The plywood is off the windows at 812 Highway 98. If you drive past the Gulf side of town on a Friday evening this June, you can see the band stage lit through the glass and hear the parking lot filling up for the first time in almost eight years. An iconic beachfront restaurant is returning to Mexico Beach; Toucan's on the Beach officially reopened by the end of June, on the same lot where the original building was destroyed in 2018 after Hurricane Michael tore through Mexico Beach.
For a lot of residents this is the summer the town's evening geography finally reset. Not because a new restaurant opened. Because the sand has a restaurant on it again.
The count nobody wants to keep saying out loud
Here is the arc most people who moved here after 2018 have never really heard laid out.
Before Hurricane Michael, Mexico Beach had eight sit-down restaurants. In the years that followed, the city was down to one, and Mayor Michele Miller described the town as "somewhat of a food desert." That one holdout was Mango Marley's off Highway 98.
Eight, then one. Then, quietly across 2025 and into this summer, the count started climbing again. Beach Bear Coastal opened as an upscale fast‑casual room with grilled fish and shrimp plates and a Gulf‑forward specials board, the kind of place the Community Development Council was posting about on its front page under a "NOW OPEN" banner. Yelp's own running list of restaurants in Mexico Beach, updated into 2026, now names Bad Mamma Jamma, Killer Seafood, Local Beach Pizza, Caribbean Coffee, Forgotten Coast Brewing Company, Point Break Pizza, Shipwreck Raw Bar, Mango Marley's, and more. Some are food trailers. Some are full rooms. All of them are within a few minutes of each other along 98.
And then Toucan's, the one that used to anchor the whole thing, put its lights back on.
What the new Toucan's actually is
If you only remember the pre‑Michael building, the new one will read familiar but bigger. The new restaurant building has the same charm as the old one but is built to withstand stronger storms, with 20,000 square feet, a band stage and an oyster bar. Toucan's first opened its doors in 1966, back when Mexico Beach was a quiet little secret, no traffic lights, no chain restaurants, just white sand.
The reopening has been slow on purpose. Toucan's partners have said that one of the biggest issues they've faced with reopening has been insurance, and the funding it takes to open a large restaurant on the beach. That is a sentence worth pausing on if you own property here. It is the whole coastal‑construction story compressed into a single restaurant timeline: permitting, insurance, financing, and a building code that treats the next storm as a certainty. The reason it took until 2026 to unlock a Gulf‑front dining room is the same reason your neighbor's rebuild is on year four.
Kim Shoaf at the Mexico Beach TDC framed the practical piece of what changes now. She said it will be exciting to have Toucan's as another indoor dining establishment, but especially as the only on‑the‑beach dining establishment, and one of the town's larger venues, able to host birthday celebrations, graduations, weddings, and retirement parties. Translation for anyone who has tried to book a rehearsal dinner in this zip code in the last five years: you no longer have to drive to Port St. Joe or Panama City Beach to get sixty people at tables with a Gulf view.
Owner Patrick Lee, who bought the restaurant in 2017 and has called the reopening a symbol of the city's recovery, the exclamation point on the recovery efforts, is not being subtle about the symbolism. He does not need to be. For residents who watched the slab sit empty across five hurricane seasons, the symbolism is already doing its own work.
A Saturday in July, redrawn
The reason the map matters more than the count is that a Saturday in Mexico Beach used to have a hole in the middle of it. Morning was fine. Lunch was fine. Sunset was the problem. Here is what the day now looks like when you string the new pieces together.
- 8:30 a.m., Parker Park. The Mexico Beach Farmer's Market runs in Parker Park between 22nd and 23rd Streets, next to Summerhouse and across from the Vue, on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. from spring through late fall. Coffee at Caribbean Coffee first, then produce, then home before it gets hot.
- Late morning, Municipal Playground. If it is a market Saturday you skip this, but the rest of the week the Sugar Sands Pickle Ball group plays at Municipal Playground next to City Hall, Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9 to 11 a.m. Central, weather permitting.
- Lunch, Highway 98. Killer Seafood or Bad Mamma Jamma out of the food trailers, Point Break Pizza if the line is long, Taqueria Las Brasitas if you want quesabirria. This part of the map has been the strongest for a while and nothing about Toucan's changes it.
- Late afternoon, Forgotten Coast Brewing Company. A pint, grouper tacos, air conditioning, and a chance to sit down before the evening.
- Sunset, Toucan's. This is the piece that did not exist last summer. Oysters at the bar, a table facing the Gulf, and a walk home along the sand instead of a drive back from somewhere else.
That is not a listicle. That is a Saturday. The difference is that until this June the fifth step did not have a Mexico Beach address on it.
The trailers are not going anywhere
One thing to keep in perspective for anyone new to town: the food‑trailer economy along 98 is not a placeholder for "real" restaurants. It is the restaurant scene, and it happens to be the version of the scene most residents actually eat at during the week. Bad Mamma Jamma is a beloved local food trailer with some of the most inventive coastal‑meets‑street‑food dishes in Mexico Beach, with picnic tables, sea breeze, and a casual vibe that reads like the trendy trucks along 30A but with lower prices and no long lines. Killer Seafood works the same way for fried baskets. Taqueria Las Brasitas serves authentic Mexican cuisine from a local food truck, known for its tacos and quesabirria.
What Toucan's adds is not competition for these places. It is a different slot on the clock. The trailers own the lunch shift. Toucan's owns the sunset shift. Forgotten Coast Brewing owns the middle. Mango Marley's, which carried the whole town on its back for years, keeps its live‑music‑and‑arcade lane. There is finally enough of a bench that no single closure ruins a weekend.
The weekends the whole town plans around
Two dates to have on the calendar before the summer runs out.
- July 4th on the sand. The town celebrates Independence Day with beachfront views and 4th of July fireworks. This year, for the first time, you can eat dinner on the sand at Toucan's and watch them without moving your car.
- MBARA Kingfish Tournament. Sponsored by the Mexico Beach Artificial Reef Association, held July 30 at the Mexico Beach Boat Ramp, with special divisions for professionals and amateurs plus a kids' division, and two days of food and door prizes even if you do not fish. The boat ramp fills early. Park at home and walk if you can.
The Sandy Shoes 5K, the Christmas Tree Lighting, and the shoulder‑season Plein Air Paint‑Out are all still on the calendar as usual, but the specific gravity of the summer has moved. Where it used to sit on the boat ramp and the market alone, it now has a third pin on the map at 812 Highway 98.
Why this matters past the summer
The dining map is a proxy for something larger. A town that can support a 20,000‑square‑foot beachfront restaurant, a brewery, a fast‑casual room, and a working trailer economy at the same time is a town whose year‑round population and shoulder‑season traffic have both quietly recovered. That is a different Mexico Beach than the one people were describing in 2020, and it is worth noticing if you are thinking about how the next few years look here.
If you own a home in Mexico Beach and you have been wondering what the market looks like now that the town is fully back on its feet, or you have been watching from a rental and starting to ask what a small lot near 22nd Street actually costs, that is a conversation worth having with someone who has been here through the whole arc.
Ready to talk about what Mexico Beach looks like from the inside this summer? Chasity Hill is a St. George Island native and Forgotten Coast broker who knows the streets between Toucan's and Parker Park by name. Talk with Chasity — Schedule a Tour.
