'Farewell from Rosy': Beloved North Fort Myers farm-to-table restaurant, property sold
Rosy Tomorrows Heritage Farm, a groundbreaking farm and restaurant in North Fort Myers, has been sold.
The announcement came in a newsletter from owner Rose O’Dell King on Thursday, Sept. 14, under the headline “Farewell from Rosy.”
“Gary and I have sold the farm,” it read, referring to her husband Gary King. “… This news is bittersweet for me, and I assure you it is a decision we did not take lightly. I have poured myself into these 100 acres since I first set foot on them all those years ago.”
The couple opened Rosy Tomorrows in 2013. Set back from a secluded stretch along Nalle Grade Road, the rustic restaurant with elegance and innovation was surrounded by a working farm and seemed a world of its own.
Its refined menu was farm-sourced. Cows were milked by hand in the mornings, animals raised on the farm were the ones the restaurant served, eggs were gathered from more than 100 free-roaming hens and fruit trees and gardens offered so much.
O’Dell King thanked all who supported them along the way.
“You embraced my vision, nurtured it, made it real,” she wrote. “You grew it from a local farm to an acclaimed farm-to-table restaurant unlike any other.”
Last year, it was announced (via newsletter and on their website) that the couple needed a break and were taking a sabbatical. They had run Rosy Tomorrows for nearly a decade and needed to step back. The post, titled “A Letter from Rosy,” stated they would “close the restaurant and reduce Rosy Tomorrows’ commercial operations for about a year to focus on the farm and this land, on how we can be better stewards to it as well as our community.”
O’Dell King addressed their time away in her latest newsletter.
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“We finally had a chance to breathe,” she wrote. “I remembered that there is an entire world beyond these 100 acres. One filled with family, friends, travel — and peaceful nights of sleep. A world that Gary and I realized we wanted to rejoin, needed to rejoin.”
New owners, new name, same hospitality
When they put the property up for sale, “the Pooles, who had dined at the restaurant, recognized the opportunity and quickly seized it. … By the time the sale sign went up, the property was already sold.”
The Pooles are Rodney and Stacey, who according to O’Dell King, are veteran restaurateurs who live in the area and “are exactly the stewards this unique property needs.”
“We look forward to carrying on the tradition of warm hospitality on the farm,” the new owners added to the newsletter. “We loved Rosy Tomorrows Heritage Farm, and we are committed to being good stewards.”
Not only will the farm’s animal ambassadors remain, but the Pooles will name their new venture after some of them.
“It will be named Blossom & Brie Farm after the beloved long-term farm ambassadors, Blossom, the donkey family matriarch, and Brie, the Jersey dairy cow,” they wrote.
There was no indication of when it will open, but the Pooles vowed to “work diligently over the next several months.”
Go to BlossomAndBrie.com and register to receive updates.
And as far as Rose and Gary are concerned?
“Please know Gary and I won’t be far away, either,” O’Dell King wrote. “This area is our home. It will always be our home.”
Robyn George is a food and dining writer for The Fort Myers News-Press. Send news to [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Rosy Tomorrows restaurant, working farm sold in North Fort Myers
