Lombardi Seafood's Café Permanently Closes
Local News Staff 
Lombardi Seafood's Winter Park cafe has permanently closed.
“The labor shortage — and an increasing inability to deal with it — has left us unable to run the cafe to the expectations of our customers,” owner Mike Lombardi explained in a recent interview.
Lombardi’s Seafood (1888 W. Fairbanks Ave. in Winter Park) opened 60 years, the cafe has only been running since 2013.
“The whole aspect of people coming in and enjoying the food always made me very happy. We never wanted to be fancy, we only wanted to cook simply and do it right,” said Lombardi, who has now fast-tracked existing plans to expand retail operations with items such as cheese, salads, produce, grocery items and more prepared foods.
“Items that will be grab-and-go, heat-and-eat and an expansion of meal kits,” he said.
Many of the cafe's most popular the items, including their famed lobster rolls and collard greens will be the fridge/microwave ready as well.
“Obviously a fried fish sandwich isn’t going to travel well,” Lombardi noted. “There will be a few things we’ll have to figure out. Now, we’ll have the time to do that.”
Ceviches and a multitude of seafood salads will be some of the first phase of new items and many staffers will stay on to work in the produce division.
“For customers who want easy, healthy meals they can have on the table in 15 minutes, we will have new dishes featuring a protein, vegetable and starch,” Lombardi said. For adventurous eaters who want to cook themselves but need guidelines, a packed box of ingredients with full instructions.
“I love octopus. It’s one of my favorites, but it’s hard to cook and time-consuming,” he explained. “So, how about I cook it and you just take it home and throw it on the grill? I’ll even give you the lemon and oregano mixture that goes on it.”
Italian grocery items including linguine, Bufala mozzarella, Roma and San Marzano tomatoes and more will be featured as well.
“We’re not going to turn into an Italian market or grocery store, but we’ll be bringing in some things that compliment what we already do,” Lombardi said.
