Tim Aten Knows: Oakes Farms plans to expand market after Ian damage

Q: Tim, what’s going on at Oakes Farms. There doesn’t appear to be any activity? Given the soaring property values, it wouldn’t surprise me if Alfie sold the land. — Ted Hudgins, Naples  

 A: While Oakes Farms founder Alfie Oakes realizes that property values are strong, he is considering a plan to rebuild his longtime store in East Naples with an eating area upstairs like the mezzanine he has at his Seed to Table store in North Naples. “Not as big as Seed to Table, but a smaller version of something like that might go well down there,” Oakes said.  

Damaged by Hurricane Ian, Oakes Farms Market remains temporarily shuttered since it closed early the day before the catastrophic storm made landfall in Southwest Florida. The local retail store at 2205 Davis Blvd. will be closed for an extended period.   

“We took a major beating there,” Oakes said. “We sustained about 3 feet of flood inside the building and wind damage to the roof, compressors, and everything. We might be just starting over at Oakes Farms or doing some major, major reconstruction. I don’t anticipate Oakes Farms being open for another six months to a year.” 

Ian’s storm surge converted Davis Boulevard into a raging river. Oakes has a video he took from his Range Rover of runaway boats floating down the street and smashing into signs and trees at his store. “I was in like 3 feet of water driving down Davis and about five pontoon boats were headed my way. Two of them ended up in the parking lot of the store,” he said. “There were some boats from all over but most of those were new ones from that lot across the street. They were brand new pontoon boats.”  

That area of East Naples was especially hit hard by Ian’s storm surge. “All those houses back on Estey and Brookside, every single house lost everything,” Oakes said. “It came up 4 feet there in all those people’s houses and all the furniture from every single house is out in front of the house. Every piece of furniture.” 

The catastrophe is a turning point for Oakes, who expanded his property there about 10 years ago, creating a second story on the eastern end of the store. The addition doubled the store’s space and nearly tripled the size of its deli. This time, an even larger vision may be realized with another makeover.  

“I look at it as an opportunity for us to make Oakes Farms better than ever,” Oakes said. “I haven’t really got my head wrapped around exactly what I’m going to do there, but it just depends on how a few things shake out once we get to the heart of the damage and see how much needs to be ripped out.”  

Oakes Farms Market opened in 1994 as the original retail store in the Oakes Farms family of companies. The small grocery store offers farm-fresh produce, meat, seafood, a juice bar, bakery, and deli with daily chef’s specials.  

Despite the store’s closing, Oakes was able to keep employees on the payroll by temporarily reassigning them to other company properties, Oakes said. “We assimilated every employee. We had a little over a hundred that we’ve put between all three locations, the two Food & Thoughts and Seed to Table.” 

The Seed to Table store on the northeast corner of Livingston and Immokalee roads continues to see incredible business maybe because of or in spite of Oakes’ outspoken personal right-wing ideology. After seeing record customers before major holidays, the store outdid its own impressive sales numbers immediately after the hurricane.  

“Seed to Table was the beacon,” Oakes said. “We were open at 7 a.m. on Thursday (the day after the storm). We had lines, the busiest the store’s ever been.”  

Thousands of people were in the store all day long during the three days after the storm made landfall, Oakes said. “We had the whole parking lot packed, and cars parked almost a mile down Livingston Road at like 9 o’clock on Thursday morning. People were walking a mile to get to the store.”  

Meanwhile, crews in North Naples are working to open the market half of Food & Thought 2, targeted to launch this fall or at least before the end of this year. “We’re working full steam on it right now. It will definitely be open before season,” said Oakes, who co-owns the store and its accompanying restaurant that reopened Oct. 1 on the other side of a connecting courtyard in Fountain Park retail center on Airport-Pulling Road. “It’s starting to shape up inside. It’s starting to come alive in there.”  

Oakes Farms’ produce fields didn’t fare as well during Hurricane Ian. After being destroyed five years ago when Hurricane Irma tore through Collier County, the farmland experienced about 50% devastation from Ian, Alfie estimates.   

“We cut our farm back to about half of what we were growing back then during Irma so, all in all, our farm losses are probably about 25% of what it was during Irma,” he said. “Here, we had a lot of wind damage. Some things took it better than others, depending on how hardy the crops were at the time. I would say, conservatively, 50% loss is probably what we had. We have half our crops.”  

Despite the damage experienced, Oakes accepts the inevitability of hurricanes. “You live in Florida you take the good with the bad, although I felt like we were really blessed,” he said. “I spent about $5 million on generators in 2020 so we were able to run all of our distribution business, our processing facility, our seafood distribution, Seed to Table, all ran perfectly off generator power to its full capacity.   

“It kind of hurt spending that money back in 2020 but it felt like it was the best money I ever spent the day after the hurricane. We literally saved millions of dollars’ worth of produce.” 

Restaurant redevelopment  

Q: It looks like they are getting ready to tear down (or at least do major construction) on the corner of Airport-Pulling and Davis Boulevard where Joey D’s used to be. Any idea what’s going on? — Patrick Daly, Naples  

A: A car wash will be built on that East Naples corner that has been home to a restaurant for the past decade. Snappy Car Wash will replace the former Joey D’s Italian Restaurant & Bar, which permanently closed in March on the southeast corner of Airport-Pulling Road and Davis Boulevard.  

The permit was issued last week for Fort Myers-based contractor Honc Destruction Inc. to demolish and haul away the former restaurant building as well as its canopy, monument sign and parking lot at 3300 Davis Blvd. While a bit jarring, the change from a restaurant to a car wash probably isn’t as surprising as the previous switch from a gas station to a restaurant. 

That corner lot was a service station for about 30 years until it was converted into a full-service restaurant and bar for Augustina’s A Taste of Chicago in 2012. The gas pump canopy became the roof of the outdoor bar, and the overhead doors of the former garage bays were retained to create open-air dining. In early 2015, the same setup became the third location of Joey D’s, which had a seven-year run there.  

Snappy Car Wash, which has two locations each in Fort Myers and Chicago, is operated by Fort Myers resident Roger Keaton. Keaton’s RKDavis Real Estate Holdings LLC purchased the 0.85-acre lot and its 5,076-square-foot commercial building at 3300 Davis Blvd. in East Naples for nearly $4 million in June from Utopia Properties LLC.  

The razed parcel will be converted into a 4,400-square-foot automatic car wash with outdoor vacuum stations. The car wash tunnel will be built on the eastern edge of the property and the new business will retain entrances off both Airport-Pulling Road and Davis Boulevard, according to a site plan by Banks Engineering of Fort Myers.  

 “Tim Aten Knows,” a column answering local questions from readers, is published every Friday at GulfshoreBusiness.com. Follow Tim Aten on social media: @TimAtenKnows on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.   

For more news on the Southwest Florida business community’s recovery from Hurricane Ian visit gulfshorebusiness.com