Roadhouse Café Is Coming Back to South Fort Myers. Here's What Made the Move With It.

What does a restaurant do when it's still booking out weeks in advance and its lease is about to run out?

In April 2025, Marc and Sherri Neeley's answer was to close Roadhouse Café. They had opened it in 2007 at 15660 San Carlos Blvd. in Gulf Points Square. This fall the answer changed. Tables, chairs and a piano that sat in storage for more than a year are headed for a new space at 15501 Old McGregor Blvd. in Miners Plaza.

Much of the coverage treats this as a beloved spot rising from the dead, but Roadhouse never really died. It closed while it was still busy, and the parts that made it Roadhouse were packed up, not lost. The new location keeps nearly all of them and adds room for the crowd the old dining room was already turning away.

A Profitable Restaurant Without a Lease

When the closing was announced, Marc Neeley told the News-Press the restaurant was "still very profitable" and that "we still book out weeks in advance." The problem was real estate. His lease had a redevelopment clause, and he said the landlord hadn't been as open as usual about the plaza's future. Signing again, he said, was "just too risky at this point."

By then Gulf Points Square had changed a lot. The News-Press described the plaza as "riddled with vacancies," a center that had once been home to LaMotta's, Publix and Big Lots. Moving looked expensive too. "Over the last five years, we've looked into relocating," Neeley said then. "The expense of moving is a bit more than we can stomach."

That left closing as the only option that made sense. Neeley set April 30 as the last night so the staff had a month to line up new jobs. When the News-Press asked what came next, he said he and Sherri hadn't decided yet, whether "through retirement or another career."

Everything that follows comes from the reason it closed. Roadhouse didn't need a new concept or a new menu to come back. It needed a new address and a way to pay for the move.

The Customers Who Made It Possible

That second need got solved after the doors closed. Covering the comeback in October, the News-Press quoted Neeley: "Many folks came forward (after we closed) with offers to purchase the brand or help relocate." He added, "We decided to partner with longtime customers who actually became engaged at the restaurant."

So the Neeleys' partners in the new Roadhouse are customers with their own history in its dining room. The News-Press summed up the October update this way: the Neeleys are returning, "and they're bringing a couple of friends along with them."

What Came Across Five Minutes of Road

The restaurant's own site says the new space is "just five minutes from our original space with the same ambiance, menu and team you love." Neeley described the move in terms of what came out of storage. "Everything has been in storage," he told the News-Press in July. "The tables and chairs, tapestries, the piano. It's all been waiting for the right time to move out."

Here's what's confirmed to be making the trip:

• The room itself. The chandeliers from the original Roadhouse have already been brought to Miners Plaza, according to a News-Press photo gallery. "We tried to use as much of the old stuff as possible," Neeley told the News-Press in October, naming the wall hangings and chandeliers.
• The piano bar. "We're bringing back the piano bar," Neeley said in that same News-Press update. Stevens Construction, which is building out the space, describes the new location as continuing the restaurant's "tradition of live jazz."
• The menu. In July Neeley promised "the same menu, the same quality and the same atmosphere." By October he called the menu "almost identical." The old Roadhouse was known for steaks aged at least 28 days, seafood fra diablo, baked lobster tails and bone-dry martinis.
• The people. About 90% of the staff is returning.

The staff is what makes this list hang together. Before closing, Neeley said the chef had been there 17 years, a grill cook who started the day after opening had worked his way up from dishwasher, and several front-of-house staff had been there more than 15 years. A crew like that can carry a restaurant to a new address. Chandeliers set the mood, but the cook who has made the fra diablo for years is the reason it tastes the same.

Everything New Is About Room

If most of Roadhouse is being carried over unchanged, the new space is where things change. Each addition gives more room to a restaurant that, by Neeley's account, was already full.

Reports on the new space's size don't agree. Stevens Construction lists the buildout at 6,939 square feet, and July coverage called it "nearly 7,000." The October News-Press update put it at more than 7,500. Neeley said it was "completely vacant with only four walls" when they found it. That meant a new kitchen, a new dance floor and a new bar. "We get to fix the mistakes we made on the first go-round," he said.

The bar is the clearest example. Twelve seats was a hard limit for a room known for martinis and live music, and doubling it lets more people stop in without a reservation. A 48-seat patio and two private rooms do the same for dinner. They add capacity for a restaurant that, by its owner's account, was booking out weeks ahead before it closed. The restaurant's site sums up the plan as "more seating, enhanced atmosphere, an expanded bar, and bigger dance floor and stage."

The neighbors are different, too. The new space sits next to Planet Fitness and a few doors down from Cape Cod Fish Co. and Ryan Kida's Echo Restaurant. Roadhouse used to be the bright spot in a half-empty center. Now it's one of several places to eat in the same plaza.

Before You Call for a Table

The opening date has already slipped once. In July the target was mid-October. On Oct. 8 Neeley said, "We're a bit behind the original schedule. However, we're hopeful for an early November opening." A News-Press photo caption from mid-October said construction should be finished in early November 2026. As of late October, the restaurant hadn't posted a firm opening date or new hours.

If you're hoping to be there opening week, here's the order to do things in:

1. Sign up on the restaurant's site. Roadhouse Café's homepage has a form for "opening announcements, exclusive previews, and a first look at what's cooking."
2. Wait for OpenTable. The site says reservation details "will soon be available," and the restaurant isn't taking bookings yet. In early October, Neeley said customers were already calling to ask for reservations, but it was too early.
3. Follow the Facebook page. The October update pointed readers to the restaurant's Facebook page for news.
4. Keep the new bar in mind. If the dining room books up fast, 24 bar seats give you a better shot at walking in than the old 12 did.
5. Ask about the private rooms early. If you have an anniversary or holiday dinner coming up this season, one of the two new rooms can be booked for private events.

Before the closing, Neeley told the News-Press the old Roadhouse was "a destination, seeing the same faces year after year." Some of those regulars are now his partners, and the chandeliers from San Carlos Boulevard are already at 15501 Old McGregor Blvd.

I love watching south Fort Myers businesses find new space instead of disappearing. If you have a Roadhouse memory, want to know what else is moving into the centers along McGregor, or want to talk about what changes like this mean for your corner of town, I'd love to hear from you. Reach out through Alicia Lee and Let's Connect.