Hurricane Huskers: Fundraiser for Nebraska couple’s Florida restaurant

WATERLOO, Neb. (WOWT) - When Hurricane Ian ravaged Florida in September the heartbreak could be felt in Nebraska.

A Waterloo couple moved their shrimp restaurant to Fort Myers Beach just months before the storm hit and the business has been wiped out.

Hurricane Ian destroyed their RUDE shrimp restaurant but not their dream. So, Tj Holzapfel and Lisa Lahners plan to pick up the pieces by picking up and moving these retrofitted containers from Waterloo, Nebraska.

“So we’re setting up those containers where our restaurant was and the food truck is not going to be mobile, it’s going to serve as my kitchen to serve the container restaurant concept that we had here in Waterloo, down on the beach,” Holzapfel said.

The food truck is already there but hiring a flatbed trucker to move the containers 1,600 miles won’t be cheap so friends are getting on board.

“They didn’t ask us if they could put on this fundraiser, they kind of told us they were doing it,” Holzapfel said.

Shrimp tacos are on the menu and RUDE shrimp clothing will be on sale. Since the hurricane crushed the Florida restaurant Nebraskans have been among their best online customers.

“From all over the state we sent stuff out to small towns and you think it would just be people you know but it’s been all over,” Holzapfel said.

The restaurant’s logo may sound rude but the shrimp servers say it’s a popular catchphrase.

And the restaurant owners have taken a variation of their signature line to help raise about $20,000 so they can transport these containers down to Fort Myers and hopefully start serving seafood again within a few weeks.

Tj carries his emotions on his sleeve.

“Eat me, Ian. We took our tagline and added Ian to it and my wife and I don’t lose so we’ll be back,” Holzapfel said.

But defiance in the face of the hurricane aftermath will become gratitude Monday night when friends remind the couple that no matter where they are Nebraskans stick together in all kinds of weather.

“It’s going to take us a long time to handwrite these thank you’s,” Holzapfel said.

The fundraiser for the owners of RUDE Shrimp company is Monday at Farmer Brown’s in Waterloo, Nebraska from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

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