Saturday, Sept. 28, didn’t seem like the second anniversary of Hurricane Ian.
Local restaurants had new worries.
After Hurricane Helene on Sept. 26, floodwaters inundated places that had survived before, over and over, through hurricanes and red tide, pandemic and inflation.
No one expected a storm surge strong enough to float whole dumpsters, booths and kitchen equipment like bath toys, flood restaurants up to their bar tops, and bring in staff, not to wait tables and prep meals, but to mop up muck.
Dean Stainton of Dean’s South of the Border knows the drill all too well. It was 20 years ago when he and his crew reopened with a limited menu after Hurricane Charley. Now he’s doing it again.
“This is getting old, that’s for sure,” he said.
This time, Dean’s took on waist-deep water, but the whole Dean’s family, including the vacationing Bob McCurry, got the place open late Saturday with a limited menu of burgers, hot dogs, live music and, of course, beer.
“We were designed to take on a foot of water,” Stainton said, “but this was beyond expectations.”