Drive down Highway 98 past the old Toucan's lot on a September evening and you'll see what residents have been watching for the better part of two years. The plywood is long off the windows. A band stage is visible through the glass. On a good Friday the parking lot fills for a few hours before going dark again, because the doors still aren't open to the public. As of the last confirmed public update on the project, in early August, the restaurant was still listed as hiring for every position and the site said Opening Soon, the same words it had said in June. If you're reading this and the sign finally flipped to open, good. If it hasn't, you haven't missed the town's comeback story. That story already happened somewhere else this year.
Eight restaurants, then one
Before Hurricane Michael came ashore on October 10, 2018, with winds near 160 miles per hour and a storm surge of more than 14 feet, Toucan's was one of roughly eight sit-down restaurants operating along Mexico Beach's stretch of Highway 98. City Administrator Chris Truitt has said Toucan's pulled customers from well outside Bay County, the kind of place people planned a trip around. The storm took the building completely.
In the years that followed, the town went from eight sit-down restaurants to one. Mayor Michele Miller once described Mexico Beach as somewhat of a food desert. That's the number worth holding onto, not because it's dramatic, but because it's the baseline everything since should be measured against. The question this fall isn't whether Mexico Beach has restaurants again. It's how many of the evening hours got covered before the most anticipated one reopened.
The evening slot filled in without waiting
Two additions did that work this year, and neither waited on Toucan's.
Beach Bear Coastal opened on Highway 98 in early spring, an upscale fast casual spot known locally for a 30-inch pizza built for sharing, along with cocktails and takeout. As of this summer its posted hours ran noon to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 2 to 8 p.m. on Sunday, closed Monday, Central time. It gave the town something it had been missing since the storm: a place where a group could sit down, order a full meal, and stay a while, instead of eating out of a trailer window or driving out of town.
Forgotten Coast Brewing Co. covers the same ground at the west end of town, at 4101 US-98. It's walk-in only, no reservations, open daily 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Central. The menu runs wider than beer and snacks: grouper and shrimp tacos, burgers, seafood baskets, pizza, wings, smoked tuna dip. It became the stop between the lunch trailers and whatever comes next, a chance to sit inside with air conditioning before the evening gets going.
Between the two of them, Mexico Beach picked up a real sit-down option at both ends of the dinner hour months before Toucan's finished construction. Most of the coverage about the town's recovery still centers on the restaurant that hasn't reopened yet, which is understandable given its history, but it isn't where the actual change happened.
Lunch never needed fixing
The part of the day that never broke is lunch. Highway 98 has kept its food trailer economy running the whole time: Killer Seafood, Bad Mamma Jamma, Point Break Pizza if you're willing to wait out the line, Taqueria Las Brasitas for quesabirria. None of that is a placeholder for something more permanent. It's the strongest meal of the day in Mexico Beach and has been for years, independent of whatever else is under construction down the street.
Mango Marley's carried more of that weight than most. Its owner, Kathy Johnson, was already talking to a local television crew within weeks of the 2018 storm about running a food truck outside her damaged building, telling them it was the only way to get back up and running. The restaurant did reopen, and it's kept its own lane since then: live music, an arcade, the kind of spot that owns a Friday night regardless of who else is serving dinner that week.
Public projects moved ahead
That work had a steadier fall than the restaurant industry did. The city's new amphitheater at Parker Park was targeted for completion by mid-August, giving the free Thursday Music in the Park series, 5 to 7 p.m., an actual stage for the first time. The farmers market keeps its usual rhythm at the same park, second and fourth Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., through October before the season winds down for the year. Sunset Park's storm-damaged pavilion was repaired and reopened by early summer, restoring beach access, parking, picnic space, restrooms, and outdoor showers in one stretch of shoreline. Work on the dune walkovers at Sunset Park and 7th Street was still underway as of midsummer, so anyone walking that section should stick to the marked access points rather than cutting through the dunes.
None of that comes with the kind of countdown Toucan's has had. It just moves ahead, one piece at a time, without a press release attached.
For a morning that doesn't involve sand, Municipal Park still covers pickleball, basketball, a playground, and restrooms, and Canal Park remains the simplest beach access on days when Sunset Park's lot is busy with equipment storage.
The headline everyone's still waiting on
When Toucan's does open, the town has real reasons to make it a big deal. Kim Shoaf, with the Mexico Beach Tourist Development Council, has pointed out that once it's running, Toucan's will be the only restaurant directly on the beach and one of the few venues in town large enough for a wedding reception or a milestone birthday. Owner-operator Rob Hammer told WJHG in early August that the new building is meant to withstand multiple hurricanes and comes with, in his words, all the new bells and whistles of 2026. Patrick Lee, who worked on the project earlier on, told the same station back in 2025 that he expected it would help pull people from all over the region back to Mexico Beach.
Those are legitimate reasons to keep an eye on that parking lot. They just aren't the reason the town already eats well again this fall. That happened at Beach Bear Coastal and Forgotten Coast Brewing Co., at the lunch trailers that never stopped, and at Mango Marley's, which never needed anyone else's grand reopening to keep its lights on.
If you're weighing what a quietly rebuilt dinner scene means for a place you already call home, or for a property you're thinking about listing here, Salty Listings knows this stretch of Highway 98 well enough to talk it through over an actual phone call.
