Southwest Florida is filled with Chicagoans. In Naples, Chicago philanthropists such as the late Raymond Lutgert transformed those communities, supporting their museums and galleries. The founding CEO of the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts was a former Chicago advertising executive. Plenty of real estate developers from this city turned their attention to sunnier climes, later in life.
If you’re hunkering for a Chicago-style sandwich or pie, you’ve got Beefstros Gourmet Beef or Chicago Calzone in Fort Myers. And if you long for a sheltered retirement, there’s the gentle Shell Point, located right where the causeway to Sanibel Island hits the mainland, not far from Fort Myers Beach. There, a man named Mitch Pacyna, originally from Franklin Park, was so gregarious and popular that he was known as the unofficial mayor of Fort Myers Beach.
Unpretentious Fort Myers Beach is a place where lots of Chicago families have made memories, splashing around its old pier, buying ice cream at Royal Scoop, eating Maxwell Street fare at the Chicago Dawg House, making sand angels on New Year’s Eve so as to make the folks envious back home.
