Every October, the regulars on Bonita Beach Road start checking the calendar the same way people up north watch for the first frost. Stone crab season opens on a fixed date, the claws show up on ice at the same handful of counters, and for a few weeks the whole stretch of Bonita Beach Road smells like Old Bay and low tide. This year the date hasn't moved. What has changed is which dock you can actually tie up at when you get there.
Two of the boat-access spots locals have used for stone crab season for decades sit less than a mile apart on Bonita Beach Road. One came back from Hurricane Ian stronger than before. The other is still working its way through zoning hearings for a rebuild that's been in motion for close to three years. If you're planning your first crack of the season around a boat ride instead of a car, that difference matters more than the price per pound.
The Date That Actually Resets the Market
The 2026 to 2027 Florida stone crab season opens October 15, 2026, and runs through May 1, 2027, under the schedule set by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Harvesters can only take one claw per crab, and the crab goes back in the water to regrow it, which is the whole reason this fishery has lasted as long as it has.
What that means for your dinner table is simpler than the regulations make it sound. Fresh claws are legally unavailable for about five and a half months of the year, which is why the price resets every fall instead of drifting the way most seafood does. Last season, claws ran anywhere from about $35 a pound for mediums up to $70 or more for jumbo and colossal grades, depending on the day's catch and the size you order. That range is the baseline to expect walking into this season too. It's not a sale item. It's a market that opens and closes on a schedule, and the first few weeks after October 15 are usually when the catch is freshest and the lines are longest.
The Dock That Never Left
Coconut Jack's Waterfront Grille, tucked on the back bay side of Bonita Beach Road, is the easier half of this story. Hurricane Ian hit the property hard in 2022, and owner Melissa Wasno closed it for repairs before reopening in February 2023 with more than 90 percent of her previous staff back on the payroll. The restaurant has held the title of Bonita's Best Waterfront Restaurant every year from 2011 through 2026, and it still takes boats at its own dock the same way it always has, alongside car parking out front.
The detail that tells you the most about how this corner of Bonita Beach actually runs is across the street. Wasno also owns Sweet Melissa's Ice Cream Shoppe, and the coconut cream pie and Key lime pie on Coconut Jack's dessert menu are baked there, not shipped in. If you're pulling up to the dock this stone crab season, that's still the operation you're pulling up to.
The Dock That's Still Not Back
Big Hickory Waterfront Grille & Marina is a different story, and it's the one most regulars are actually asking about this fall. The original location on Hickory Boulevard had been a fixture for more than 50 years before Hurricane Ian destroyed it in September 2022. The reason it never simply reopened comes down to a FEMA rule most homeowners never think about until it applies to them: if storm damage costs more than 50 percent of a building's appraised value to repair, the structure has to be rebuilt to current flood and elevation codes rather than patched back to what it was. That left owner Traci Kautzman with roughly $200,000 in available repair funds against a rebuild that would have cost millions, so in January 2023 she sold the original property to the Bonita Springs Fire Control and Rescue Department for $6 million instead.
Kautzman didn't walk away from the idea of Big Hickory. She bought the last five acres of commercially zoned waterfront land left on Bonita Beach, a parcel that runs more than 750 feet along Bonita Beach Road on the north side, next to the 7-Eleven near the Imperial Shores Boulevard intersection and across the bridge from Fish House. The plan, informally called Hickory on the Bay or Big Hickory 2.0, is a roughly $20 million project that would include a 14,933-square-foot restaurant with a waterside deck, a separate 1,185-square-foot retail building, a linear dock built for about 50 boat slips, and smaller retail spaces for a coffee shop and sandwich concept, according to reporting in Gulfshore Business.
The Bonita Springs City Council voted 7-0 in favor of the project's zoning deviations, a milestone reported in the fall of 2025. The next steps were a development order and approval from the state water management district, a process that was expected to take up to nine months from that point. The most recent public update on the project, posted this past winter, still described it as needing further approvals and community support before construction can move forward. Hurricane Ian hit in late September 2022, weeks before that year's October 15 opener, which means the coming season will be the fifth stone crab season in a row without the marina and dockside seating that used to define the opening weeks of the year on that stretch of Bonita Beach Road.
What Changes for You This Season
If you're planning where to go once the season opens, here's the practical shape of it right now:
- Coconut Jack's Waterfront Grille, at 5370 Bonita Beach Road SW, is fully open with its own dock for boaters and car parking on site.
- Big Hickory's marina and dining room are still gone. There's no slip to tie up at until the Hickory on the Bay project clears its remaining approvals and construction is complete.
- Fish House Bonita, across the bridge from the future Big Hickory site, remains a car-access option in the same stretch of road.
- Expect claw prices to track last season's range of roughly $35 to $70-plus per pound depending on grade, with the freshest and most plentiful catch typically arriving in the first two to three months after the October 15 opener.
None of this changes the date on the calendar. It changes where you make your reservation, and whether you're arriving by boat or by car this year.
Quick Answers
When does the 2026 stone crab season end? May 1, 2027, statewide.
Is Big Hickory open again? Not as of the most recent public reporting on the project. The zoning deviations were approved in 2025, but the state water management approval and construction still had to follow, and the latest update available described the project as still pending.
Can I still dock and dine on this part of Bonita Beach Road? Yes, at Coconut Jack's Waterfront Grille, which has operated its own boat dock since reopening in 2023.
Stone crab season is one of those things that makes living here worth it, the kind of detail you end up explaining to out-of-town family every October. Knowing which dock is open before you plan the trip is the difference between a good night on the water and a long wait for a table you didn't need to wait for.
If you're weighing whether this is the year to put down roots closer to the water yourself, or you're already here and curious what your Bonita Springs property is worth in today's market, the team at The Dellatorè Real Estate Company is happy to walk you through it. Get a Free Home Valuation whenever you're ready to talk.
