MATLACHA, Fla. — Blue Dog Bar & Grill is back open. People who live and work on the island are doing all they can to get back to normal.
John Lynch and his wife own the restaurant.
"We're getting good at something we don't want to be good at," he said.
It's an all hands on deck effort to get Blue Dog ready for customers again. This is not their first rodeo.
"Even with small flooding, with a couple of feet, a lot of the refrigerators and commercial equipment, the motors are on the bottom, so we lost that equipment," Lynch said.
They've been closed for a month, taking on storm surge from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
"The day before Milton we got a whole new shipment of new equipment so we kept that up on the bar and on cinder blocks. We were able to protect all of that, so we're learning," he said.
People are already coming out to eat for Tuesday's reopening to support local business on the island.
"For people off the island, in Cape Coral, Fort Myers, all of SWFL... come on out because the businesses out here, not just Blue Dog, could really use the help," he said.
