Anglin's Pier Has Been Closed for Almost Four Years. Commercial Boulevard Didn't Wait.

Anglin's Fishing Pier has sat behind a fence since Hurricane Nicole knocked out a section of it in November 2022. Nearly four years later, the structure is still closed to the public. The fines against its owner have climbed past $375,000, and the town's own posted timeline puts a realistic reopening somewhere around 2028, assuming no storm gets in the way between now and then.

None of that has stopped Commercial Boulevard from filling back in around it. Job listings went up in August 2026 for a new Skinny Louie smash burger location signed for 107A E. Commercial Boulevard, a few doors from where the pier used to draw a line of visitors every weekend. A block over, a family-run spot called Why Just Tuesday Taqueria opened next to Frenchy's. The corridor's older anchors, the restaurants that were already pulling in regulars before the pier ever needed repairs, are still doing exactly what they were doing before Hurricane Nicole hit.

The pier and the block it sits on have stopped moving together. That split is worth understanding if you eat, walk, or spend a Saturday on this stretch of A1A.

The Landmark That Isn't Reopening Soon

Anglin's Pier was built in 1942 and remains privately owned, currently by Spiro Marchelos. Hurricane Irma caused the first serious damage in 2017. Repairs dragged through permit disputes and a paused COVID-era construction schedule, and then Hurricane Nicole collapsed a section of the structure in November 2022. Additional storm damage that December pushed the town's building official to close the pier entirely and cut its power.

The delays since then have followed a familiar shape: a deadline gets set, then missed, then reset.

Pier representatives have told the town commission that construction, once it starts, will take about two years. If bidding proceeds on the schedule the town has posted and construction begins in the back half of 2026, the earliest anyone walks back out onto Anglin's Pier lands around 2028. That is six years after the storm that broke it, and it assumes the next six hurricane seasons leave the site alone.

Thirteen Businesses Closed. A Miami Burger Chain Signed a Lease Anyway.

At an April 2026 commission meeting, Howard Goldberg, chair of the Lauderdale-By-The-Sea Chamber of Commerce, told commissioners that 13 businesses in town had closed over the previous year. He was careful to say not all of that was the pier's doing, but he called the closed structure a factor, describing what used to be a draw for residents and tourists as now "the eyesore of this whole community." Mayor Edmund Malkoon pushed back at the same meeting, arguing the town has no financial stake in a pier it doesn't own. Commissioner Richard DeNapoli wasn't sure it belonged on the agenda at all.

Whatever side of that argument holds up, the storefronts on the ground aren't behaving like a corridor in decline. Skinny Louie, the Miami-born smash burger chain that has grown from one Wynwood location in 2023 to roughly 10 across South Florida and New York, signed a lease for 107A E. Commercial Boulevard through Cohen Commercial Realty. Job listings posted in August 2026 set hourly wages starting at $14 for kitchen and crew roles, recruitment ahead of an opening date that hadn't been announced as of early September. The address itself has already turned over once recently: town filings show a conditional use permit for a new sign at that spot was filed in October 2025 under a different business name, Burger Vibez, before Skinny Louie took the lease.

A few doors down, Why Just Tuesday Taqueria opened as a family-owned spot next to Frenchy's, drawing early praise from regular diners for its food and service. Two new tenants signing in the same stretch within roughly a year of each other isn't what an empty corridor looks like. It's what a corridor in the middle of turnover looks like, which is a different thing.

The Restaurants That Never Needed the Pier to Work

Some of Commercial Boulevard's steadiest names were never dependent on foot traffic walking to the end of a boardwalk. Aruba Beach Cafe sits directly on the sand overlooking the pier itself and remains one of the area's go-to picks for a waterfront lunch, even with construction fencing now part of the view. Anglin's Beach Café, according to the town's own posted FAQ on the pier closure, has stayed open the entire time, serving customers a few yards from a structure that's been fenced off since 2022.

Sea Watch on the Ocean has been serving oceanfront seafood and steaks in the area for more than 50 years, long enough to have outlasted several rounds of hurricane damage to the pier itself. Uptown Keese's Greek Cuisine and Ciao Ammore trattoria round out the corridor's inland-adjacent regulars, the kind of places locals book for a Tuesday dinner rather than a special occasion.

None of these built their business model around pier foot traffic. They built it around being good and being on the water, which is why a four-year closure of the town's most photographed landmark hasn't drained the surrounding restaurant count the way losing an anchor tenant drains a shopping plaza.

Getting There Without Paying for the Privilege

The pier's own parking lot, the one closest to the fenced-off structure, still charges by the day. The easier move for a resident who wants to bounce between the taqueria, Skinny Louie's future storefront, and the beachfront cafes without re-parking twice is the town's free rideshare service, Circuit-By-The-Sea, which drops riders anywhere along the corridor on request.

The pier will still be there behind its fence for a while longer. The block around it has already moved on to its next tenant.

If you're curious what a shifting commercial corridor like this means for property values or timing along Lauderdale-by-the-Sea's beachfront blocks, Amie Estates is always glad to talk through it over a free consultation.