Ft Myers Beach - Good Neighbor
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Tune in to the Ft. Myers Beach – Good Neighbor Podcast, where the spirit of community meets the rhythm of island life. Each episode is a laid-back journey through heartfelt stories, local voices, and the connections that make our beach town so special. Whether you’re a resident or just dreaming of coastal breezes, let us be your guide to all things good in our neighborhood.
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Ft Myers Beach - Good Neighbor
FMBGN-BIZ-Tiki Pub FMB-Party Your Way: The Tiki Pub Experience
When Hurricane Ian devastated Fort Myers Beach, Darcy Kuenzel and her family faced a crossroads: rebuild what was lost or create something entirely new. Standing amid the wreckage of their recently purchased marina, they asked themselves a simple question: "What is going to make people happy?" The answer became the Tiki Pub – a floating celebration that embodies the resilient spirit of this beach community.
The Tiki Pub isn't just another party boat; it's a thoughtfully designed experience that adapts to whatever "vibe" guests bring aboard. From Justin Bieber-themed bachelorette parties to Sunday family fun days complete with "kid-ioki," these floating tiki huts create customized celebrations for groups of all types. As Darcy explains, "Whatever your form of fun is, we enhance your theme."
What makes this business truly remarkable is how it was built with lessons learned from disaster. Everything is movable, allowing them to quickly secure their assets before storms and reopen almost immediately afterward. This adaptive approach has proven invaluable during subsequent weather events, but their commitment extends beyond self-preservation. The Tiki Pub regularly offers free cruises to neighbors struggling with recovery, supports local animal rescue organizations, and celebrates what many would call "off-season" as "local season" – a special time when year-round residents can enjoy their paradise without the crowds.
With three vessels now in their fleet, including their original 25-passenger boat, a new 28-passenger "Islandside" craft, and a six-passenger tiki with a water slide, the family-run operation has become a symbol of Fort Myers Beach's comeback. Ready to experience the joy yourself? Visit tikipubfmb.com or call 239-800-8454 to book your own customized cruise and be part of the community's inspiring journey from devastation to celebration.
Tiki Pub - Ft Myers Beach
Darcy Kuenzel
18450 San Carlos Blvd Fort Myers Beach, FL 33931
(239) 800-8454
tikipubfmb@gmail.com
tikipub.com/fortmyersbeach
Ft Myers Beach-Good Neighbor
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Welcome to the Fort Myers Beach Good Neighbor Podcast, where the sun's always shining and the stories are even brighter. Each episode we bring you closer to the neighbors, local legends and beachside businesses that make Fort Myers Beach the slice of paradise we all love. Pull up a beach chair, grab a drink and let's meet the people who make this island feel like home. We want to send out some island love to Eric Tibbs from Edward Jones State Insurance, usa and Home Well Care Services Fort Myers. Love to Eric Tibbs from Edward Jones State Insurance, usa and Home Well Care Services Fort Myers. They are the businesses that allow us to share the soul of our community with every listener, from local stories to the positive vibe of island life. Here's to celebrating all that makes Fort Myers Beach the slice of paradise we all love. Here's your host, cabo, jim Schaller.
Speaker 2:Welcome, fort Myers Beach Good Neighbors to another episode of the Fort Myers Beach Good Neighbors, to another episode of the Fort Myers Beach Good Neighbor podcast. Today we have good neighbor Darcy Kuenzel from the Tiki Pub, fort Myers Beach. Welcome, and we're actually on the boat.
Speaker 3:Yes, we are. Thank you for having us, we are.
Speaker 2:It's not moving now. We're not going anywhere, not right now, not yet. So let's start off by why don't you share a little bit about what you do with the Tiki Pub?
Speaker 3:So Tiki Pub is a party boat and when I say party, I mean it's party your way. So, depending on your vibe, your vibe may be super crazy and we can handle that, and your vibe may be kids birthday party. So, whatever your vibe is, we live up to what you're looking to do. We enhance your theme.
Speaker 2:It's all about having fun, right?
Speaker 3:It's all about having fun, Whatever your form of fun is. For example, this weekend we have a Justin Bieber-themed bachelorette party.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 3:Super excited about it. Yes, these girls are crazy good. So it's all about whatever you want to do, we just take your vibe, no Swifties. We've had Swifty tours. Yep, we have. Whatever works, whatever floats your boat.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's it. I don't have a rocker guys. There you go. You can do that too. Tequila, it's about the tequila.
Speaker 3:We've done those too, I love that.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 3:So did you get involved in all this? Um, so after ian came and desecrated our world and everybody's world around us, um, we had a bunch of space and nothing here because it was all gone and we basically had a blank slate. And so we thought what is going to make people happy? What is a happy thing to do, because there's not a lot of happy going on here. Yeah. So we thought tiki Tiki sounds good, right. So we bought a tiki boat and now we sell happy there we go and what did you do before?
Speaker 3:I've been a dance professional. My life Really Dance and fitness and all that fun stuff. Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was a natural segue.
Speaker 3:My husband's a great business man and I jump around on a boat.
Speaker 2:There you go, there's the combo.
Speaker 3:There you go. You've got to love that.
Speaker 2:So running a business by the beach sounds like a dream job, right who?
Speaker 1:doesn't want to work by the beach right.
Speaker 2:For sure, yeah, but we have storms that we deal with and we've had a lot of storms lately, some good, some bad, mostly bad. But is there something that we've learned from all that?
Speaker 3:Yes, be smart with your stuff. So what we've done is, when we bought the Marina, which was only a few months before Ian hit, we were like how bad could it be, right? Yeah, well, we know how bad it was, yeah. So we learned a huge lesson and what we decided to do was make everything movable. So over the course of the following years, we had several back-to-back storms and we literally put all of our stuff in or on a truck, took it away and we were able to literally put it together the next day and the following day we're like this is the way to go.
Speaker 2:Right you know.
Speaker 3:So our boats went upstream and all of our stuff around us that you see is portable.
Speaker 2:I love it. I was talking to somebody the other day. It's like unfortunately it's not something I wanted to be good at, but you learn through the process that certain things need to be done in advance to protect yourself in the future For sure.
Speaker 3:We were amongst the lucky ones. I mean, we lost our home, we lost our business. We have the resources to be able to rebuild. There are lots of people our friends, our neighbors that have not been able to do that, and so we try to help those people by saying you know what, you just need a break.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:Get your little butt out here on the Tiki Pub. We're not going to charge you anything, just go clear your head and have a great ride. And you know, when you get perspective you're like, oh, you see things so much more clearly that's it.
Speaker 3:That's what I go to the beach, but tiki pub's a good thing too it clears your mind, lets you think and escape reality for a while you can't help but have a good time, and we love our locals. Our locals have supported us through everything and we don't slow down, we don't close down, we don't do anything during what we call. It's not off season on Tiki Pub, it's local season. Right, it's when the locals get to come out and they get to enjoy Tiki Pub because they're not crazy busy like they are during peak season, yep, so we celebrate that.
Speaker 2:We live here to celebrate that stuff and that's exactly what we do. So you touched on it a little bit about community and how important that is and how you know really, through all this, it's really about the community together. Are there certain things that you're doing to help give back to the community?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we do a lot of different stuff. We put our names on some stuff and we don't put our names on some stuff. So I'm kind of a big believer in not taking credit for doing stuff that you do, just do it for the good of doing it. So, yeah, we've done a lot of stuff kind of under the table, sending our crew out to different places to just help homeowners, business owners, just get them up and running. We do a lot of stuff with rescues, animal rescues we're constantly having some kind of benefit going on here or promotion for these amazing places like Guardians of Florida or Team Moose and there are others that are fantastic as well, but those two just kind of stand out in my head and they invest all of their time into helping these animals, tons of which were stranded after.
Speaker 3:Sure right, yes, and these other storms, and they just don't stop ever. They just keep on going, like our local people that are just still working hard because we look a lot better, it looks a lot better, but everybody's still fighting. You know, we're all still trying to get it up and running and back to where we were.
Speaker 2:There's still a long way to go, but it's getting better every day, every day it's. It's just what's great. Driving around and checking out what's going on every day, you see something new popping up for sure.
Speaker 3:It's amazing and it's exciting there's an energy coming back, which is great. Yep, I love it I love it.
Speaker 2:So are you from southwest?
Speaker 3:florida? No, no, I'm from Kennebunkport, maine. What Right, yep, that's?
Speaker 2:a long way up there.
Speaker 3:It is. It's great in the summer, so we go and we vacation up there. But this is our life now. We've been here for 20 years and just love it. There is no other place.
Speaker 2:No, that's what I mean. That's why we live here, because we can do stuff like this and be outside year round.
Speaker 3:Right and everybody's happy People show up for TV. I don't like that.
Speaker 2:So owning a business can be very demanding of your time, right. So when you do get a free moment other than being on a tiki boat, what do you enjoy doing?
Speaker 3:Well, I have five kids Okay, so I enjoy doing well, I have five kids okay, so I enjoy doing anything that they enjoy so we spend some good family time. We, every now and then we sneak out on one of our boats and we're just like but yeah, my kids are athletes, so I, I love going to their games, but I, I honestly, I just like being here, yeah, so today I'm not working, as you can see yeah, and I'll be here all day because I love it. I love the people that show up.
Speaker 2:Being around the atmosphere and your kids helping you out too. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yes, one of my daughters is a manager and another one works at the front desk and does some stuff around here and positive, happy people.
Speaker 2:Positive, happy family right. Happy family, that's the best part.
Speaker 3:The crew that we have. They all go out and hang out whenever they're not working and everybody gets along. It is really a family here. I love it.
Speaker 2:Whether you're family or not, you're still family, everybody's family. That's what I love. I love it. So is there one thing you wish our listeners knew about the Tiki Pub that maybe they're not too familiar with?
Speaker 3:Just how much fun it is, you know. And we are family friendly. I know a lot of the videos that I put up are, you know, like crazy. Um, but those are the evenings. You know the evenings. We do say you know 18 and up, and it's not because anything crazy happens on the boat, but it's because if you're an older person, if you're my age or you're even if you're in your, you know your late 20s, you don't want to go out and cut loose when you've got like a five-year-old because you want to respect that. But we do do a lot of Sunday family fun days and lots of kid-friendly tours and we have kid-ioki. So we're known for karaoke, we do our karaoke.
Speaker 3:We call them tiki-oki. We have kiddos out here and they are hula-hooping at the front of the boat. We take them out to the sandbar. They're swimming like little fish, having a ball singing at the top of their lungs. And our entertainers on board. We have an entertainer on every one of our cruises. They're super kid friendly. So they recognize the need for parents to, you know, sit down and enjoy some fun in the sun, and there's nothing that a parent likes better than sitting and watching their kids joyfully play. And our entertainers make sure that they can do that. You know they'll take the kids and they're like hey, mom and dad watch this kind of thing, while mom and dad are just kind of kicking it.
Speaker 2:I love it. So you've got different types of tours that you do, right, yeah? And do you have to be part of a group to come on board, or you can just no, we sell tickets and we do private cruises as well.
Speaker 3:So one person can hop on a cruise, so, but we also do private parties as well, um. So whatever your vibe is, we, we accommodate it. So this, the boat that we're sitting on, um, has 25 passengers, okay. And then, um, we just started announcing that we are taking over tipsy tiki, which which is located we're calling it Islandside. It's right in front of Nervous Nellie's Snug Harbor. So that passenger boat will have 28 passengers. It will be a BYOB vessel, just like all of our vessels are BYOB, so we will have the capacity with that 28 and this 25. And we have a six-passenger Tiki that has a water slide on it, so that's a lot of fun. So we've been doing really big parties, weddings.
Speaker 2:I love it. So you're saying I have to bring a bigger bottle of tequila to share with everybody.
Speaker 3:You might have to, and we've got shots. He's right over there, so we just line it right up.
Speaker 2:There we go Tiki and tequila right over there, just line it right up, there we go Tiki and tequila.
Speaker 1:They kind of go together. I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it. So how would our listeners go about contacting you if they were interested in booking the tour or just learning more?
Speaker 3:Sure, so you can go online at tikipubfmbcom. You can see all of our cruises booked from there, or you can give me a call if you want to customize it, if you want to go on a Justin Bieber tour, or if you're a 50, or football cruises. We do a ton of football cruises If you're a football person who's your team? Do you have a team?
Speaker 2:I was born in Wisconsin, so I kind of like them, but. I became a Cowboy fan because the Packers weren't very good and they also had cheerleaders. Don't judge me, Don't judge me.
Speaker 3:No judgment here. No judgment zone. I'm a Broncos fan, so we're up and coming Right. We're coming back after Peyton.
Speaker 2:There, you go.
Speaker 3:It's a bad story, so, but yeah, so we do those two. Whatever your vibe is, you can call me at 239-800-8454 and I can customize anything. Very good, I think you're at the best cruise for you.
Speaker 2:I love it. Any last words for our listeners today Go.
Speaker 3:Fort Myers Beach. Yes, it's coming back. It's coming back strong. Let's go. We're going to be here for it you need to be here for it too.
Speaker 2:So well, darcy, it's been a pleasure getting to know you.
Speaker 3:Thank you for being such a you take care have a great day.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in to the fort myers beach good neighbor podcast, where community meets paradise. If you loved what you heard, share it with a friend and keep the good vibes going until next time. Stay sunny, stay salty and keep being a good neighbor. Also, to nominate your favorite neighbors, local legends, heroes or island businesses to be on the show, go to cabooWaboJim. com. That's CaboWaboJim. com, or call 239-427-4100. We want to send out some island love to Eric Tibbs from Edward Jones State Insurance USA and Home Well Care Services Fort Myers. They are the businesses that allow us to share the soul of our community with every listener, from local stories to the positive vibe of island life. Here's to celebrating all that makes Fort Myers Beach the slice of paradise we all love.