Seafood restaurant on Jupiter Inlet closes
Rustic Inn opened in 2015, employed about 50 people.
JUPITER — The Rustic Inn Seafood Crabhouse restaurant on the Jupiter Inlet , which opened t wo years ago, closed Saturday night.
“The employees were devastated. But they saw it coming,” said the manager who asked not to be named.
Rustic Inn opened in January 2015 in the former location of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. just south of U.S. 1, next door to Jetty’s restaurant.
The original Rustic Inn Seafood Crabhouse, famous for its garlic crabs, has been located on a canal on Griffin Road west of Interstate 95 in Fort Lauderdale for decades.
R u s t i c I n n i n J u p i t e r e mployed a bout 5 0 f ul l - and part-time employees, the manager said.
Jupiter developer Charles M o d i c a l a s t N o v e m b e r bought The Rustic Inn Crabhouse property for $8.3 million, more than doubling Modica’s land holdings on this section of State Road A1A along the Jupiter Inlet.
The 3.7-acre Rustic Inn site, at 1065 State Road A1A, is just west of Modica’s 2-acre parcel on Love Street. There, Modica wants to build an outdoor marketplace featuring restaurants, offices and shops.
T h e $ 3 0 mi l l i o n L o v e Street project has been three years in the making.
Modica has said he plans on keeping the Rustic Inn building as a restaurant.
The Love Street project has been scaled back in size because of residents’ compl ai nt s about t raf f i c and parking.
But some residents still oppose development of the land.
Business has been strong at Rustic Inn, which has outdoor seating with a wide view of the Jupiter Lighthouse, docks and boats drifting to and from the Inlet.
“People around here like local restaurants, like Guanabanas. They don’t like chain restaurants,” said the manager. store seemed just the sort of tenant that might turn the tide at the plaza the Schumachers had owned for several years. Amanda Schumacher said she had no clue the store was on the verge of being homeless.
“I used to buy a lot of B i b l e s a n d b o o k s f r o m them,” Schumacher said. “They’ve been a wonderful business for many, many years.”
I n s p i r a t i o n H o u s e reopened at the renamed Tree of Life center, and the shop’s inventory includes books, CDs and posters. The move hasn’t exactly been seamless. Smith said there was a slaying at the shopping center soon after Inspiration House moved in. And perplexed patrons of the Inspiration House sometimes bumble into Hustler Hollywood in search of Bibles.
“My poor customer ends up in there every day,” Smith said.
Hustler Hollywood isn’t form of charcoal, and said it could be specifically useful on dairy farms.
Wa n , w h o w a s a s e c - ond-place finisher in Wednesday’s prestigious Pathfinder Scholarship awards in the science competition, didn’t get into science until high school.
Before diving head first into the world of environmental science, he was more of a math whiz.
He earned the nickname of “Mr. Math” from his fellow students, and his calculus teacher, Olive Bryan, called him one of, if not the brightest math mind to come through her classroom in recent years.
Right away, Bryan knew Wan was going to be her best math student. He asked the right questions, his homework was “meticulous” and the only less-than-devout business in the neighborhood. S pe a r mint Rhi no Gentleman’s Club is down the street, too. But as they market their shopping center, the Schumachers are aiming for a family-friendly tenant mix.
They re c e nt ly ev i c te d a va pe shop a nd s i g ned leases with Firehouse Subs, Authentic Soccer, a Colombian bakery and a seller of hurricane shutters. Mark Foley, the former congressman who’s managing the center for the Schumachers, said he has turned away businesses he considers unsavory, including one prospective tenant scouting spots for a marijuana dispensary.
“We could have filled the plaza 10 times over,” Foley said.
Foley said space at the 63,000- square-foot center rents for $15 a square foot. The average rent for retail space in Palm Beach County is $19.68 a square foot, according to commercial real estate brokerage Colliers International.
The propert y long has he participated in class.
Wan progressed through college calculus 3, while still in high school, sometimes staying up most of the night to study for tests.
So why science instead of math?
“I wish I could do math,” Wan said, almost scoffing at the idea.
Math was his first love, something he competed in during middle school, but science is in his blood, he said.
His mother, Jian Chang Cai, and his father, Yong Shan Wan, both work in science. His brother is into science too, and also entered the Regeneron Science Talent Search.
The environmental science project that took him all the way to national and international competitions was his first real foray into the field.
He got interested because he knew that algae blooms caused problems in Lake offered a prime location diminished by a design that leaves most tenants invisible to potential shoppers driving past on Okeechobee Boulevard. The plaza is built perpendicular to Okeechobee rather than parallel. Authentic Soccer, for instance, is on the far north side of the center, making it nearly impossible for an impulse shopper to happen by.
“It’s a little awkward being so long and skinny,” said Bill Reichel, a shopping center broker who once managed the property for a previous owner. “It’s always struggled, but it’s a good location. There are 70,000 cars a day on Okeechobee.”
Bookseller Smith said she must give detailed directions to help customers find her store, but she says business is brisk.
“We’ve been very busy in here,” Smith said. “Christian bookstores are going out everywhere. It’s a dying industry, and we’re surviving. I can see this shopping center turning around.” Okeechobee and the Everglades, so when the Everglades Foundation released a $10 million grant challenge in 2015, it sounded like a great fit. The then-sophomore teamed up with a professor at the University of Florida and they got working.
Wan plans to continue his research at MIT where his goals include publishing some science papers before ultimately pursuing his PhD.
For now, his plans are to work in academia, but starting a business is in the back of his mind. He plans to take business classes in college and launch a green-tech company if he has a good enough idea for it.
Hi s plans have Bryan’s blessing.
“I think science is the right choice,” she said. “I can see that he’s extremely passionate about it.”