HOLMES BEACH – On Friday, Hurricane Hank’s provided free lunches for city employees, members of the Holmes Beach Police Department and other first responders.
Across the street, in the Anna Maria Island Chamber of Commerce parking lot, Operation BBQ Relief volunteers provided free meals to residents, employees and visiting recovery workers.
Hurricane Hank’s
From 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Hurricane Hank’s owner Brian Mathae and his staff handed out the free lunches.
“Today we are offering the city of Holmes Beach employees and first responders a thank you lunch from Hurricane Hank’s. We thank them for keeping our community safe and rebuilding it as quickly as possible so we can get more people back on this Island and get back to normal,” Mathae said.
“Today, we’re offering folks our infamous chicken tenders and our grouper tacos,” he said of the free lunch offerings that also included soft drinks.
Holmes Beach Police Chief Bill Tokajer and Mayor Judy Titsworth were among those who stopped by to grab free lunches.
“Hurricane Hank’s called me a couple days ago and said they wanted to provide meals for city employees, police and first responders,” Tokajer said. “We’re here getting meals to bring back to city hall and I’ve got my officers on the way over here to grab some food from Hurricane Hank’s. Hank’s is amazing and their positivity and smiling faces are part of the solution as we continue our recovery.”
“Everyone loves Hank’s,” Titsworth said. “This is a local go-to and the fact that he’s opened his arms and is helping our recovery effort is just awesome. It’s so important that these businesses survive these trying times and we are doing everything we can to get our visitors back.”
Titsworth said she plans to soon propose ending the city’s vacation rental moratorium that was recently adopted for 45 days.
Back in business
“Hurricane Liquors, Fifty Three Fifty: The Pourhouse and Hurricane Hank’s are now all open, as well as our two businesses in Longboat Key,” Mathae said. “Hank’s was the last one to open, but we’re glad it’s back now. The curfew’s been lifted and our kitchen hours are 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week; and our bar will remain open after that. “And Fifty Three Fifty is open at 8 a.m., serving coffee, great breakfasts and beer and wine in the afternoon.”
“It feels great to be open again and we’re looking forward to seeing everyone. We opened Hank’s Wednesday night. We had to close on Thursday because of a water main break, but on our opening night we saw people experiencing sheer happiness; and that made all our hard work worth it,” Mathae said.
When asked what’s it’s like to be the owner of multiple businesses impacted by two consecutive hurricanes, Mathae said, “It’s a lot, because there’s so many things that we can tender out and there’s other things that we need to do personally in terms of meeting with the adjusters and ascertaining damage. I also have a house here on the Island that had almost 4 feet of water in it. We got everything ripped out but we haven’t been able to spend any time on our personal living conditions because it’s more important that the businesses are open for the sake of our employees. We have 50 employees that need this income,” he said.
The owner of the S&S Plaza that houses Hurricane Hank’s and several other businesses recently installed a new roof, new exterior overhangs and new hurricane impact-resistant windows and doors.
“We’re appreciative of that and it was very helpful. We didn’t have to board up this time,” Mathae said.
In recent years, the plywood placed over Hurricane’ Hank’s windows carried a collage of humorous spray-painted messages for the approaching hurricanes.
Operation BBQ Relief
On Friday afternoon, Operation BBQ Relief volunteers Rafael Rios, his fiancé Arelys Rodriguez and fellow-volunteer Kristin Moore handed out free barbeque lunches to residents, employees and recovery workers who left their homes to help the Island get back on its feet.
“We have The Happy Snapper food truck in St. Petersburg and we’re here in conjunction with Operation Barbeque Relief. They’re the ones that supply us with the meals to come down here and feed everybody. Since Monday, we’ve given out more than 10,000 meals,” Rios said.
“We are providing 2,000 meals a day for Holmes Beach. We started a few days after Hurricane Helene. We were in St. Pete Beach and now we’re here. We’re not sure where we’ll be tomorrow, but we’ll be somewhere serving more food. This is what we do to help out the community,” Rodriguez said.
