APOPKA, Fla. — While most of the southeast jokingly references the “Waffle House index” to figure out how severe a hurricane could be, northern Apopka has a different barometer – and until now, it’s only had one setting.
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The Rock Springs Bar & Grill, on the corner of Rock Springs Road and Kelly Park Road, has never closed for lunch or dinner service since the Oldfield family bought the property in 1986.
The husband-and-wife team ran the bar through the pandemic, for every holiday and through major storms like Charley and Ian using a skeleton crew and six generators.
However, “Big Rip” Oldfield said he was preparing to shut before dinner service on Wednesday, ending the decades-long era.
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“There’s not too many businesses in the Tri County area that’s been open this long every day continuously,” he said. “We’re going to do our best to keep her open. It just depends on the track of the storm.”
Oldfield said the expected winds were just too high and posed a safety risk for his staff. He said it had been decades since he remembered the Apopka area experiencing triple-digit wind gusts.
He said he would move his Wednesday steak special to lunch and, if he closed, launch his generators as soon as he could Thursday if the power remained out.
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