After nearly three years of recovery from Hurricane Ian, the Bubble Room on Captiva Island is set to reopen on July 14, bringing back its quirky charm and most of its original staff.Watch as Captiva Community Correspondent, Anvar Ruziev, takes you on a sneak peak tour of the restaurant:
Bubble Room restaurant ready to reopen after three-year hurricane recovery
The iconic Lee County restaurant, known for its antiques, holiday lights, fish tanks and toy train that circles the dining rooms, faced significant obstacles including building damage and an electrical fire that complicated the recovery process.
“We had a small fire at our electric panel, so it fried the electric system to the entire building. So that was our biggest obstacle was redoing the electric system for this entire building,” Rachel Peach, general manager, said.
The restaurant’s unique name comes from its original decorations. “We get our name from the bubble Christmas lights that used to be shown on Christmas trees,” Peach said.
The Bubble Room’s eclectic decor began out of necessity. “When it first opened, the owners didn’t have a lot of money to decorate, so they kind of just threw up what they had… vented pictures, Christmas lights, toys and that’s how the theme got started. And then it just exploded from there,” Peach said.
Staff members have spent months restoring antiques, cleaning, and training to prepare for the reopening. The restaurant has also managed to bring back most of its pre-hurricane team.
“We had 93 at the time of Ian… I would say we have at least 75 to 80 back right now. So we’re really happy to have everybody back already,” Peach said.
For the staff, the reopening represents a return to normalcy after years of disruption. “We haven’t really had normalcy in almost three years,” Peach said.
Once the restaurant is fully operational again, the team looks forward to taking a well-deserved break as their long rebuilding journey comes to an end…