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Doc Ford's St. Pete helping SWFL employees after Ian
Kailey Tracy reports
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Doc Ford's St. Petersburg Pier location is one of four across Florida, and it was the only one Hurricane Ian spared. Its employees are now helping the ones who weren’t so fortunate.
The restaurant has 500 employees between all of its locations, and Ian put more than half of them out of work. The owners offered employees the opportunity to transfer to the St. Pete Pier location, or work at the new St. Pete Jungle Terrace location opening at the end of the month.
Doc Ford's co-owner Mark Marinello said more than 20 employees have taken them up on the offer. Patricio Miranda is one of those employees. He worked at Doc Ford’s Fort Myers Beach location.
"Fort Myers at this time is destroyed. You cannot do anything. You can’t go in the kitchen. There are no jobs," Miranda said.
Employees at the St. Pete Pier location also collected carloads of donations for the families of employees affected, and they’re raising money to buy items on the families’ Amazon wish lists.
They took several trips to Southwest Florida with the carloads of donations.
"We had a number of employees who lost their homes as well as were temporarily displaced and without a job, so that’s been the worst part of the whole thing," Marinello said. "The buildings we’re in the process of rebuilding and reconstructing, but it’s the people that we’re most worried about."
The Captiva Island location is closed indefinitely as the resort it’s located at works to rebuild, Marinello said. They hope to reopen the Sanibel and the Fort Myers Beach locations by the end of the year, he said.
"It’s shocking. It’s emotional. It’s people you care about," Marinello said. "One of the things we do not only with our people that we care about, it’s the community in which we located in, we participate in a big way in each community that we’re located in, so it’s heartbreaking."
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If you’d like to donate, they have drink specials and are collecting money at the St. Pete Pier location.