In the Know: 3 restaurants close in Bonita Springs (2024)

Three Bonita Springs restaurants — Rodes Fresh & Fancy Restaurant & Fish Market, The Garden Cafe and El Meson — recently closed. New projects are planned but they are in various stages of development.

Rodes Fresh & Fancy

Mother’s Day weekend was a special dining out event last year at Rodes Fresh & Fancy, but the restaurant didn’t open that weekend this year. That’s because Rodes permanently closed without notice Friday after operating more than three decades.

“It’s sad. It’s only five blocks from my house. It was a great place to go,” said Bob Unger, who performed marketing duties for the business and formerly was a floor manager at the landmark restaurant.

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RodesFancy Foods & Produce launched in late 1987 on the northeast corner of Bonita Beach Road and Luke Street as a market with local seafood, produce and citrus and some groceries. Then owners Charlie Bohley, Randy Essig and Glenn Morton added a small restaurant in 1993. The business has been owned since 1998 by Benji & Glenji Inc., operated by Morton and other partners. Essig left in 1999 before the new building was built in 2000 just east on Bonita Beach Road at Meadowlark Lane, more than quadrupling the original space.

The more than 2 acres of commercial property at 3756 Bonita Beach Road was listed for sale in May 2018 for slightly less than $3 million and a sale has been pending since March 18, according to a local real estate multiple listing service. The listing agent at Premier Commercial of Bonita Springs was not available for comment.

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Thomas Runyon, a broker at Sun Village Realty representing the buyer of the property, said the sale was scheduled to close last Friday but the real estate transaction was delayed.

“It looks like they closed the restaurant, but we didn’t close on the sale,” Runyon said. “July 1 is the new closing date if we can get all of our issues cared for.”

Bonita Restaurant Group is under contract to buy the property, Runyon said. David Ber of Miami Beach is the registered agent of Bonita Restaurant Group, a Florida limited liability company created in March, according to Florida Division of Corporations records. Ber is reportedly out of the country and is not available for comment.

The staff of at least 30 was told last week that Rodes was being sold but they were given hope that a new buyer might continue their employment. Now the future status is unknown for the longtime restaurant and seafood market.

Will Bonita Restaurant Group operate it as a Bonita restaurant again? Any truth to rumors that the parcel will become part of the mixed-use Bonita Village project that already wraps around it? Time will tell.

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The Garden Cafe

Saturday marked the last day for The Garden Cafe, which had served breakfast and lunch to a faithful following for more than three years.

“The cafe is no longer sadly. We had some fabulous regular clients come in and enjoy the last meal with us and we laughed and cried a little. It was a very cathartic day,” said Dick Jordan, who operated the local restaurant in Bernwood Centre with his wife, Cindy. “We are going to bounce back. When one door closes, another opens.”

The Jordans are still keeping busy, of course, with their local catering company, Service by Jordan, which they started in 2004 after “retiring” and relocating here from Chicago.

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“We’ll continue our catering operation, which has been the backbone of our company for 15 years,” Jordan said. “We cater everything from small cocktail parties and backyard barbecues to gala fund-raisers.”

They originally started in a little church, where they shared a kitchen, before moving their commercial kitchen to near the corner of Old 41 and West Terry Street in Bonita Springs. When that building was sold a few years ago, the Jordans needed a new larger location for their catering business. They moved their commissary kitchen to the Bernwood Centre space on Old 41 Road that formerly hosted B.C. Deli and Johnny's Italian Cuisine.

After initially balking at one of the terms of their new lease requiring that they have an a la carte restaurant operation, the couple warmed up to the idea and then jumped into their first restaurant with complete gusto.

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“We put our hearts and souls in this place, and it showed,” Jordan said. “When you have 52 out of 55 five-star reviews you know you are doing something right.”

It proved to be a tough location at first but the Jordans and their staff persevered and made the best of it.

“We had our challenges, but we figured it out and overcame them and actually started to make some money. We finally got some traction at the end of last year,” Jordan said. “It took a while to break even. Then the wheels came off.”

When their three-year lease was up, the landlord raised the rent in an effort to get market value for a space so close to U.S. 41, he said, so they finished the season on a month-to-month lease.

A new eatery most likely will find a home in Suite 12 and 13 of 24850 Old 41 Road. Greg Calabrese of William Raveis Commercial said he is still in negotiation with a restaurateur for that space, but nothing has been finalized yet.

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Elsewhere, a rebirth of The Garden Cafe is still a possibility in the future, Jordan said. He’d eventually like to take a crack at another restaurant.

“We got pretty darn good at it and we have a great following,” he said.

Of the cafe’s about 10 employees, a core group of servers and chefs and the main line cook are staying on to help with catering, Jordan said. To contact Service by Jordan, call 239-877-2968 or go to ServiceByJordan.com.

In the Know:Second Cup coffee shop closing in Mercato

And:Dunkin' dropping 'donuts' from name, surges in SWFL

El Meson

El Meson Latin Cuisine Bar & Grill closed in April as quietly as it opened in January. The restaurant that served dishes from four cuisines —Cuban, Mexican, Venezuelan and American —closed after only four months.

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Owner Gilbert Diaz, who lives in Cape Coral, said the Bonita Springs restaurant was just too far away for him. Diaz is working on taking another crack at El Meson, but in the Cape this time.

“At this time, El Meson is closed,” he said.

New owners took over May 1, Diaz said. The Bamboo Bar & Taqueria opened May 3, according to a roadside banner, but the place looks rather deserted. El Meson’s former sign under the thatched front porch is covered with black plastic bags.

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The chickee look is left over from Chatterbox on the Beach, which closed without notice in early December after operating less than a year. That freestanding building at 4185 Bonita Beach Road has hosted many other eateries over the years, including Polish-German Taverna, Hot Space PizzaBar & Grill, Happy Hour Grille, Futuro’s and The Movable Feast.

Not much information is available yet for Bamboo Bar, but it’s not the first location for owner Ambrocio Lopez. Another operates as a Latin nightclub in the Sunrise Plaza retail strip near KFC on Collier Boulevard in Golden Gate.

Bamboo Bar's Facebook page shows that the newBonita venue is open 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays; 3 p.m. to 2 a.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays; and closed Mondays and Tuesdays. For more information call 239-234-0340.

In the Know:El Meson serves Cuban, Mexican, Venezuelan cuisine

More local restaurant news

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Foxboro Sports Tavern is expanding into Bonita Springs to replace Buffalo Wild Wings, which closed near the end of last year in Prado at Spring Creek near U.S. 41 and Bernwood Parkway. This will mark the second location for Foxboro, the New England-theme restaurant and bar that has operated 13 years in East Naples.

The tavern, of course, is named after the Patriots football team’s hometown of Foxborough, Massachusetts. The new location is expected to open by this year’s football season, owner Thom Popoli said.

Related:East Naples’ Foxboro Sports Tavern to open a Bonita Springs location

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Smith Organics food truck rolled out of Celebration Park on Monday morning. Cousins Maine Lobster food truck, waiting in the wings and for permits, hopes to be in place in the eight-truck lineup there serving lobster rolls and more in a week or so, said Patrick Johnson, general manager of the food truck venue off Bayshore Drive in East Naples.

You still may see Smith Organics’ food truck at special events, but owner Adam Smith and Chef Michael Voorhis are focusing their attention now at launching Lake Park Diner this fall on Seventh Avenue North just east of U.S. 41 in Naples.

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Philly Pretzel Factory permanently closed April 28 after hand-twisting fresh soft pretzels nearly three years in the Galleria Shoppes at Vanderbilt in North Naples.

“It is with great sadness that we write this post to announce our closure and thank our loyal patrons for supporting us and we so enjoyed your thoughtful reminiscence of how our pretzels were a time capsule that brought back so many happy memories from childhood,” the owners posted on the local franchise’s Facebook page.

The franchising agent for the Philly Pretzel Factory chain hopes to attract another franchisee to relaunch a location in the Naples area, said Veronica McKee, vice president of marketing for Soft Pretzel Franchise Systems Inc., based in Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia.

“Unfortunately, due to personal reasons, our franchisees had to close in Naples. We are in the process of finding a new ownership/management team to reopen,” she said.

Staff writer Thaddeus Mast contributed to this report. For the latest in local restaurants coming and going, see Tim Aten’s “In the Know” columns archived at naplesnews.com/intheknow, and on Facebook at facebook.com/timaten.intheknow.

In the Know: 3 restaurants close in Bonita Springs (2024)
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