Photo by Katrina Jones
Introducing the 2024 Gulfportian of the Year: Gulfport Brewery + Eatery.
Every year, staff starts having discussions in the fall: Who’s made an impact in Gulfport this year? Who best typifies why Gulfport is the only place many of us want to call home?
And, every year, it’s hard, because Gulfport has so many facets that make it special (we aren’t weird; we’re wonderful).
This year, there were many standouts. There’s no doubt our community is filled with people who embody the spirit of Gulfport. Kelli Garcia. Mark Sieg. Barbara Banno. Slice of Gulfport. Kelly Wright. Joe Culbertson and the Culby Group. Sam Henderson. Justin Shea. Dave Mather. Toffer Ross (shout out to Miss Tree, the star of the Beach Bazaar web cam during Helene).
At one point, we debated giving the entire city Gulfportian of the Year.
In the end, though, the way one group of people handled Helene and Milton still makes a few of us get teary-eyed:
Photo by Cathy Salustri
Gulfport Brewery + Eatery:
The morning after Helene, Matt and Paige Acree walked downtown and saw business owners, their staffs, and the work and efforts to clean up their businesses, and it hit them hard.
“We kind of put ourselves in their shoes,” Paige said.
But it wasn’t only Paige and Matt. Gulfport Brewery + Eatery’s staff started showing up at the restaurant.
“The whole leadership team was here immediately,” Paige says.
Jeremiah Griffin, pit master at The Wine House & BBQ (also co-owned by the Acrees and run by Paige), the Brewery sous chef Trevor Fritz, and head chef Sierra Espinosa started cleaning up things at the Brewery, but they also started cooking food.
They thought “if we were going through that, what would be helpful,” Espinosa said. She and Matt went to Sam’s Club and bought hamburgers and hot dogs.
“You could tell everyone started the morning with nothing to eat,” Espinosa said. “Our thought was, we had a grill, we had propane.”
Gulfport, being Gulfport, didn’t stop there.
“We wanted this to be for the business owners,” Paige said, “then the community came together and allowed us to help residents.”
“One second we had hamburgers and hot dogs, the next we had chicken wings, filet mignon… people brought baked ziti that they made at their house,” Espinosa said. “People were coming from all over.”
Some of the Brewery’s Mug Club members who had evacuated to Orlando texted Brewery staff and asked them what people needed that they couldn’t get in Pinellas.
“They brought things like work gloves and shovels from Orlando,” Paige said.
One of the Gulfport Casino’s floating docks floated up Beach Boulevard and came to rest near the Brewery. Once the Army Corps of Engineers moved it to the side, it became a de facto extension of the Brewery.
Within hours of sunrise, the Brewery not only had the grill going; they had become a depot for donations. People drove from across the county to drop off clothes, cleaning supplies, nonperishable food, and other supplies.
The 80-year-old mother of one of the business partners of The Wine House climbed down nine flights of stairs at the Town Shores’ Diplomat building. She had a bag of clothes and meat from her freezer for people.
People brought their kids and told Paige, “I think this is important, for them to see the community come together.”
And then the Gulfport Brewery + Eatery Run Club mobilized.
Phill and Asia Collins run the club. At first, they heard about people needing help through word of mouth. Asia assigned run club members to addresses. She organized groups to help people clear out their homes and save what they could.
In many cases, they were “literally shoveling out their lives,” Paige said.
Then the learned about the people stranded in South Pasadena’s Lutheran Towers, an apartment building for people 62 and older. These residents hadn’t evacuated and many were trapped without power or food. Club members ran food and water up 12 flights of stairs to the stranded residents.
Asia described it as “taking food up” to people, but, Paige said, those runners also brought water, popsicles — and hope. They let them use their cell phones to call people.
As for the food?
“The food was already there for us to take,” Asia said — Kelli Garcia and Courtney Prokopas helped organize that, and Shawarma King, backed by World Central Kitchen, supplied food.
“My mom always instilled in me not to be a bystander; to help out,” Asia said. “That’s part of being a Christian, too: You before me.”
Next, the Run Club turned to cleaning the downtown area. They started plogging, or picking up trash while jogging.
“While everyone was getting the big things out of the way, their goal was to pick up small things and beautify the area as best they could,” Paige said.
A few days later, the Brewery started a Go Fund Me to help, specifically, hospitality workers at The Tiki, Hurricane Eddie’s, Gulfperk, The Wine House, Neptune Grill, and Gulfport Brewery + Eatery. To date, that GoFundMe has raised almost $10,000.
It’s not only the things this team did, but the conditions under which they did the things.
Harris Williams, the Brewery’s general manager, and Breanna DeJong, a bartender there, both lost their homes in Helene. Phill and Asia Collins lost everything, too. Matt and Paige, like so many, had no power. The Brewery itself lost a lot of food and product.
Humans often show their best side after a tragedy, and 2024 offered up too many opportunities for us to do exactly that. Thank you, Gulfport Brewery — all of you — for showing us — and the rest of the world — what it means to be a part of Gulfport.
“You don’t find Gulfport; Gulfport finds you, right?” Paige said. “And the right people have ended up here. I don’t think anyone who lives here could sit in their house, know what had happened, and not do everything they could do.”
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