Many businesses in Cape Coral continue to work toward reopening

Many of us are still working to return to normal after Hurricane Ian swept most of our possessions away. In Cape Coral, a lot of businesses are still not open.

They are working as hard and as fast as they can to open back up.

The owner of the South Cape Diner, Felix Estivaine, spends his days working to reopen his restaurant. Estivaine knew recovery would be hard, but he didn’t think it would take so long.

“We start to fix cleaning the refrigerator, cleaning all this stuff. And we (are) still on process to try to reopen, but it’s not that easy. We (are( resilient, but we try our best,” said Estivaine.

He is making progress. Two weeks ago, his diner was gutted with no floor. Now, things are taking shape, and he has new tiling and walls to prove it.

“The people in Cape Coral are very supportive. They’ve been nice to us. They always come in and cause us to keep going. And I’m on a process to reopen two more weeks from now,” Estivaine said.

A few doors down at The World Famous Cigar Bar, owner Richie Castiano, isn’t letting anything get in his way.

“We’re on the homestretch right now. We’ve just basically putting everything back together. For us, it’s almost like we’re reopening up again, you know, when we first started out,” said Castiano.

With a fresh new look, he’s excited to welcome long-term customers back because to him,- they’re like family.

“We have a great, great clientele and great people who support us tremendously. Who I, who we love. And we’re very, very fortunate,” Castiano said.

Casitano said he suffered, but nothing compared to the people on Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel, Matlacha, and Pine Island.

Castiano said The World Famous Cigar Bar is set to reopen on November 22.