Destination dining

Kearns Restaurant Group, despite a menu of risks, helped reinvent downtown Fort Myers with eight eateries. Its new Boathouse Tiki Bar & Grill now draws diners to east Lee County.

Jim Jett Photo. Zak Kearns, vice president of Kearns Restaurant Group, at the new The Boathouse Tiki Bar & Grill at Sweetwater Landing Marina in Fort Myers.
Jim Jett Photo. Zak Kearns, vice president of Kearns Restaurant Group, at the new The Boathouse Tiki Bar & Grill at Sweetwater Landing Marina in Fort Myers.
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Buildings in downtown Fort Myers had been abandoned by failed businesses and the city was in the process of refurbishing the streetscape when the father-and-son duo of Daniel and Zak Kearns gambled bigtime in 2012. 

They leased space at a deep discount, spent a few hundred thousand dollars and opened the original Ford’s Garage on First Street.

 

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