Bennett’s Fresh Roast
Bob Grissinger is on a sweet roll, had been radio’s ‘coffee guy’
Bob Grissinger is at a Bennett’s Fresh Roast table two feet or so away from a glass display case filled with doughnuts―maple bacon, coconut almond, Boston crème, glazed, and more, many more. A barista walks up to the table. “I would like a latte with milk,” Grissinger tells the young man. And off he goes, taking the boss’s order.
Grissinger is the man behind the name Bennett at the popular Fort Myers coffee shop. Bennett’s will celebrate its 10th anniversary on Feb. 8. There may be some confusion for newcomers between the owner named Grissinger and the business name. The simple answer is that Bennett was his onair name as a WINK radio personality before leaving in 2007. When he worked at the station with co-host Gina Birch, Bennett says, he was the office coffee guy.
He’s still a coffee guy. Sort of. “I’m a latte with lactate kind of guy,” Grissinger says, smiling. A couple of minutes later a barista places a latte with Grissinger’s image etched in frothy foam at the cup’s brim. “The latte is perfect,” Grissinger says after a sip.
Bennett’s success might be no surprise given the experimentation that went into his sweet treats. “I worked for a year on this recipe for doughnuts,” Grissinger says. “Made a lot of friends fat. They got a lot of calls on weekends. ‘Got another doughnut. Get over here.’”
Friends flocked over and sampled Grissinger’s kitchen experiments. He must have been a great friend to have. “Well, for that year,” he says.
While Grissinger focused on creating excellent doughnuts, where wasn’t as critical as what, he says. “I never cared about location,” Grissinger says of the cozy spot on Bayside Parkway at West First Street that’s nearly always packed. “Never cared. It was our determined effort to make this a destination … one thing about the location is we got parking. That helps.”
Bennett’s operated a second location on Sanibel that closed in May. It might strike some that the Sanibel location failed. “It worked,” Grissinger counters. “It was there for four years. Our business model was 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“We worked to figure out a way to cover that extremely expensive property a little better by staying open until 9 … I would guess the biggest problem that shop had was water quality on Sanibel … I don’t me an the water coming out of the t ap. I’m talking about the water on the beach. I’m talking about all that black water and all that mess that comes out of [ Lake] Okeechobee.”
The 45-seat Bennett’s near downtown Fort Myers is rolling along. On busy days the shop can sell between 96 and 140 dozen doughnuts. How many doughnuts is 140 dozen? That’s 1,680 doughnuts.
Any of those would certainly go well with a latte, especially with Bob Grissinger’s image etched into the frothy foam.
It was our determined effort to make this a destination.” —Bob Grissinger
Freelance writer Glenn Miller is president of the Southwest Florida Historical Society and a frequent contributor to TOTI Media.