Santini Marina Plaza sat half-empty for most of the past four years, with a few boutiques, a coffee shop, and a weekend farmers market. That changed this past August, when South Beach Grille reopened on the south end for the first time since Hurricane Ian closed it in September 2022. The timing is almost too neat: the Island Hopper Songwriter Fest returns to Fort Myers Beach for its closing weekend starting September 25, and for the first time since the storm, south-end residents won't have to leave the island to turn a free concert into an actual night out.
That's the part worth sitting with. Island Hopper has ended its run on Fort Myers Beach every year for over a decade. What's new isn't the festival's route. It's that the island finally has a full-service restaurant sitting inside walking distance of where the music happens.
Why the Festival's Last Stop Still Matters
Now in its 11th year, Island Hopper Songwriter Fest runs September 18 through 27, moving through three stops before it lands on the beach: Captiva Island opens the festival, then Cape Coral, then downtown Fort Myers, with Fort Myers Beach closing things out over the final weekend. Most of the 60-plus shows across the ten days are free, spread over more than 20 venues, and the format leans into songwriters explaining the stories behind their own songs rather than just performing them. The festival's final night traditionally puts its headliner on the pool deck at Pink Shell Beach Resort & Marina, which has become the closing-night fixture for residents who've followed the event for years.
None of that is new information if you've lived here a while. What's different this year is what happens after the show ends. In past seasons, a resident catching a free set near Santini could walk to a food truck, or drive off the island toward Bonita Springs, or head up to the north end near Publix and Old San Carlos. There wasn't a sit-down option with a full bar on the south end itself. That's the gap South Beach Grille just closed.
The South End's Dining Math, Before and After
For years, this was the actual choice facing south-end residents on a festival night, or really any night they wanted a proper dinner without leaving their part of the island.
| South End Dining Option | Before August 2026 | Now |
|---|---|---|
| Full-service restaurant with bar | None on south end since 2022 | South Beach Grille, reopened at Santini Marina Plaza |
| Casual Italian | None | Legno Italian Kitchen, open in the plaza |
| Farmers market with food vendors | Weekends only | Still weekends, but now paired with sit-down options nearby |
| Nearest full-service alternative | Drive to Bonita Springs or the island's north end | Same options, now optional rather than necessary |
The restaurant itself is a two-decade fixture on the island, and its return isn't a scaled-down version of what closed. Owners Brad and Susan Phillips moved the new location to the other side of the plaza, in a space with 20 more seats than the old one, and brought back head chef Cory Morin along with several longtime staff. The menu reads like the old one too: rack of lamb, filet mignon, Alaskan king crab legs, Florida lobster tail, grouper Americano, shrimp scampi. Happy hour runs daily from 3 to 6 p.m.
As WINK News reported, "We opened the doors and the whole community supported us right away."
That's John Maffei, who owns Legno Italian Kitchen a few doors down in the same plaza, describing what happened when his restaurant reopened. It's the same story South Beach Grille's owners have told about their own return, and it's the kind of thing that only shows up when you've watched a plaza sit half-full for years and then fill back in.
What's Still Filling In at Santini
The comeback isn't finished. Santini Marina Plaza still has a subdivided unit that used to house Freakie Boutique sitting unleased, and not every storefront from before Ian has come back yet. But the momentum is real enough to notice. Jersey Mike's opened in the nearby Key Estero Shopping Plaza this past July with dedicated customer parking, and the same family behind the former Mr. Tequila is targeting a September 2026 opening for its rebranded successor, Sol Tequilla, just down the way. The seasonal Santini Farmers Market, which has run on weekends with a fresh seafood vendor among its stalls, now has actual dinner options within a five-minute walk instead of being an isolated Saturday stop.
None of this reads like a finished project. It reads like a plaza getting its legs back one lease at a time, which is a more honest description of where the south end actually stands than either "fully recovered" or "still struggling."
A Realistic Way to Spend the Festival's Last Weekend
If you live on the south end and you're weighing how to spend September 25 through 27, the shape of the weekend looks different than it has in any year since Ian. Catch a free BMI songwriter set at one of the festival's beach venues in the afternoon or early evening, then walk or drive the short distance to Santini Marina Plaza for dinner instead of planning around a trip off the island. South Beach Grille's happy hour window lines up well with an early show, and if the closing-night headliner draws you toward Pink Shell's pool deck, you now have a real option for where to eat beforehand that doesn't involve crossing a bridge.
It's a small logistical shift, but it's the kind of thing that changes how a recurring event actually feels to the people who live through it every year rather than visit it once. The festival hasn't changed its route. The island around it has changed enough that the same route now works differently for the people who call this stretch of beach home.
That's really the story of Fort Myers Beach right now, told through one plaza and one ten-day festival rather than through a recovery timeline or a construction schedule. The island isn't waiting to be finished before it starts being lived in again. It's already happening, one reopened kitchen at a time.
If you're weighing what waterfront living actually looks like day to day on Fort Myers Beach or anywhere else in Southwest Florida, Mark Breimeister has spent years watching neighborhoods like this one come back to life, restaurant by restaurant and season by season. Let's Connect if you'd like a local read on what a particular stretch of coastline is really like to live on, not just to visit.
