Perfect Cup comes back
While Perfect Cup owners Rich and Rachael Chalupski were excited to get back open after Hurricanes Helene and Milton, they admit they were delighted to see the comeback of Matlacha with the reopening of Blue Dog, their “cross the street neighbor,” which was especially hurt two-plus years ago.
“We were super happy to see them open even sooner than us because they got hit a lot harder by Ian than we did, (Rich) Chalupski said. “I love our community, my customers, my team – we are all so happy to be back open again.”
“We are fortunate that we weren’t as devastated as so many of our neighbors, and we hope they can quickly get reopened, get back in their homes and get their lives back to normal,” (Rachael) Chalupski said.
Water taken on by Helene closed the Perfect Cup for three days and left the crew cleaning and drying everything off, Rich said. He described Helene as a bump in the road, explaining that two weeks later, Hurricane Milton brought an influx of water into the building.
“We had to open up some walls and get them dried out. We had to replace some materials with PVC this time. We had to remove baseboards and make sure everything was dry. We had to clean it all and treat it, so everywhere that we had to do that, we replaced it with PVC material, which is really meant for exterior–it can’t rot or be damaged by water,” he said.
This is an effort to streamline a process he feels may be repetitive, he said, although he certainly hopes it is not. In the meantime, he said, this was used as an opportunity to do an extreme deep clean.
In addition, wife and owner Rachael, general manager Emily Pancoast and half the staff got out paintbrushes and gave the place a whole new feel, he said.
“The only reason we got open as fast as we did is because of the great people that work with us. Most days they were there before we were,” Chalupski said, adding that even customers were stopping by to see how they might lend a helping hand.
“They did help. One very good customer donated money to every employee. We all know servers live on tips and there’s no unemployment or anything you can really do about that, so we paid them what we called ‘hazardous duty pay.’ Basically, we paid everyone a really good wage so that they could pay their rent. It’s not their fault Milton went through,” Chalupski said.
Looking back, he said, showing up with the employees to ready the place to reopen got to be fun. Rachael, in particular, he said, was devastated upon first sight of the restaurant after Hurricane Milton. Upon seeing his wife’s reaction, he planned a secret cleaning event with Pancoast to make certain Rachael saw that they could save “her baby” once again.
After three hurricanes in less than three years, Chalupski is more determined than ever to go another several rounds for their restaurant in Matlacha.
“We should all remember why we live here. We can’t let these beat us. Southwest Florida is paradise — Pine Island and Matlacha in particular. I’ve been a lot of places. I haven’t been worldwide, but I’ve been all over this country and there’s nowhere else I’m gonna live and I don’t care if we get Ian every couple of years — although I hope it’s more like every 20,” Chalupski said.
He also wanted to give a shout out to both LCEC and Wastepro for going above and beyond in their endeavor to help after the storms.
Perfect Cup is at 4548 Pine Island Road in Matlacha. Call 239-283-4447 for more information.