FMBGN-BIZ-Nick's Liquors-How A Fort Myers Beach Liquor Store Rebuilt After Hurricane Ian

A hurricane can take your walls, your inventory system, even your address but it does not have to take your story. We pull up at Nick’s Liquors on Fort Myers Beach and talk with Nick Jr. about what it really looks like to keep a local shop alive on an island where every year brings change, and some years bring catastrophe. If you care about small business resilience, Fort Myers Beach recovery, or the behind-the-counter reality of retail, this one is for you.

We start with the backstory: a liquor license bought as an investment, a real estate market crash, and a beach-day decision that turned into a 23-year run. From there, the conversation turns to Hurricane Ian storm surge and the brutal specifics of loss, including why their old spot was hit so hard and what it takes to rebuild when liquor store zoning rules limit where you can legally operate. It’s a grounded look at entrepreneurship that skips the slogans and sticks to the choices.

We also get into the fun side of the business: what customers actually buy (yes, Tito’s leads by a mile), why tequila drinkers are suddenly obsessed with “no additives,” and how Nick thinks about educating customers who want something cleaner. The standout moment is the shelf of bottles recovered after Ian, now sold as verified mementos of Fort Myers Beach history, equal parts souvenir and symbol of survival.

Subscribe for more local stories, share this with a friend who loves Fort Myers Beach, and leave a review so more people can find the show. Would you display a hurricane-survived bottle or drink it?

Nick's Liquors
Nick Dakos jr.
450 Old San Carlos Blvd G107, Fort Myers Beach, FL 33931
(239) 506-4077

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Transcript

Welcome To Nick’s Liquors

"Cabo" Jim 0:32

Welcome, good neighbors, to another episode. Today we're in, I don't say downtown Fort Martyr's Beach, but uh, you know, we're we're down by the park based on parking. We have to downtown. I know, right? That's uh Nick's Liquors with Nick Jr. Right.

Nick jr. 0:45

Yeah, nice to meet you guys.

"Cabo" Jim 0:47

Yeah, welcome. So uh one of the few liquor places on Fort Marty's Beach, right?

Nick jr. 0:54

Yeah, um there used to be some. We've been on the island for 20-something years, okay. But when we first started, there were quite a few liquor stores, but over the years they kind of came and went, and we're happy to still be here. And then her opinion hit us a little blip there. A little blip. We weren't there. We're back now, so but uh yeah, it's just us, and they have that other store all the way at the other end of the island in Santini.

"Cabo" Jim 1:25

So on the north side, this is the place to come. Yeah, liquor.

Nick jr. 1:30

Yeah, you you pretty much get us, right?

The Liquor License Origin Story

"Cabo" Jim 1:32

That's a good thing, right? So let's back up the story a little bit. How'd you guys get involved in a liquor story to start with?

Nick jr. 1:39

You know, that's a great question. Uh and I guess it's a funny one because I I can give you a different perspective on it than my father would be able to. Um he had gotten a really good deal on a liquid license just as an investment. Okay. And he didn't originally plan on using it, but that was around he was in real estate, and that was around the time the market tanked. Yeah. And so he was really looking for something different to do, anyways. And he used to take me down to the beach to skimboard and surf when I was a kid. Yeah, I was probably 10, 11 at the time, and he actually saw a spot that was open that was in the plaza where Margaritaville used to be. Yeah, people that have been here a long time know like cabascos and all that used to be in the front. Yeah. And he saw called on the sign and ended up deciding to start the liquor store. Kind of out of the blue. He just went for it and said, okay, like let's because you have to you have to use a liquor licensor, you have to use it or lose. I mean, so they're not cheap. So he got a good deal on it, but to make any money on it, you really have to use it, or right. I mean, I'm sure you know, if you got a ton of money in your corporate, there's probably ways around that.

"Cabo" Jim 3:03

But for the average Joe, yeah, that's big if he wanted to make money on it, he really needed to use it.

Nick jr. 3:08

So I think he's had he would tell you he's happy that he did now. Yep, yep. I mean, luckily it wasn't easy, but things worked out. Yep. And pause.

"Cabo" Jim 3:24

Listen, that's the beauty about recording. I can pause and start it again. Get your hot pocket while you're waiting. Before it gets a cold pocket.

Nick jr. 3:33

Oh, they're always cold pockets now, right? All right, come back over.

"Cabo" Jim 3:43

All right, so been in business for 23 years.

Nick jr. 3:47

Yeah.

"Cabo" Jim 3:47

Obviously, you've had your challenges for 23 years. It's not an easy business, number one, but uh we had been challenged recently, right? Three years ago. Yeah, how did that affect you?

Nick jr. 3:59

I think it affected everyone pretty pretty horribly.

"Cabo" Jim 4:03

Um, because we had what close to 12 feet back here?

Nick jr. 4:06

We had we weren't here, right? We were down the beach a little bit, right? Across from Hooters, right? And we had 15, 16 feet there. Right? Yeah. And it was probably one of it ended up being one of the lowest spots on the beach. Yeah, obviously, we didn't know that at the time. Right. Hey, Alexa, turn off. Um, yeah, so it ended up being one of the lowest spots on the beach because that's actually where that video, viral video with the house floating away, is rose up and yeah, where they set it up. That camera, uh it turns out that camera was owned by some guy I know, but it ran all the way through the storm, I guess. And that was right across that that camera was kind of caddy cornered. It was in the corner of our parking lot, basically. Like just past Lani Kai if you're coming on to the aisle. Yep, yep. And yeah, it it definitely, I mean, I know how high it got because I went to take a junction box down that was at our ceiling. And mind you, like our whole the plaza we were in, the whole building is five feet off the ground. Yep. So the ceilings in there were at least 10 feet. So I'm looking at 15 feet there to where the junction box was at. And I wanted to see if the cameras, any of them, are still good. So I took the junction box down, and it was still full of water. And this was like a week after the spot. Wow. So that there was so much pressure in the water that it actually pushed it into the junction box and it hadn't come back out, which was pretty wild. So yeah, it was uh it was definitely a catastrophic sale.

Finding Zoning And A New Spot

"Cabo" Jim 5:47

There was no store left. Right. So you had to adjust on this place.

Nick jr. 5:51

Yeah, I mean, it took us two and a half years and we had a lot of ups and downs. We thought we find things that were gonna work and it would follow through. We thought we'd find something else and it would follow through because the zoning for liquor stores is not an easy thing to find on the beach. Yep, yeah. It's very hard. Um and we ended up finding this spot, and we'd actually looked into this building a few times, and the zoning had told us that it didn't work, and then they realized after we pushed, they realized it did work. So we ended up here. I I will say this this spot wasn't even advertised for rent at the time. Right. We were we were starting to just knock down doors try anywhere we could. We were about at our ropes end, and we got really lucky that we found this spot. Nice. We're really glad to be here. So are you you were born and raised here, right? In Fort Myers, yeah.

"Cabo" Jim 6:43

Okay. Yep, yeah. Alright, so you've seen a lot of change, right?

Nick jr. 6:46

Yeah, yeah. I mean, always spent time on the beach growing up. So most weekends.

"Cabo" Jim 6:54

And was your goal to work at a liquor storm? No, not at all. What was your goal? What was your dream?

Nick jr. 7:02

Dream? Uh I mean, it if I had a dream dream, it probably would be to be a pro surfer, someone that gets paid to travel and surf, but I never really thought that was in the cards.

Speaker 1 7:17

Right, right.

Nick jr. 7:18

Um I probably realistically wanted to be a business owner. Yeah, like an entrepreneur, I was always an entrepreneur, and so this does kind of fit my my my idea of what I wanted to do, my dream, so to speak.

"Cabo" Jim 7:36

Yeah, right, right. It's good. Owning a business is great. Yeah. You know, you're your your own boss.

Nick jr. 7:40

It sounds a lot better than it is.

"Cabo" Jim 7:42

Disadvantages you're your own boss.

Nick jr. 7:44

Yeah, exactly.

"Cabo" Jim 7:45

And you gotta be here.

Nick jr. 7:46

Yeah, everything falls on you.

"Cabo" Jim 7:47

Yep, and you gotta be here 24-7.

The Reality Of Owning It

Nick jr. 7:50

There's no one to yell at you, then all the responsibility falls on you. Yep, yep.

"Cabo" Jim 7:54

So what are your what are your hours back here now?

Nick jr. 7:57

We are open at 10, which is different. We used to be open until night open at 9. Yep. Um, at this store, we're open at 10 until 9 Monday, went Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Okay. And we open are open until 10, an hour later on Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

"Cabo" Jim 8:14

And we're in the back here, back by across the street from Nervous Nelly's, so people can find you back here.

Nick jr. 8:19

Yeah, directly across the street from Nervous Nelly's. You can see uh their front door somewhere.

"Cabo" Jim 8:24

So I guess kind of what do you sell the most of here?

Nick jr. 8:30

I I wish it wasn't the case, but I've gotta say, Tito's outsells, Tito's Voc outsells everything. Really? I mean I I'd have to pull the numbers, but it's probably 10 to 1 to anything else. Wow. It's crazy. Yeah, almost every I feel like almost every person that comes in here buys Tito's. Yeah, right? Yeah, that's like part of their order. Um I've actually been trying to push them towards other things just because I'd like to see, you know, people diversify a little bit.

"Cabo" Jim 9:01

See, I'm I'm a tequila guy, so I like my tequila. So I mean, what's your favorite? You know, um originally I got in tequila because uh Sammy Higar was in tequila. Okay, yeah. So cabo waba was one of the first premium, along with patrol, one of the most premium. I grew up drinking Quare Bone, that's gasoline. You know, it's not even tequila. Sound like I hated tequila, but then he came out with it and I started enjoying it a little bit now. Well, he he sold cabo years ago.

Nick jr. 9:28

Yeah, and cabo wava was huge when it came out. I do remember it.

"Cabo" Jim 9:31

It's changed a lot, it's changed a lot.

Nick jr. 9:32

It would be the equivalent of like Casamigos now, it had that popularity factor.

"Cabo" Jim 9:36

But he's got um, so he partnered now with Guy Fieri and does Santo, and I think he might be back at the original distiller for for Cabo Wabo because it tastes a lot like the original Cabo Wabo. It's very clean, it's it's like uh Lalo, it's it's no additives.

Nick jr. 9:53

Uh-huh.

"Cabo" Jim 9:54

You know, so now it's that's the big thing in tequila is no additives because like most liquors, well, any food too, you know, and additives. Yeah, you know, yeah.

Nick jr. 10:03

I mean it is nice to know that you're yeah, you're not getting any of that extra stuff.

"Cabo" Jim 10:07

It's clean, you know, even some of the higher-end tequilas are disappointingly finding out that they're putting flavors into them, and you're like, well, no wonder it's so smooth, you know.

Nick jr. 10:16

Yeah, that is true. I mean, there's a lawsuit going on right now.

"Cabo" Jim 10:19

Yeah, big one, yeah.

Nick jr. 10:21

Yeah, two very with the big players, two two very big tequilas that uh I probably shouldn't name.

Speaker 1 10:28

Right, right. I know.

Nick jr. 10:29

We know, we know. If people care, they'll look into it. Exactly, won't be hard to find, right? Being a business owner, you're here a lot, right? Way too much, yeah.

"Cabo" Jim 10:42

What do you do when you get some free time?

Nick jr. 10:45

Free time, yeah.

"Cabo" Jim 10:46

What's that, right?

Nick jr. 10:47

I'm not sure what you mean by that.

"Cabo" Jim 10:50

That that's free time, it's time you don't get paid for, is what that is.

Nick jr. 10:54

Yeah, my my free time I spend with my therapist talking about how I don't have any free time. Right.

"Cabo" Jim 11:03

So we've got a shelf of bottles that uh they look a little rough here. What happened?

Nick jr. 11:09

Yeah, these are our bottles that uh went through Hurricane Ian that we are able to uh salvage. Interesting, right? Yeah, fun, fun stuff. People actually get a real kick out of it. Especially how we have the before and after pictures, and people uh aren't really sure what to say. They their response is always, oh, that's so cool. And then they immediately go, Oh, I mean, it's not like cool, but I'm like, no, it's right, right. Don't worry about it.

"Cabo" Jim 11:38

It's kind of unique. I mean, uh, you guys get a little piece of history, and so are people drinking it or they put it on their shelves kind of as a uh memento kind of thing.

Nick jr. 11:46

The idea was so that they put it on their shelves, but I think that we get the occasional person that definitely plans on drinking it. Right. But uh yeah, for the most part, people just want something cool to put on their shelf, a memento of something that made it through Ian.

"Cabo" Jim 12:00

And you've got the tags on there kind of uh verifying that, right? That it went through there.

Nick jr. 12:05

Yeah. Um, yeah, it says recovered by proprietors, Nick and Senior and Junior. It's kind of funny.

"Cabo" Jim 12:12

So you've got a number of bottles here. Is this inventory gone down quite a bit or um I would say substantially, yeah.

Nick jr. 12:22

There's still a lot left, but it's I would say that's probably partly because it's just hard to get it in here and get it onto the shelf. Yeah, but um it's definitely been going as fast as we'd hoped.

"Cabo" Jim 12:35

Well there you go.

Nick jr. 12:36

Well and I mean, you know.

"Cabo" Jim 12:38

Come on in and grab yourself a piece of history and a little memento of Fort Mario's Beach.

Nick jr. 12:43

And yeah, we'll work with you. We just want people to have something a little something to remember. I love the idea.

"Cabo" Jim 12:50

It's great, you know?

Nick jr. 12:51

Yeah, a little bit of positivity.

"Cabo" Jim 12:53

That's it. That's what we're all about. It's being positive and the right thing.

Nick jr. 12:57

And that was the whole idea is how can we take this and turn something positive out of it. Yep. I mean, we were so shell-shocked after the storm that the only thing we could think to do was try to salvage whatever we could out of the store. Because we knew we had all this liquor sitting there that was still good. Yep. I mean, just the labels might have a nick, or you know, the labels are are gone, or something some things look great and some things looked horrible. Yep. But for the most part, they were all still sealed and fine to drink. So it it would be a shame to just let it all go to waste. That's alcohol abuse, is what you say, right? Yeah. I mean, I talked to a lot of it seems like everyone on the beach had uh bottles in their front yard from mostly from all the different restaurants. Yeah. But ours, we got kind of lucky that the building kind of trapped them there for us.

"Cabo" Jim 13:45

Left them in there, right? And then get them out the door. But interesting.

Nick jr. 13:48

I did have someone that found a hat from our store all the way on past in that neighborhood behind Main Street there.

"Cabo" Jim 13:56

Wow.

Nick jr. 13:57

So yeah, quite a distance.

"Cabo" Jim 13:59

There's some stuff that moved around this island.

Nick jr. 14:01

Yeah, there's still stuff out there. Right. Only way I can imagine it getting that far.

"Cabo" Jim 14:06

That's well, well, it's like over at Yucatan.

Nick jr. 14:09

Little Tiki guy ended up against the bay over in there, right? And some of the tables that were at Mr. Tequila in front of our store ended up all the way over there too, uh, by Loma Linda. Yeah, okay. Which is wild. It's crazy. Yeah, I don't know.

"Cabo" Jim 14:24

You know who needs bottles is the Yucatan tiki guy, because he lost his bottles, didn't he? Did he? I don't remember.

Speaker 1 14:32

He's empty-handed right now. He's he doesn't have his bottles.

Nick jr. 14:35

Well, that's sad. I'm gonna have to talk to them.

Speaker 1 14:37

Right, exactly. Say I know a guy that can help you out. Yeah, yeah.

Nick jr. 14:41

I'm gonna have to call Tommy Kohler and let him know. That's it. That's it.

Stop By And Share The Vibes

"Cabo" Jim 14:45

So, any last words for our listeners today?

Nick jr. 14:48

Um, well, we'd love to have you stop by. Yeah, you don't have to buy anything, just come by and say hey.

"Cabo" Jim 14:54

Come by and say hi. Yeah, Nick will talk, he'll talk to you, share some stories and educate you on liquor, which he loves to do.

Nick jr. 15:02

Absolutely. I I love to talk about liquor. So, do you want to have a long conversation about liquor?

"Cabo" Jim 15:09

We're gonna come back and record some of that for you so you don't have to repeat your stories all the time. That would be wonderful, right? I think that's yeah, I'll take you up on that. There we go. Well, Nick, it's been a pleasure getting to know you. Thank you for being such a good part of the community and coming, bringing back Fort Myers Beach as well. Absolutely. I'll come down here and grab some tequila as soon as I empty the bowels at home.

Nick jr. 15:30

Okay. All right.

"Cabo" Jim 15:30

Sounds good. Thank you.

Nick jr. 15:32

Put some aside for you.

"Cabo" Jim 15:33

Perfect.

Intro/Close 15:34

Thanks for tuning in to the Fort Myers Beach with Neighbor Podcast. No shade, just sunshine, drama free, positive vibes only. If you love what you've heard, share it with a friend and vibes only. So let's talk about a cobble and cobble and also number two.