South Beach Grille reopens on Fort Myers Beach
A Fort Myers Beach favorite is back on the fine dining menu at Santini Marina Plaza. The South Beach Grille, one of the island’s most popular restaurants and a recipient of many Fort Myers Beach Observer Best of the Beach Awards, since opening its doors two decades ago, is back in business for the first time since Hurricane Ian.
Like all of the tenants at Santini Marina Plaza, the restaurant was flooded during Hurricane Ian in 2022.
“It was tough,” owner Dennis Phillips said. “We really weren’t sure until a year and a half ago that we would come back out here with the way the beach was,” Phillips said.
The devastation to Fort Myers Beach made Phillips wait before signing a lease with Santini Marina Plaza owner Yariv Shaked to return.
Asked what had changed on the menu, Phillips gave the answers that South Beach Grille’s fans will be glad to hear. Just about nothing that he can think of.
Longtime customer Johanna Farley, who was at the grand opening with friends, asked Phillips if her favorite dish, the seafood chowder was still on the menu. “It’s still on the menu and the same chef is cooking it,” Phillips replied.
The head chef, Cory Morin, worked for many years at South Beach Grille before Hurricane Ian hit. He was very busy in the kitchen when we arrived, preparing meals for the diners who had assembled for the grand opening.
South Beach Grille head chef Cory Morin is back, one of many veteran employees of the restaurant who have returned.
Photo by Nathan Mayberg
Morin’s return is one of many who are backed, who used to work at the South Beach Grille and the other restaurant at the plaza previously owned by Phillips – Oliver’s.
Having those employees back four years later makes the restaurant’s return that more special for Phillips, his wife Susan, and all their loyal customers. The bar was full early Monday evening, just a few hours after they had reopened. The South Beach Grille celebrates happy our every day from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. The restaurant has an extensive wine list.
Phillips moved the restaurant from one side of the plaza to the other, where there is more space. The new dining room has 20 more seats than the old one.
The South Beach Grille is known for their large menu of fine dining favorites like their rack of lamb, filet mignon, Alaskan king crab legs, Florida lobster tail, grouper Americano with parmeasean and spinach and baby bella mushrooms, their grilled salmon, angus meatloaf, shrimp scampi, oysters, seafood pasta, Danish baby back ribs, pan-seared sea scallops, and pan-seared jumbo lump crab cakes.
For Craig Sheely, his favorite item on the menu is the burger.
Farley, who was quite happy to learn the seafood chowder was on the menu, was also marking the two-year anniversary of the death of her husband Jim Farley, and made a toast with Sheely and his wife Narianne and their friend Jill Vos. Mr. Farley was the president of the Estero Bayside Association, and led the association into being one of the very first condo buildings to reopen after Hurricane Ian. Mrs. Farley discovered the newly-opened South Beach Grille two decades ago when she was staying across the street at the former Wyndham Garden Inn and searching for the new condo she and her husband, a former vice president of NBC Radio News, would move into. “I was here when they first opened,” Farley said. “We ate a lot here,” she said. “It’s so friendly.”
Vos said it was nice to have another restaurant back on the “south side” of Fort Myers Beach again. “And we can walk here,” Marianne Sheely said.
“We are so glad to have them back,” Farley said. “We really missed it.”
The South Beach Grille first opened its doors in 2004, started by Brad’s father Dennis. “He pulled me into it,” Brad said. Phillips and his wife Susan both grew up in Naples and now live in Bonita Springs.
The restaurant had a soft opening on Friday and Saturday by invite, before opening to the public on Monday. Many told the owners how much they missed the restaurant.
“I am so happy that they are back,” Michelle Feldheimer said. “We have missed them.”
“It feels good,” Mr. Phillips said of the reopening. “I missed Fort Myers Beach. I missed the drive from Bonita Springs. I am looking forward to life getting back to normal.”