What do you actually eat before a 9 a.m. boat ride?
For most of Pelican Landing's history, the honest answer was: whatever you could scrounge from your own kitchen, because nothing at Coconut Point opened early enough to matter. That has changed over the past year, and the change says something about how this stretch of Bonita Springs actually works that a simple list of new store openings would miss. The retail corridor near the marina where the community's private shuttle departs for Big Hickory Island has not just added tenants. It has reorganized itself, without much fanfare, around the rhythm of a beach day: something to eat before you leave, something to eat when you get back, and a couple of units that still cannot seem to hold onto a concept for more than a year or two.
The Gap That Used to Exist Before Departure
Pelican Landing's beach park sits on 34 acres at the north end of Big Hickory Island, and the only way in is a boat shuttle that crosses Estero Bay in about 12 minutes. That means an early beach day starts with a drive to the dock, not a leisurely diner breakfast, because for years there was no full-service restaurant near Coconut Point that opened before mid-morning.
That gap closed last fall when Alba Breakfast & Brunch took over a unit that had cycled through Lehne Burger, BurgerIM, and Johnny Rockets before sitting vacant. Alba opens at 7:30 a.m., which made it the first sit-down restaurant at Coconut Point to serve breakfast that early, with a menu built around French Toast Crème Brûlée, Lobster Eggs Benedict, and shakshuka. If you are the kind of resident who likes to be on the water before the heat sets in, this is the difference between eating standing up at your own counter and having twenty unhurried minutes with real coffee before the shuttle leaves.
Where Dinner Ended Up After a Day on the Island
The other end of a beach day changed too, and in a more interesting way, because two different restaurants moved into two different histories.
Fresh Catch Bistro, from restaurateur Franco Russo, took over the former TGI Fridays outparcel near the mall's northern edge along U.S. 41. Russo built his reputation running Fresh Catch Bistro and Junkanoo Below Deck on Fort Myers Beach before Hurricane Ian forced him to relocate those original locations, and he has since expanded into Two Meatballs in the Kitchen and Stone's Throw as well. The Coconut Point location gives him a seafood, burger, and pasta menu in a building that had sat as a single, stable tenant for years, which matters because it tells you this particular real estate held demand even through a chain's national retreat.
Casa Blu is a different story. It opened last November in a space that had already burned through two prior concepts, Amfora Mediterranean and MidiCi Neapolitan Pizza, both departed. That is worth knowing if you are the sort of resident who likes to adopt a regular spot. Some corners of Coconut Point hold a tenant for a decade. Others turn over every eighteen months regardless of what opens there.
If you want a heavier dinner, Chops City Grill remains the steakhouse option near the mall, running its own weekly rotation with Prime Rib Mondays and Wagyu Wednesdays alongside a daily happy hour from 4 to 9 p.m. Ruth's Chris Steak House has also opened nearby, giving the corridor two dry-aged options within a short drive of the marina where none existed a few years back.
The Corners That Keep Changing Hands
Here is the pattern that a simple "what's new" list would flatten: the volatility at Coconut Point is not evenly distributed. Nordstrom Rack's arrival in the former Christmas Tree Shops box, and Bed Bath & Beyond before that, has held steady since its grand opening last October. Chops City Grill has held its footprint for years. But the small, freestanding restaurant units, the ones sized for a fast-casual concept or a mid-size sit-down room, keep changing hands. Alba's unit had three prior tenants. Casa Blu's unit had two. That is a useful thing to know if you are deciding whether to get attached to a new opening or wait a year to see if it sticks.
A quick snapshot of what moved and where:
| Former Tenant | Current Business | What Changed |
|---|---|---|
| Lehne Burger / BurgerIM / Johnny Rockets | Alba Breakfast & Brunch | First 7:30 a.m. sit-down breakfast at Coconut Point |
| TGI Fridays | Fresh Catch Bistro | Seafood, burgers, and pasta from a Fort Myers Beach restaurateur |
| Amfora Mediterranean / MidiCi Neapolitan Pizza | Casa Blu | Third concept in the same unit within recent years |
| Christmas Tree Shops / Bed Bath & Beyond | Nordstrom Rack | Grand opening held, no turnover since |
A few smaller changes rounded out the past year without reshaping anyone's daily routine, but they're worth knowing if you shop the corridor regularly:
- Bonita Smoke Shop & Cigar Lounge relocated into the former Men's Wearhouse space and expanded past 6,600 square feet, making it the largest cigar retailer in Southwest Florida after more than 25 years in business.
- Talbots relocated within Coconut Point last year to a larger space on Fashion Drive.
- ZAGG opened last fall in the corner space that used to house uBreakiFix, for phone and device repair.
- JET SET Pilates opened a modern studio in the corridor over the past year, adding a wellness option a short drive from Pelican Landing's own tennis center and fitness facility.
What Hasn't Moved
None of this changes what actually defines a day at Pelican Landing, which is the part of the routine that has stayed exactly the same. The shuttle still leaves from the community's own marina and still takes about 12 minutes to reach the island. The 34-acre beach park is still accessible only to residents and their registered guests, with no day-trippers and no public access, a fact the community itself describes as an amenity no other Southwest Florida community can match. Back on the mainland side of the gates, the Pelican Landing Community Center runs the same steady calendar it always has: bridge, poker, dinner dances, book clubs, and a Trivia Night that residents describe as the most reliably packed event on the schedule. None of that depends on which restaurant is renting the old Amfora space this year.
What changed is smaller than that, and more useful. A resident who wanted a proper breakfast before an early shuttle used to be out of luck. Now there is a specific answer, in a specific unit, with a specific opening time. A resident coming back sandy and hungry used to have fewer nearby options for dinner. Now there are two more, with different odds of still being there in three years. That is the kind of detail that does not show up on a generic neighborhood profile page, because it requires actually watching which units at Coconut Point hold their tenants and which ones don't.
If you already live inside the gates, none of this is a reason to do anything differently, except maybe try Alba before your next early boat. If you're weighing what it's like to actually live with an amenity like a private island beach shuttle day to day, not just what it looks like in a listing photo, that's the kind of ground-level detail Abreu Group tracks across every Bonita Springs and Naples community we work in. Schedule a private consultation with Daniel Abreu if you'd like to talk through what daily life actually looks like in a community like Pelican Landing before you make any decisions about it.
