Jeannie Weaver Lopez, the headstrong force who created the successful downtown craft cocktail lounge Revival and Lake Morton restaurant The Peach House, died Thursday morning at Tampa General Hospital after suffering severe complications from a respiratory illness. She was 39.
“It is with heavy and tearful hearts that we share the passing of our beloved Jeannie Weaver Lopez today at 11:58 a.m.,” Ashley Bell Barnett, a lifelong friend from their early years in Fort Meade, wrote on Facebook.
“Despite the incredible efforts of her medical team at (Lakeland Regional Health) and (Tampa General Hospital), the advanced fibrosis in her lungs and ongoing seizures in her brain made it clear that her body and mind would be unable to recover. For the sake of Jeannie’s vibrant and tenacious soul and for the comfort of her brilliant mind, the family made the difficult decision to let her rest, and she went peacefully to be with her Creator.”
Jeannie – or Jean Bean, Jeannie Beannie, or just Neen, as so many who loved her called her – became a fixture in Lakeland’s nightlife scene about 10 years ago.
Not bashful: She showed up at a Christmas party and began talking to Eric Belvin, owner of the Linkster’s and Paddy Wagon bars. She wasn’t bashful about asking for what she wanted, he said.
“I sure would like to go to work for you,” he recalled her saying. “I’ve never been a bartender, but I’ve been to bartender school.”
She graduated from Fort Meade High School, Polk State College and studied marketing management at the University of South Florida, graduating in 2008 according to her Facebook page. But the Fort Meade native wanted to try something different.
Belvin brushed her off that night, but then she began showing up at Paddy Wagon, repeatedly asking him for a job over the course of several weeks.
“Finally, I said, ‘You know something, if you’re that determined to get a job, I’m gonna give you a chance,’” Belvin said.
She eventually ran his Highland City Linkster’s, with the pair occasionally butting heads about how to manage it. But, he said, they were always able to work things out.
“She was full of piss and vinegar and a great, great lady, but, you know, she was gonna speak her mind,” he added, smiling through tears.
Travel: She loved to travel, he said, adding that what seemed like every other month, she was asking for time off to travel with her then-boyfriend Ryan Lopez. Photos of the couple on Facebook show them in far-flung places like Machu Picchu and New Zealand, along with Eastern Europe, Italy, and throughout the United States.
“She went, I remember, to Iceland and, you know, all over the place, and Ryan was her traveling partner,” Belvin said. “And they were a good match.”
So good that the couple married and had a daughter, Pepper, two and a half years ago.
Revival: A few years after she began working for Belvin, she found an investor and decided to open her own place downtown. He told her if she needed help with anything, all she had to do was ask. Revival on Kentucky Avenue has been a hit ever since.
He chuckled as he remembered a phone call from her.
“She had asked me one time, ‘You knew how hard this was?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I did,’” Belvin recalled. “She said, ‘Why didn’t you stop me?’”
Belvin said he knew she was too stubborn to talk her out of it.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she shifted her business plan to keep her doors open. Weaver offered gift cards, then to-go drink kits with a sealed bottle of liquor in packages containing pre-made mixers, syrups, a garnish and instructions on how to put it together, The Ledger reported at the time. And she began offering peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in order to qualify as a restaurant, which were allowed to stay open during the worldwide shutdown.
The Peach House: When the owner of The Red Door on Palmetto Street decided to close last year, Lopez wanted to try her hand at the restaurant business. Ryan Lopez and Wesley Barnett bought the building, and Jeanie and Ryan Lopez began transforming it into The Peach House, which opened over the summer to acclaim.
On Thursday evening, both the indoor and outdoor seating areas were bustling. Management declined to comment, saying it was a private time for them to mourn.
On Nov. 1, Katie McNutt created a Gofundme page after it became clear that Jeannie wouldn’t be going home from the hospital anytime soon.The proceeds will go to help Pepper, “the joy of Jeannie’s life … a spunky and spicy 2 1/2-year-old,” have as normal a life as possible. The fund has raised more than $75,600.
Tributes: Friends took to Facebook to remember and offer support to Lopez and Pepper.
Ashley Bell Barnett, who has been close friends with Jeannie since the second grade in Fort Meade, has been asking for prayers and donations for two weeks. She was devastated on Thursday.
“I’ll never know how to live life without you,” Barnett wrote. “My ride or die, my Jean Bean, my loyalty for 25 years, our Dorathy. I love you forever and always. Until we meet again.”
“We are heartbroken to hear about the passing of our beloved friend and neighbor, Jeannie Weaver Lopez,” wrote Tim and Tina Calhoon, owner of Frescos on Kentucky Avenue. “Thank you, Jeannie, for sharing your smile, strength, and creativity with all of us.”
Many people talked about Jeannie’s smile and how she lit up a room when she walked in, her generosity, her kindness and how she made everyone feel welcome.
“Our downtown Lakeland family is devastated by the loss of Jeannie and our hearts are broken for her husband, Ryan, her daughter and her family,” Lakeland Downtown Development Authority Director Julie Townsend wrote in a text message. “Her entrepreneurial spirit and tenacity added so much to not only downtown but also the Historic Lake Morton Neighborhood where she lived and owned The Peach House. She will never be forgotten.”
Noemi Pareja, recalled when she and Jeannie teamed up to create a signature cocktail for the Christmas party at her business, Pura Vie Holistic Studio and Boutique. Unfortunately, it was the first Christmas of the COVID shutdown and no one came to the party, so Pareja wound up giving away the cocktails to shoppers and Jeannie kept returning to bring more ice and fill up more cups.
“A lot of people got a little bit tipsy, and that was one of my highest selling retail weekends prior to Christmas,” Pareja said. “And I owe it all to her amazing ability to be creative and for supporting me and giving away free alcohol to the shoppers of Lakeland. We both laughed about it because she said, ‘I wouldn’t think that a holistic business and practitioner like yourself would be ordering alcohol and then freely giving it away to everybody that came to your shop.’ And I said life is about balance you know, you gotta enjoy things as they are and give with an open heart. And she said, ‘Yeah, that’s exactly what it’s about.’”
LkldNow Executive Director Trinity Laurino recalled that Jeannie also helped with the news organization’s first News Aid benefit concert by creating specialty cocktails and donating them.
In 2019, Lopez wrote on his Facebook page during one of their travels: “She may not wear a cape, though she wears an apron and kicks butt while taking names through this game called life. She’s not my rock, she’s my unmovable boulder. Love you to Mongolia and back, Neen!”
A memorial service will be held on Monday, Nov. 18, at Grace City Church, 1736 New Jersey Road, Lakeland. Visitation will be at 4 p.m., a celebration of life at 5 p.m., and a reception will follow.
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We live out of town, so I only knew Jeannie as a bartender at Revival. However, when ever we came through town, she treated us just like old friends.
My favorite memory was from a few years back when we had just come back from a vacation in Cartagena, Columbia and I had learned of a spicy sweet liqueur called liqueur 43.
We came to Revival and I asked her if by chance she had this spirit and if she knew any good drinks with it. Jeannie informed me that she indeed did have it and knew just what I wanted.
Knowing my sweet tooth, she informed me that this concoction she made with one part L43, one part half and half and sprinkled with nutmeg, would taste just like a “Haagen-Dazs ice cream.”
Sure enough, this was the best drink I had ever had. (immediately my staple drink whenever I came by)
I even informed her that she had helped me discover that my inner drunk was a blond co-ed named Brittany.
To which she playfully named the drink, “sorority girl throw-up.”
It never made it onto the special board to my knowledge but just thinking about this story makes me smile.
If you ask me to sum up Jeannie Weaver Lopez in one word, that word would have to be, “ALIVE!!”
I pray for her family and loved ones.