St. Pete Seaside has been an essential a part of mine and Jannah’s relationship since we first began courting ten years in the past. It’s the place we had been married six years in the past and the place have spent a number of the most magical occasions of our lives — with essentially the most lovely sunsets, the best dwell music and a number of the most scrumptious meals we’ve ever loved collectively.
However, as just about everybody is aware of, the entire Gulf seashores from Clearwater south to St. Pete had been devastated by final 12 months’s trio of main hurricanes, particularly Hurricane Helene, which made landfall as a Class 4 hurricane within the Massive Bend area of Florida on Sept. 26 of final 12 months. That was solely six weeks after Hurricane Debby introduced report flooding, additionally to the Massive Bend space, regardless of “solely” hitting as a Cat 1, as a result of the storm stalled alongside the Gulf coast of our state. Helene was adopted lower than two weeks later by Cat 3 Hurricane Milton, which did as a lot injury to inland areas because it did to the coast.
However, Helene — which hit roughly 35 weeks earlier than the 2025 Memorial Day weekend, when Jannah and I lastly returned to St. Pete Seaside — did essentially the most injury of the three storms to Pinellas County’s beloved seashores.
Which means its been eight eight+ lengthy, troublesome months for the resorts, eating places and retailers in these Gulf Coast communities, so though we’d seen and browse information reviews about how troublesome it’s been for these areas to totally recuperate, we (wrongfully) assumed issues needed to have gotten again nearly to regular by now. Um, no. A thousand occasions no.
Throughout our go to, we drove from Move-A-Grille Seaside, on the southern tip of the strip, nearly to the Sand Key Bridge simply south of Clearwater and, though the climate was lovely and there have been nonetheless loads of nice locations open for enterprise, what we discovered saddened us to our cores.
Move-A-Grille appeared principally intact, however the fabled Don Cesar Lodge had solely not too long ago reopened and nonetheless was not absolutely restored to its former glory.
Nonetheless closed had been a lot of our native favourite St. Pete Seaside haunts just like the Bellwether Seaside (previously the Plaza Grand) Lodge, residence to the favored rotating Degree 11 rooftop bar and Spinners restaurant. Even the Beachcomber Resort, residence to our favourite dwell music spot Jimmy B’s, was nonetheless shuttered. Widespread eating places like The Frog Pond and additional south to Caddys on the Seaside (photographs) additionally had been nonetheless shut down, though the homeowners of Caddys no less than had a tented bar, meals vans and picnic tables on-site so these having fun with the dwell music at Ka’Tiki throughout the road may come out to absorb the still-breathtaking sunsets.
We continued north by way of Treasure Island, the place the fabled Thunderbird Seaside Resort, which opened in 1957 and had survived many hurricanes and tropical storms, had by no means reopened since Helene and was on the point of be demolished.
We then headed to John’s Move, which was principally reopened, though our bartender on the Pirates Pub & Grub informed us that the entire first-floor companies on the boardwalk had 5-7 ft. of water inside them and needed to be utterly renovated for weeks and even months, whereas the second flooring eating places and retailers had been just about nonetheless OK.
Persevering with north of John’s Move, by way of Madeira Seaside, the Redingtons, Indian Shores, Indian Rocks and Bellaire, the place it has all the time been much less crowded, additionally was chilling. These areas appeared even emptier than common. And sure, I notice that Sand Key, Clearwater Seaside and Dunedin, forming the extra northern, however equally touristy, a part of the Pinellas strip, are all additionally nonetheless struggling, though we didn’t drive that far throughout this go to.
And once more, our keep was the higher a part of a 12 months in spite of everything of this devastation, so it was exhausting to not have a queasy feeling about what is perhaps in retailer for our favourite seashore communities this 12 months, because the 2025 Hurricane Season started the day (June 1) that I wrote this story.
All I can say is that till we get phrase that our superb seashores are once more within the projected monitor of a storm, Jannah and I plan to return to — and pray for — St. Pete Seaside as usually as we are able to.
