St. Pete Beach businesses still struggling nearly a year after Hurricanes Helene and Milton

ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. — Hurricanes decimated St. Pete Beach in 2024, but the emptiness that followed is now the silent storm hurting business.

When historic, back-to-back hurricanes ravaged our treasured beach communities, no one expected that the fallout from the storm would still be felt nearly a year after businesses were starting to come back to life.

Tampa Bay 28 reporter Michael Paluska sat down with the owners of four different businesses across St. Pete Beach. There was a common theme throughout his conversations: the need for tourists to come back and for locals on the so-called "mainland" to take time to visit beach communities across the Tampa Bay area.

"What's really strange to me is, if you go over the bridge back on to, you know, call it the "mainland," it's like, what storm?" Ken Hautmann, owner of Chill Restaurant on Corey Avenue, told Paluska. "People don't remember, you know, they remember. But it's, you know, unless you lived through it and you're still here every day, no one thinks that; they think everything's back to normal."

Normal is a relative term. Life, the way it was on St. Pete Beach before the storm, will never be the same. There will be a "new" normal, but how long that takes and who can ride out the aftermath remains to be seen.

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"Some of them are not coming back because they cannot afford it," Odi Armata, owner of Odi's Mediterranean Kitchen, told Paluska. "With the new regulation to lift their houses, they're not coming back; they're selling. It's sad. Most of my customers cannot afford it."

When it comes to recovery, there is a lot to unpack: permitting, FEMA regulations, insurance, cost prohibitions, and, of course, fear of another devastating hurricane. As I type this script, the first named storm for the 2025 hurricane season just formed: Hurricane Erin. Anxiety about another storm is exceptionally high.

"I'm looking at this beautiful sparkling water out there to the Gulf, and it's beautiful here; this place is paradise. Would you would you ever abandon it?" Paluska asked Matt Vario, owner of Toasted Monkey.

"There are a lot of people who thought I was never coming back after the storm, and I was just going to sell my land to a developer and move on. And I'm not going to say the thought didn't cross my mind, but there was no way I was doing it, at least at this junction. Yeah, who knows if another storm hits? It might be the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak," Vario said. "Unfortunately, a lot of business owners who have been affected, yeah, particularly in this part of St. Pete Beach, or not, some that are selling their property and they're just not coming."

Paluska met Jason Bowery at Grillin' N Chillin', the BBQ restaurant he owns, located on Gulf Boulevard.

Bowery said he's had to cut his hours to save on costs and might close down temporarily during the slow season.

"What might happen to your restaurant?" Paluska asked.

"Well, to be very honest, with the way the economy of the beach is right now, I'm going to have to shorten my hours. You can't bleed water from a rock. So, you know, doesn't matter how good your cuisine is or how popular you are, we're rotating the same customers."

"So it's going to be better for you financially to close up shop for a couple of hours or even maybe an entire month, wait out the storm, so to speak, and then reopen later?" Paluska asked.

"For a small family business like myself, absolutely," Bowery said. "I definitely don't want to do that, but it might be the right thing to do. In order to be able to open the right way."

Bowery's message to the Tampa Bay community is the same message we heard from all of the voices in this story: "We are open."

"We're here. Businesses are open. Please support us," Bowery said. "Please still continue to pray for us and come by to support in any way you can."