COASTE | SUMMER 2015

in Paradise COASTE | ATTRACTIONS By John Sprecher

It’s fascinating howurban legends are borne—even those birthed not in urban areas. Facts or partial facts mix with fiction and fantasy, are then fueled by word of mouth — or today, by the nanosecond powers of social media — into tales that become truths often overnight because, after all, it has to be true, it’s on the internet. Such is the case with one urban or, better put, island legend that has resided in Southwest Florida for decades. It’s one part Cabbage Key Inn, one part singer and songwriter Jimmy Buffet, and one very large part ubiquitous tropical melody — “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” So it is that the COASTE investigative team of ownership and its three kids set powerboat out of Beach Bum Boat Rentals at ‘Tween Waters

Inn and charted our course for an altogether pleasant treasure hunt across the waters of Pine Island Sound northerly, to the “upper islands” of Lee County that include North Captiva, Cayo Costa, Useppa Island, Gasparilla Island and the proverbial x-marks-the-spot for our purposes, tiny Cabbage Key. Rob Wells and his brother Ken are the second generation owners of Cabbage Key Inn and Restaurant, a resort of sorts that’s actually in its entirety a 100-acre island that features a 150-seat restaurant (“the Old House”) open for breakfast, lunch and dinner 365 days a year; the historic “Cabbage Key Inn” with its six charming, contemporary rooms with private bathrooms and air conditioning (less televisions, phones or refrigerators); plus an added eight stand-alone

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