 months after Hurricane Ian destroyed their dream, Brian and Stacey Martins, owners of The Island’s Pancake House in the Seagrape Plaza on Estero Boulevard, are back open for business.
Brian says they opened the doors on Thursday and immediately had people walking in. Right now they have 80% of their menu ready to serve (see below) and will be building it to 100% over the next few days and weeks. The inside of the restaurant – which includes a fully licensed bar – has been ready for a few weeks. They were waiting on TECO, a piece of equipment, and final inspections, which took place this week.
Brian and Stacey moved to Southwest Florida from Minnesota in 2022. They decided to buy The Island’s Pancake House because of the old school vibe of Fort Myers Beach. Brian tells Beach Talk Radio that after Ian they thought a lot about what they wanted to do and decided their dream was still not achieved. “So we made the decision to rebuild. We looked at a lot of other locations but deep down we knew Fort Myers Beach was where we wanted to live out our dream.”
The Island’s Pancake House is the first business to reopen in the three big retail strip malls on Fort Myers Beach: Key Estero Shops, Seagrape Plaza and Santini Plaza. It’s expected that something will open at Santini later this year, perhaps as early as next month.
Here is the full menu for The Island’s Pancake House.
Pancake House, are you going to offer loaded Bloody Marys?!
Asking for a friend. 😉🙂