Veranda owner is a downtown icon
Paul Peden also owns 24 Rib City restaurants in seven states
BY EVAN WILLIAMS ewilliams@florida-weekly.com
The Veranda, a downtown Fort Myers staple in fine dining, operates out of two connected houses, both over 100 years old. Owner Paul Peden isn't quite that old, but he will soon be celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the restaurant he created.

FLORIDA WEEKLY PHOTO EVAN WILLIAMS Paul Peden

"I've owned a lot of businesses," he said. "Fortunately more successes than failures…The harder you work, the luckier you get. I worked pretty hard, and I got pretty lucky."

Also the owner of 24 Rib City's in seven states, he said that chain is much more lucrative. But The Veranda is "a different animal."

"It's a passion," he said. "It's the old habit we can't break."

During his pre-Veranda years, the young Peden grew up in Venice in the 1950s and 60s, where he was a high school football star, and graduated with a business degree from South Florida College.

After that, he owned or operated an almost continuous stream of restaurants, but is not involved with any of them now. Some are still in existence, some not; places like Smitty's, The Matlacha Oyster Bar, Clancy's (named for Peden's dog at the time), Mason's Bakery and The Veranda in Tampa. All benefited in their time from Peden's now reputed success.

He bought The Veranda's residential homes from Peter Pulitzer, a boat captain who was using the space as a steak and seafood restaurant, in 1978. Peden plans to turn over the day-today operations to his son Craig in four or five years, but will always be involved, in one form or another.

"I'm always going to be in the restaurant business," he said. "I love it…"

Peden is known by employees for running a tight ship, he said, which is why the restaurant has been around for so long.

"The truth of the matter is, I like it to be perfect, but I'll settle for excellent or outstanding," he said.

Peden has a quiet intensity; although cordial and charming, the phrase "serious as a heart attack" comes to mind when he speaks of The Veranda, something about the set of his jaw, a cooling of the eyes. That's because of how serious the need for consistency at a fine dining level is, he said. For the relatively high cost of a meal there, guests expect a lot- atmosphere, professionalism, and well-executed cuisine. And that's exactly what they get.

"It's a tough business, to survive at this level for a long period of time," Peden said. "It requires a lot of skilled people in a lot of areas. When we get a customer here, we tend to hold on to them. A lot of our customers have retired or passed away; it's been that long. Their children are now coming in, because we're something you can depend on. Generally speaking, it's a home run when you come here."

The Veranda also tends to hold on to employees for long periods of time, Peden said.

"I think everybody who works here makes it a special experience."

Some employees remain captured forever in pictures on the wall in the woodsy, low-lit bar where pianist Lila Lee Moore has played on hundreds if not thousands of evenings, and will likely play at least that many more. Others, professional servers like Larry Forsyth and Chris McCarten, and dishwasher Leon Elston, have served downtown's political elite and good ol' boys, snowbirds and locals alike, for over a decade.

"There's been a lot of acts at the Veranda," Peden said. "A lot of local personalities over the years."

Lunchtime server Sabrina Baran has been at The Veranda for 25 years. She said it took a while at the beginning to master the ins and outs of the big black reservation book and a demanding clientele ("The people: we get 'em all," she said), but now it's "like clockwork." Baran was there last Wednesday morning filling up sugar caddies to prepare for lunch, as the song "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" floated through the dining room, which appears not to have changed itself in at least a decade.

Above one table for two, paintings of opposing civil war generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant hung side by side.

"Someone said those two generals shouldn't be sitting side by side," she said. "One's from the North, one's from the South. I said, 'It's always been like that, at least as long as I've worked here, and that's the way it's going to stay.'"

As for rumors that the picturesque old houses are haunted by old servants or old generals, Peden put a quick end to that.

"I've seen a lot of things, but no ghosts," he said.

And if it's up to him, The Veranda will stay the way it's always been, "… hopefully for another 30 good years."