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The drive past Everglades Wonder Gardens in Bonita Springs on Old 41 Road, for area resident Alisha Rhodes, had become tortuous in 2015.
Not for the alligators, peacocks and turtles inside the 80-year-old Old Florida roadside attraction. Rhodes, instead, pined for a chance to get into the snug, shuttered 3,000-square-foot shop next door. A longtime hospitality employee, who worked her way up from hostess and waitress roles at Outback Steakhouse to the financial and management side, Rhodes thought the empty space would make a great barbecue joint.
“I would pass by and pass by and just look at it sitting empty,” says Rhodes, an Apopka native with a large extended family in fast-growing Bonita Springs. “It had really gone by the wayside.”
The building had been a restaurant for several decades, going back to the 1940s. Brothers Bill and Lester Piper, founders of Everglades Wonder Gardens, also ran the restaurant. The Pipers sought to create a Florida wildlife-centric attraction for tourists and locals driving along the newly built Tamiami Trail from Tampa to Naples. They opened Everglades Wonder Gardens in 1936.
The restaurant closed in the early 2000s, and the most recent tenants included a mattress store and antique shop. It sat empty for eight years. But Rhodes had a vision for how to restore the restaurant. She wanted a homey place, where there's biscuit and sausage gravy in the morning, lean and tender brisket in the evenings and canned sauces sold in mason jars. “I knew there was something really great about this place,” she says. “There is so much nostalgia here.”
After encouragement from her husband, Scott Rhodes, owner of Bonita Springs-based Rhodes & Rhodes Land Surveying, Alisha Rhodes decided to give it a shot. She obtained a bank loan and leased the space from a nonprofit organization, Bonita Wonder Gardens, which bought the property from the Piper family in 2015 and now operates the facility.
Rhodes signed the lease in January and embarked on a major renovation project. There were two notable obstacles. For one, the spot was in major disrepair, down to what Rhodes called lots of “creepy crawlers everywhere.” And then there's the singular challenge of succeeding in the notoriously tough independent restaurant industry.
Rhodes brought in a variety of contractors. Projects such as bringing the place up to electrical and plumbing codes were particularly challenging. On electrical, Bonita Springs-based Empowered Global doubled the amount of amps for appliances and rewired the entire location. Plumbing included new septic tanks.
That work alone cost nearly $40,000. Rhodes declines to disclose the total cost for the project.
Rhodes also became intimately familiar with Bonita Springs and Lee County building officials. “I learned more about permitting than I ever thought possible,” she says.
The restaurant, Twisted Tangle, opened in September. The name is a play off the jungle-like feel of Everglades Wonder Gardens. On the challenge of running a restaurant, Rhodes believes a big advantage is her timing because Bonita Springs officials recently launched a $16 million redevelopment project for the downtown area. The work includes new municipal parking lots, two roundabouts, park benches and wider sidewalks. Says Rhodes: “It's amazing what's going on here.”
Rhodes also says she's fueled by her love for cooking for others.
“The biggest compliment I can get is when a 75-year-old man tells me, 'This is the best brisket I've ever had,'” says Rhodes. “That means a lot. That's what I live for.”
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