TASTY TRANSITIONS

Southwest Florida’s culinary scene percolates with energy and ideas as the next generation steps up to run family-owned businesses in our ever-changing food-centric world

Seven Southwest Florida family businesses— restaurants and food purveyors—pass the torch to the next generation. Find out who’s taking the reins, who’s stepping back, and what innovations are coming.

Talk to almost anyone who owns a family business and they will likely tell you their dream is to keep that business in the family, eventually handing over the keys to the next generation. Family businesses are unique. When your name’s on the door, there’s a different kind of responsibility. Your customers don’t email their concerns to out-of-state corporate offices; they tell you at the grocery store, gas station or in the business itself.

Families unapologetically bring their personal beliefs, principals and philosophies into the workplace and that culture filters down, for better or worse, to employees. They, in turn, often pass that on to customers—producing an environment unlike most any you’ll find in corporate America.

There comes a point in every family business when the elder generation needs or wants to take a step back, transitioning the business into the hands of the next generation. The question becomes how to accomplish that while maintaining the integrity of the business and the relationships that have been formed over the years.

We talked to some of the area’s best-known family restaurateurs and food purveyors for a behind-the-scenes look at that transition. Generations working in tandem, the more experienced handing over the reins to the more youthful in hopes that their energy and fresh ideas will not only keep the family business alive but also help it to thrive with the changing times.

And they may have different ways of going about it, but one thing they have in common is that while the older generations may be stepping back, they certainly aren’t going away.