Oli Petit of Red Bar and the new Destin Diner. Photo by Jacqueline Ward Images.
This time, he’s set up shop in the stainless steel diner in Destin that for years sat empty and exposed to the elements. On Monday, after about six months of work, The Destin Diner officially opened for business, welcoming customers with textured-marble floors, red-cushioned booths, detailed tile- and wood-work and plenty of pop culture tacked to the walls.
The building had been closed for over seven years and completely left alone since then. When Petit set to work on it, the sky could be seen through most of the roof.
“It was wrecked, and when I tell you that, I’m not exaggerating,” Petit said of the abandoned diner. “This place was a complete disaster.”
They refurbished the building from top to bottom, keeping its unique, shiny shell, but completely gutting the inside.
The finished product is a diner that seats about 100 people and will serve breakfast all day and then lunch and dinner menus featuring a lot of the popular dishes from the Red Bar along with some diner favorites like freshly blended milkshakes. The Destin Diner also has a beautiful wooden bar where customers can enjoy hand-crafted cocktails, wine and beer.
Last week, taking a moment while putting the finishing touches on the place, Petit said the building’s unique character was what drew him to want to open a restaurant there.
“It has that character, this stainless steel look, the curves and the architecture of it,” he said. “It’s clearly modeled after a traditional stainless steel diner that you see more so in the Northeast. That to me was the attractive part.”
Photo by Jacqueline Ward Images
It was a similar draw to character that influenced Petit to open the Red Bar 20 years ago, in a similarly abandoned building — the old Grayton General Store — which was built in the 1930s.
“I knew there were a lot of issues with it. It was abandoned and neglected and had no air conditioning,” he said. “But I knew that place was special. I knew the place had a tremendous amount of soul.”
He modeled Red Bar after a place his father owned in Belgium, with couches, coffee tables, sconces and plenty of tribute to pop culture. But, unlike the complete redesign of the new Destin Diner, Petit, just starting out on his own, didn’t have the money back then to gut the place and remodel.
So it was on January 28, 1995, that Petit opened, manning the kitchen himself until 2 a.m. and serving up fresh plates of food mostly to service-industry folks getting off work. When it was hot, they threw open the windows to try to catch a breeze, and there was always live music to keep the party going.
It wasn’t long before the locals spread the word about what the “crazy European” was doing over there, and the Red Bar started its climb to become one of the most-popular restaurants along the Gulf Coast.
On Tuesday, one day after The Destin Diner opened, customers sat at the booths and the bar soaking in that trademark atmosphere Petit has become famous for. “We’re really excited for this opportunity,” Petit said. “It’s a great chance to bring our product and our brand of dining to Destin.”
