A 7-Eleven may come to the Biloxi beach. Why can’t property be a restaurant again?
Editor’s note: 7-Eleven told the Sun Herald on Monday, April 11, that the company has no current plans to build a store in Biloxi.
Sun Herald readers had a lot to say about the news of a 7-Eleven convenience store potentially opening it’s first location on the Coast.
The DeBuys Road lot along U.S. 90 may get a new life soon as the Biloxi City Council will vote on whether to allow a $4 million to $5 million project to build on the site, which a developer said could very likely be 7-Eleven.
While many were excited for their signature Slurpee drink, other residents were frustrated that a gas station will take up a prime piece of beachfront real estate where a popular restaurant once thrived.
Before Hurricane Katrina, the DeBuys Road site was home to Olive Garden. When the building was destroyed in 2005, the chain restaurant moved north to D’Iberville, and the site has been vacant since.
Several readers asked on Facebook why the site couldn’t be a restaurant again.
“That Olive Garden was better than most Olive Gardens I’ve been to since. Lots of memories there,” one commenter said. Another said they’d love to see a Red Lobster — which was across the street from the old Olive Garden before Katrina — go into that area.
But it’s unlikely the Coast will ever see a restaurant on that property again.
A deed restriction on the property prohibits another restaurant from locating there.
“I mean, that’s what we would all like to see back there,” Felix Bertucci told the Biloxi Planning Commission in March. He’s representing the company that wants to bring a convenience store to the site. “So if you can’t put a restaurant on it, what do you do with the site?”
While diners may not get a waterfront view at Olive Garden in the near future, a second location on the Coast — on U.S. 49 in Gulfport — is slated to open in 2023.
This story was originally published April 5, 2022 at 10:47 AM.
