We were down at South Padre this weekend, and we didn’t stay at the Margaritaville resort down there, and I don’t know if that was the right decision or the wrong decision but it would sure have been wild to wake up on Saturday morning to Taps being played on an acoustic guitar. (I didn’t make it over there to check if the flags were at half-mast—that will always be a regret of mine.)
Jimmy Buffett’s life is legendary and a little mind-blowing, and while we love Jimmy Buffett here at The Barking Crow (like crows, parrots are very smart birds), we haven’t earned any right to eulogize him, though I will say that listing a guy’s dogs by name in his obituary is now a proven way to make me cry. I think all I can really offer on Jimmy Buffett, the person, is that he and Brett Favre both came out of Southern Miss and they’re so alike to a point and then so decidedly different, and I would like sometime to look for other funny pairs of alumni like that at other funny schools.
What we’d really like to talk about here is chain restaurants: Margaritaville, Landshark Bar & Grill, and Cheeseburger in Paradise.
Margaritaville
Officially named ‘Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville,’ the Margaritaville brand encompasses a collection of restaurants and hotels, or restaurant-adjacent and hotel-adjacent things. There are Margaritaville casinos and Margaritaville RV parks and Margaritaville airport eateries named Air Margaritaville. By my count, there are five things named Margaritaville in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge combined, and while Margaritaville Resort Times Square keeps filing for bankruptcy, it is still open. There is a full hotel in Times Square named and themed after Jimmy Buffett.
The song Margaritaville was released in 1977. Sometime in the next eight years, Buffett launched a Margaritaville retail store in Gulf Shores, but it failed. In 1985, he launched a successful Margaritaville store in Key West, and the rest is history.
LandShark Bar & Grill
Sometimes incorrectly stylized as Landshark (be better, Wikipedia), LandShark Bar & Grill is closely associated with Margaritaville, and rather than being both a hotel and a restaurant, LandShark Bar & Grill is merely a bar and a grill. Some LandShark Bar & Grill locations are at Margaritaville resorts!
Cheeseburger in Paradise
Cheeseburger in Paradise doesn’t exist anymore, but I think it’s the funniest one, because it originally opened in southern Indianapolis and it was operated by Outback Steakhouse until Luby’s bought it. Some of the locations are still there, converted into Fuddruckers. Was Cheeseburger in Paradise really paradise? I’m not sure. But to a lot of people, I’m guessing it was, and bringing paradise to Indianapolis and Pigeon Forge is a lot of what Jimmy Buffett’s art did for the world.
One clarification here: It appears the Cheeseburger in Paradise in Waikiki isn’t affiliated with Buffett in any way. I’m curious if there are others out there that have the name too. Rogue Cheeseburger in Paradise states. I hope there are.
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One last note: Margaritaville Holdings LLC is a subsidiary of Cheeseburger Holding Company, LLC, even though it predates Cheeseburger in Paradise (the eatery, not the song, the order goes 1. Margaritaville the song, 2. Cheeseburger in Paradise the song, 3. Margaritaville the other stuff, 4. Cheeseburger in Paradise the other stuff). I hope this means Jimmy Buffett had an LLC named Cheeseburger. Something to follow up about.
