The Islander Owner Anita Cereceda inspires seaside retailers as they rebuild following Hurricane Ian and the challenges of last fall’s storms.
Exploring The Islander’s displays and walking the 3,800-square-foot sales floor, you’d have no idea that 737 days before it reopened in October 2024, the shop was slammed head-on by Hurricane Ian.
Practically nothing was spared.
On Sept. 28, 2022, the category 4-plus hurricane directly hit Fort Myers Beach. The catastrophic storm washed away The Islander and Owner Anita Cereceda’s two other businesses, Local Color and The Pier Peddler. She also lost her home.
“What was I going to put back together?” she asked herself during a period of serious soul searching.
By summer 2023, she knew The Islander must return.
“It’s like you’re standing on a ledge and you just jump,” relates Cereceda. “You know how to do it because you’ve done it before. But coming back from a disaster like that, you are battered. You are worn down. You are not the same person that you were before.”
With a team of about 45 longtime employees, she determined the go-to business pillar in the community would return.
Today, The Islander is as large as all three previous shops together. Cereceda combined the best from Local Color and The Pier Peddler with The Islander’s resort wear, home decor and gifts. Seaside sophistication and sunny hospitality are The Islander way, guided by Cereceda’s vision and the support of a dedicated team.
“I want customers to have an experience when they visit us,” says Cereceda.
Opening again — and again Initially, Cereceda planned the grand reopening for Sept. 28, 2024, the anniversary of when Hurricane Ian hit.
But Hurricane Helene was due to make landfall in Florida on Sept. 26. This one wasn’t a direct hit, but the region was already in recovery mode from Ian and weathered floods and wind damage as a result of Helene.
“I had the great fortune of having a lot of help from a lot of people financially, emotionally, physically and vendors who were generous to me.” — Anita Cereceda
The following week, Cereceda felt confident The Islander could reopen Oct. 4. Then Hurricane Milton was due to arrive.
After that storm passed, she took inventory of the damages and was thankful for just some puddles and lost tables. The team restocked the shop and assembled displays. “We were open for the second time the following week,” Cereceda shares.
‘The reason we made it back’Cereceda recounts the journey from disaster to a second reopening. First, there was cleanup and working with the vendors.
“I had the great fortune of having a lot of help from a lot of people financially, emotionally, physically and vendors who were generous to me,” says Cereceda.
She also enlisted Lyn Falk with Retailworks to walk the store and consult on the redesign.
“To me, a store is a visual experience first and foremost,” says Cereceda. “And then you need sound, smell, texture. I wanted rugs on the floor and needed them to not be a liability. She was spot on with lighting.”
Following Falk’s advice, Cereceda shifted from typical track lighting to fixtures that emit pure lighting so every color of merchandise on display stays true.
The Islander is ever evolving, says Cereceda, who loves to change things up daily to offer a dynamic shopping experience.
Cereceda also carries on with longtime vendor relationships and her shop is staffed with mostly original team members.
Cereceda shared in a letter to customers on her website, “We’ll never forget that the reason we are here and the reason we made it back is because of you.”
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