SANIBEL, Fla \u2014 If you come to Sanibel, you know the Dairy Queen on Periwinkle was one of the first things you saw. Since Hurricane Ian, it\u2019s been empty\u2026 a constant reminder of the destruction. But that\u2019s now changing.<\/p>\n
Fox 4\u2019s Sanibel Community Correspondent Austin Schargorodski s got with the property owner to show you what\u2019s coming to the site.
Watch to get a look at what’s coming:<\/p>\n
Sanibel\u2019s iconic Dairy Queen building getting new life as a diner after Ian<\/p>\n
A new roof is going up, and the building has been gutted. It\u2019s all part of owner Josh King\u2019s plan for a new diner that will serve burgers sourced from his family\u2019s own cattle farm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really take great pride in it, and it is 100% organic right from our fields,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fox 4 <\/p>\n
Aerial of building<\/p>\n
King says the diner will blend in some of what people loved about Dairy Queen. \u201cWe\u2019re still gonna have shakes. We\u2019re still gonna have malts. And we\u2019re gonna have affordable meals for families,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
People Austin spoke with on Tuesday say they\u2019re excited to finally see progress. \u201cNow that there\u2019s some action and building there, we\u2019re excited to see what\u2019s gonna come,\u201d one visitor said.<\/p>\n
Amber Brown aid her grandparents once owned a Dairy Queen in Minnesota, and this spot became their family\u2019s tradition every time they visited Sanibel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just always held that importance to us. It\u2019s been 40 years now with that tradition and to not see it there is kinda sad. I\u2019m looking forward to it open. He\u2019s got till next November so we can stop in hahaha,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fox 4 <\/p>\n
Amber Brown<\/p>\n
King said he fought to save the original building, and the new diner will look just like the old Dairy Queen, right down to the tile roof. But keeping that look meant meeting today\u2019s stricter building rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s flood panels that are being designed and built. You know a lot of reinforcement into those walls. We had to bust out all the concrete floor and pour a 20 inch floor and dole it into the walls,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n
He said he hopes the diner does more than serve good food. \u201cIt should give people more hope that the island will survive no matter what Mother Nature dishes out to us,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n
King is aiming to open sometime in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANIBEL, Fla \u2014 If you come to Sanibel, you know the Dairy Queen on Periwinkle was one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[1289,4843,29019,13676,29023,29020,29024,29025,9,24,63,122,124,123,29021,29022],"class_list":{"0":"post-52370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-building","9":"tag-dairy-queen","10":"tag-dairy-queen-building","11":"tag-hurricanes","12":"tag-ian-recovery","13":"tag-lee-county","14":"tag-more-coming-to-sanibel","15":"tag-new-life-as-a-diner","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-queens","20":"tag-queens-headlines","21":"tag-queens-news","22":"tag-rebuild","23":"tag-sanibel-florida"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}