MARCO ISLAND, Fla. — For over 40 years, the iconic island restaurant the Snook Inn has been a staple of the Marco Island experience. However, during Hurricane Ian it saw extensive damage, forcing it to close for renovations.
Now, a little over a year after the hurricane left its mark, the inn has reopened its doors.
The restaurants atmosphere was buzzing, with nearly every seat filled with people enjoying the fresh food and drinks. They’re thrilled to see Snook Inn back open, saying, “another day in paradise with snook in. Here we go again!”, and “so happy it’s open, I can’t believe it’s been a year.”.
Owner Luigi Carvelli expressed how grateful he is to be back in business, saying, “It’s been a year. Some days we didn’t think we could do this, you know what I mean? It’s just been challenging for my family, for my employees, and also for the locals because I think their social lives were altered by the Snook Inn being closed.”
Carvelli said the past year of renovations included reinforcing the building with hurricane impact glass and raising the floor height by a foot after seeing over five feet of water in the building during Ian.
“Everything that we did was to reinforce the building and make sure that a disaster like what happened last year will not cause as much damage to the building,” said Carvelli.
While rebuilding, Carvelli said he decided to take the opportunity to revamp the restaurant, too. Taking care to preserve the historic Snook Inn charm, additions include a new food and cocktail menu, a larger stage to host bigger bands, a re-imagined dining space and tiki bar with higher ceilings to keep customers cool, and new technology like the “bottoms-up” beer taps to reduce beer waste and get that “perfect pour”.
“We made one promise, that we were going to bring back Snook Inn bigger and better than ever before. And today, we delivered just that. We delivered on that promise, and we feel very proud of it,” Carvelli said happily.
With another business back on the map in southwest Florida, the people here said that Snook Inn is better than ever after Ian.
