A pair of devastating hurricanes have bookended The Great White Grill’s past and present.
Owner John Nader opened Sanibel Island’s only authentic pizzeria/sports bar on Dec. 21, 2004, about four months after Hurricane Charley cut across the island.
On Sept. 27, the eve of Hurricane Ian wrecking the region’s coastal areas, Nader wrote a Facebook post saying his Pittsburgh sports-themed bar would be closed for a couple of days.
More than two months later, it’s still closed because of the Category 4 storm damage. But Nader’s renovations are nearing completion, and he’s targeting to reopen on at least a takeout-only basis in early January.
“I’m here working on the drywall now,” Nader said. “It’s now just one step at a time. Baby steps. Every time you take a layer down, there’s something else I want to do. I want to do it right.”
He rebuilt the walk-in fridge, which chills the 30-plus beers on tap at 37 degrees. The bar normally has up to five employees, and he plans to bring some of them back as soon as he can open dine-in to customers. Nader, a working owner, said he did 75% of the cooking himself. 
The Great White Grill fared well compared to most Sanibel businesses in that it only had a few inches, instead of a few feet, of storm surge flooding inside the bar at 2440 Palm Ridge Road.
“I’ve been here for 18 years,” he said. “Ironically, I bought it 16 days before Hurricane Charley. That was my christening to the island.”
Nader moved to Sanibel from the Pittsburgh area and brought with him a passion for the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates. He displays memorabilia from those sports teams throughout the restaurant. He plans to drive his blue pickup truck back home to spend a rare Christmas Day with his mother, something he has done once since opening the bar. The plan is to load the car with some new Pittsburgh sports memorabilia to install in the bar upon returning.
“In this kind of business, you can’t usually get away for the holidays,” Nader said. “But since it’s going to be like this, I’m going up to Pittsburgh to be with the family.
“My mom loves it. She’s looking forward to it. It’ll be nice. It’ll be a nice break from all of this. Then I’ll come back down here, hopefully refreshed.”
It’s about 1,171 miles from The Great White Grill to Heinz Field, home of the Steelers. In 2023, it will be far closer for area fans to get their Pittsburgh fix on Sanibel.
“It’s kind of like a local hangout,” Nader said. “We get tourists, too. We get a lot of Pittsburgh people. But it’s a lot of locals. A lot of people come in here for the pizza.”
