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gathering. (Sheil) is a nice guy
to listen to. I pay attention! I’m a
Catholic, actually. I go to church
and spend most of my time
looking at my watch. Not here.”
Sheil said that while he was
an associate pastor at Crossing
Community Church in Fort
Pierce he was looking for an
outreach program.
“We purposely tried to reach
subcultures and I thought the
best subculture we had here was
Archie’s Seabreeze is named for late owner
at the beach,” he said. “There
Archie Summerlin, known as the unofficial mayor
are surfers here. There are
of South Beach.
people here who don’t leave the
island, so we’re trying to find a way to reach the people of this community.
We’re bringing the Gospel to the family that’s already here, people who
live here, people who visit for the winter.”
A COLORFUL CHARACTER
For nearly 30 years, Archie’s proprietor was Archie Summerlin, a colorful
character who was a descendant of one of St. Lucie’s pioneer families. When
Archie bought the place in 1966, there were few businesses on South Beach:
Chuck’s Seafood, which is still open, a Gulf service station and a U-Tote-Em
convenience store, and that was about it.
Summerlin became known as the unofficial mayor of South Beach. In
the 1980s, he told a Fort Pierce Tribune writer that the County Commission
used to meet downtown and adjourn to Archie’s for lunch.” Half of the
decisions of the County Commission were made at extended lunches over
here,” he said. >> This sign at Archie’s spells out the dress code.