"If you find a concept that really makes money easier than [a new] idea, that’s what you want to develop," Paul says.

After nearly 40 years in the restaurant business, Paul Peden, 59, has learned what works and what doesn’t. Barbecue does, and so does the higher-end, Old Florida style of The Veranda restaurant in downtown Fort Myers, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

Other ventures have been less successful; he chalks up "$5 million worth of failures" as a worthwhile, although costly part of learning and ultimately winning in the restaurant business.

"I’ve had a lot of ideas that just died on the vine," he says. They include Fantails, which he describes as "a takeoff on a Hooters concept," steakhouses, and an Italian restaurant. When his Mexican place, Three Amigos, didn’t catch on, it was out with the enchiladas and in with the fried okra as it became another Rib City Grill location.

"You fail four or five times, it gives you perspective," he says.

He also learned that even Rib City couldn’t save a couple of locations in Lee County that seemed to be cursed, consuming restaurant after restaurant. "We’ve gotten smarter about what we’re doing," says Paul.

Early hunger led to a lifelong love of the industry. In college, Paul wanted to work as a waiter and went straight to the big daddy of all Tampa restaurants, Bern’s Steak House. He’d heard the secret to getting a job there was to sit patiently until someone in charge decided to talk to you. He waited four hours, got his interview and was hired.

He was soon hooked on the fast pace, excitement and money he earned. He returned to his hometown of Venice with a business degree from the University of South Florida and became a manager of Smitty’s Steakhouse. When Smitty’s expanded to Fort Myers, Paul moved too, and began buying and selling restaurants.

"When I first started out, I couldn’t do anything wrong. Everything seemed to roll," he says.

In 1978, the year he turned 30, he purchased two turn-of-the-20th-century houses with a courtyard at Second and Broadway in Fort Myers. That became The Veranda, now a downtown dining and gathering institution for locals, tourists and just about anyone celebrating anything.

The Veranda has remained a favorite of Paul’s; he works in an office above the restaurant, following business leads, troubleshooting problems or talking to employees. He often goes downstairs for lunch, sometimes ordering a Bourbon Street filet, inevitably running into regulars.

Sometimes he can be found mixing martinis, greeting customers at the door or even working the line in the kitchen.

Craig Peden, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, is the same way, cutting our interview short to carve chickens in a short-staffed kitchen. "If you don’t get dirty with everybody else, it’s hard to manage people," he says.

Of Paul’s three adult children, Craig, 37, is the only one to go into the family business. He knew the restaurant world was in his blood at seven years old, when he looked forward to washing dishes at Smitty’s.

"You always want to be like your dad and then change your mind when you get older. [I] just kind of stayed that way," he says.

"I’ve learned everything from him," Craig says, including that making mistakes are a part of business. "You just don’t make the same mistake twice."

As company president, Craig Peden deals more with operations, policies and procedures. His main responsibility, and the one he’s most proud of, is overseeing the openings of the Rib City Grill franchises, including one in Sandy, Utah, co-owned by Law and Order: Criminal Intent star Vincent D’Onofrio.

Although Rib City and The Veranda are totally different dining destinations, or as Paul calls them, "distant cousins," they are run with the same emphasis on customer satisfaction.

"It’s all about the person walking in the door. If they don’t leave happy, you’re not going to be in business," says Paul Peden. "Everything on the menu is something we’d want to serve your mom." That something could be The Veranda’s yellowtail snapper with champagne beurre blanc, or baby backs and three-cheese fries at Rib City.

Paul Peden works 50 to 60 hours a week, which are not long hours in the restaurant business, and takes time off to travel with his wife, Barbara, and young son, Xander, and to go fishing in the Caribbean with his pals.

He has no plans to retire. "I like what I do," he says. "It’s still exciting."