Restaurants find independents: Local concepts in Fort Myers, Naples thrive in COVID-19 economy

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated information about Kilwins at Gulf Coast Town Center in San Carlos Park. Kilwins remains open at 9903 Gulf Coast Main St. No. 160; more at kilwins.com. 

Yolanda Fornaris and Angel Figueredo have been busy: taking care of their family, raising their daughter and building a restaurant from scratch. All in the midst of a pandemic. 

"This is our first restaurant, this is our baby," Fornaris said. 

The restaurant, Cubans Be Like, held its soft opening last week in the Cypress Trace shopping center in south Fort Myers. It was a debut more than a year in the making, beset by worries, delays and continued uncertainty. 

"We signed our lease last year at the beginning of January, never thinking this craziness and the pandemic could ever happen," Fornaris said. "We just had to go with it and say, you know, we're going to make it through, and here we are."

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The couple haven't been alone in their thinking. Dozens of restaurants have opened across the area in recent weeks, with several more coming soon. While other parts of the country are reeling — the National Restaurant Association estimates 17% of U.S. restaurants, some 110,000 establishments, have closed either permanently or long-term — the industry locally seems to be cautiously optimistic. 

Independent restaurateurs in particular. 

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The pandemic has proven to be an opportunity for many to open, upgrade and expand. In 2018, Florida restaurants drove $50.1 billion in sales, employing more than 828,000 workers according to the National Restaurant Assocation. After consumer demand in the the Lee, Collier and Charlotte hospitality sectors dropped by upwards of 86% in late March of 2020, according to a FGCU survey, locally owned restaurants appear to be rebounding.

With several national chains, especially traditional sit-down concepts, closing large numbers of stores, those vacant spaces are being snapped up by mom-and-pops.

And with shopping centers continuing to lose customers to online sales, many are slashing their rents, giving local food entrepreneurs a foothold. 

Supply and demand

"The commercial rents in restaurant spaces have gone down tremendously," said Gary Tasman, CEO and founder of Cushman & Wakefield Commercial Property Southwest Florida. 

Tasman called it "a supply-and-demand thing." With so many restaurants closing, commercial real estate agents have a surplus of food-and-dining spaces, and landlords are cutting rents to try and fill them. Tasman said the costly overhead and rigid concepts of big restaurant chains have made them vulnerable to early closures. As they've exited the market, locals are taking their places. 

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At Page Field Commons in south Fort Myers, the space that once housed the Square 1 Burgers chain will soon welcome a second location of The Standard, a locally owned restaurant based in downtown Fort Myers. 

At Coconut Point in Estero, the unit that was formerly home to the Johnny Rockets chain has become another Lehne Burger, a concept that started on Fort Myers Beach and is now anchored in Cape Coral. 

Nawty Hogg BBQ in Naples opened a second Collier location Jan. 10 in the former Pei Wei Asian Kitchen space at the Shoppes at Vanderbilt. 

"The ones that couldn’t pivot and adapt quickly were pretty much right out of business. We've seen this cycle before," Tasman said, referring to the Great Recession of 2008.

"The economy is in a downturn. The big guys leave to lick their wounds. Then the little places get to come in."

'Flexibility is key'

Rents haven't dropped everywhere.

Patrick Fraley, a partner at Investment Properties Corp. of Naples, which manages more than 60 properties in Collier and south Lee counties, said rents for its commercial restaurant spaces have held steady. While national chains appear to be declining at the moment, Fraley said an influx of regional chains — along the lines of the Ohio-based Burntwood Tavern or the Chicago-born Hampton Social — has kept his company busy. 

"We're seeing a ton of smaller, regional chains that are relocating from up north, from D.C., New York, Chicago, what have you, because those places have been closed down," Fraley said. 

"They’ve been relocating, looking for opportunities here because we’re open."

While Fraley's rents haven't changed much, what has changed is the language in his company's leases. Today's leases are more flexible, he said. They account for potential lock-downs, should the pandemic spike. And they allow for so-called "blackout periods" where a contract may be paused to allow for slow downs in construction or other unforeseeable, COVID-induced issues. 

"I think that’ll be something that’s here to stay," Fraley said. "Flexibility is key."

The space where Fornaris and Figueredo opened Cubans Be Like, the long-ago home of Ozeki Japanese Steakhouse, has been empty since 2009. The couple signed their lease long before COVID-19 struck, but still found their landlord to be a huge source of help as the pandemic caused delays and unease. 

Debra Campana, who opened 400 Rabbits on Sanibel with her husband and business partners in December, also praised their landlord for offering flexibility amid uncertainty. The team completely renovated the original Doc Ford's space on Rabbit Road, turning it into a chef-driven, Mexican-inspired restaurant and tequila bar. 

"We were hoping originally to be open in June and then October, and it ended up being December," Campana said. "I can't say thank you enough to our landlords. It's been a really great partnership."

For many landlords, their only option is flexibility. Tasman said the market he's seeing for commercial restaurant space is the polar opposite of what it was a year ago. 

"This time last year, we couldn’t find restaurant space," he said. "Now, rents that we saw at $30 (per square foot) last year, we're seeing them as low as $15."

According to estimates from upserve.com, the cost to open a restaurant can range from $95,000 to multiple millions. Restaurantengine.com lists the median opening costs at $275,000 or $3,046 per seat. Lower rents make it easier for local restaurateurs to balance those costs. Many independents rely on their own savings as opposed to the dollars of investors or shareholders.

Mercato, for example, the high-end shopping center in North Naples, is still anchored by major names such as Whole Foods and Silverspot Cinema. But its interior spaces, once a haven for dining chains, have given way to local concepts including Narrative Coffee Roasters, which opened in June in the former home of the franchise Second Cup Coffee Co. A few units over, a second Bar Tulia, from Naples-based chef and restaurateur Vincenzo Betulia, is slated to open later this year in the space that once held The Wine Loft chain. 

Other forces at play

Elsewhere in Naples, restaurant owners are hoping for flexibility from more than their landlords, but from the workforce, as well as U.S. embassies and visa offices. 

"Due to the pandemic, and I hear this from a lot of colleagues, just the labor force is not really present right now," said Veljko Pavicevic, an owner of Sails Restaurant on Fifth Avenue South who's opening two more Naples restaurants, The Butcher and Sava, in the coming months. 

"Our industry is at high risk all around the U.S. and it seems like (many workers have) decided not to work in the restaurant industry because of this risk." 

Pavicevic said his biggest struggle in opening the new restaurants hasn't been the crates of furnishings and fixtures that have been stuck in overseas transit for months, but finding qualified employees to staff his high-end concepts. 

His team only hires individuals with experience in Michelin-rated restaurants or restaurants ranked four stars or higher by Forbes magazine. Before the pandemic, Pavicevic recruited from around the globe. In March 2020, the U.S. Department of State suspended visa services at embassies worldwide, citing COVID-19. The phased reopening of these services remains ongoing. 

"Our international staff, even our return staff, they cannot get visa appointments," Pavicevic said.  

He hoped the area might see in an influx of seasoned, well-established restaurant workers departing New York City and Los Angeles, following the far more strict bans on dining in those areas. But such a migration has not come to be. 

"We are still seeing a steady flow of resumes coming in," Pavicevic said, "but very few have the experience we require."

The cycle continues

For small restaurant concepts, Tasman said there is no time like the present to take a chance. 

"Rents are cheap, build-outs are sitting there brand new, ready to be used," he said. "The demographics are on their side. Growth is still there. Disposable income is still there. If you have a thoughtful, innovative concept, you’re going to do very well."

Fornaris and Figueredo sure hope so.

The couple, natives of Cuba, saw a lack of full-service Cuban restaurants in Lee County. They knew of Cuban sandwich shops and Cuban bakeries, but wanted a place where diners could relax, where they could sip daiquiris and Cuba libres while eating plates of surf-and-turf and ropa vieja. 

Last week, Fornaris, her husband and their staff stood under an archway of yellow balloons, beaming from behind their matching black masks as Cubans Be Like welcomed its first customers. Soon, the inside and outside dining areas filled with the clatter of silverware and of rum-infused mojitos being stirred. 

This wasn't how the family envisioned opening day. They're thrilled, nonetheless, it's here. 

"This was just a crazy idea my husband and I had," Fornaris said.

"It's the biggest investment we've ever made — ever. I'm really, really excited to open."

Annabelle Tometich writes about food and restaurants for The News-Press and Naples Daily News. Email our reporter at atometich@news-press.com or connect as @abellewrites (Instagram). 

Cubans Be Like Restaurant & Cafe is at 13300 S. Cleveland Ave. No. 21, south Fort Myers; call 239-789-1869 or visit facebook.com/cubansbelikerestaurantcafe for more.