For more than a half century, Lighthouse Cafe of Sanibel had been in the same island shopping center. All of that changed last year with the landfall and devastation of Hurricane Ian.
Between then and Aug. 1, restaurant owner Dan Billheimer had been putting the pieces of his life back together. He and his wife lost their home, their cars and his business, but last week, he finally saw the metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel. He signed a lease for a new location.
When Lighthouse Cafe returns—he hopes by Dec. 1 or Jan. 1, 2024, at the latest—it will not be at 362 Periwinkle Way, the original location that had been open since 1956. Instead, it will be at 1020 Periwinkle Way in a building that previously had been Sanibel Fresh and Bennett’s Fresh Roast.
“It was a good nine months of just wondering what was going to happen,” said Billheimer, who bought the restaurant from his uncle in 2018. “What was going to break? A lot of time to sit around with a bunch of stuff pinging between my ears. And not a lot of answers. I really feel like this last month, I’ve got a lot of good news.
“I can’t tell you, the pressure it’s taken off of the uncertainty of bringing the Lighthouse Cafe back. But also, you know, just giving myself something else to think about. I can sink my teeth into something and really bear down on the comeback.”
The restaurant once had 428 lighthouse-themed photographs and paintings hanging inside. About 60% of those were washed out from the storm surge. Billheimer salvaged everything else he could and originally had planned to renovate the prior space.
However, the Seahorse Shopping Center is for sale, and Billheimer didn’t want to wait to find out who the new landlord would be. Instead, he called real estate broker Jeff Burns of Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, who negotiated the lease deal with real estate broker Evan duPont of Berkshire Hathaway and Joe Schwartzel, the owner of the newer building. Those talks all gave Billheimer the confidence to proceed with a renovation project that will cost at least $500,000.
The project will be financed by Sanibel Captiva Community Bank. The new location should give Lighthouse Cafe a big boost in terms of visibility—it’s just after making a right turn onto Periwinkle Way from the Sanibel Causeway—plus more room inside and more parking spaces outside.
The shopping center had 64 parking spaces, but those spaces had to be shared with several other businesses. The new location will have 40 parking spots, all for the standalone spot of Lighthouse Cafe.
The new location, at 3,000 square feet, is almost twice the size of the former location’s 1,600 square feet. There will be room for 102 diners instead of 64.
Billheimer said he mourned the loss of the original location, but now is embracing the new one.
“Things change,” Billheimer said. “It wasn’t for the lack of trying. But for whatever reason, I was directed here. And once I really started looking at it, and once I really started to explore the possibilities of what this place could offer, Lighthouse Cafe 2.0. Oh man, oh man. The gloves come off, and I get real excited about what this place has.”
The new version of Lighthouse Cafe will have the same menu and the same breakfast, lunch and dinner format. Instead of rehiring 19 to 26 employees during a busy season, he said he might be able to rehire 24 to 30 employees after reopening because of the additional space.
“The old Lighthouse Cafe vibe,” Billheimer said of what he intends to recreate. “The food, the ambiance, the service, all of those things weren’t broken. I would have been very happy to have kept moving along. Those were things customers had come to expect.
“It’s exceedingly important to bring that vibe back. There’s going to be a lot of scrutiny with a new place. How is it going to change? What am I going to lose? What am I going to gain? However, I have a blank slate. I can design this to my specs. It’s going to be bigger. It’s going to be stronger. It’s going to be able to accomplish a lot more compared to my old space.”
