It was Day Six of cleaning and demolition on Thursday for Lee Richardson, owner of Leroy’s Southern Kitchen.
His restaurant, like many — particularly in downtown Punta Gorda and Englewood’s Manasota Key — took a hard punch from Hurricane Helene’s storm surge a week ago.
Richardson and his wife, Jamie, worked alongside most of their 50 employees all week ripping out drywall, shoveling, mopping, vacuuming, painting and scrubbing every crevice of the eatery.
Like their counterparts across Charlotte and Sarasota counties, they vow to be serving customers as soon as possible.
LeRoy’s opened in 2015. Although they’ve battled street flooding in Punta Gorda, they’ve never had flooding that damaged the restaurant like this one did.
“I remember in 2017, we brought food and supplies to Plantation Island in the Everglades to help Hurricane Irma survivors,” Jamie said. “Now we are the ones who were hit hard.”
Lee said after everything is disinfected, the new paint dries and the floor is stained and sealed, the doors will reopen Oct. 11.