Recipes for Success

Paul Peden, CEO of the Rib City Group, isn’t scared about the downturn in the local economy. After all, everybody has to eat somewhere. So, instead of expanding his chain of family-friendly Rib City Grill restaurants in Lee and Collier counties, he and his son Craig, the company president, are expanding the chain outside of Florida.

Original restaurant owner Gerry Pastore brought Paul and Craig on as partners in 1990, and they opened a third Rib City Grill, all three in Fort Myers. When Pastore retired in 1992, the Pedens took over. The restaurant now has 24 corporate-owned and franchise locations in six states, including Utah, Colorado, Washingron, Ohio and Michigan.

"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.