Shaggy’s Cheeseburgers
A Real World Tragedy-to-Triumph Story ... through Hope, Love and Change
A restaurateur’s account of serving his community and satisfying as many customers as possible, Shaggy’s Cheeseburgers is a charming memoir.
Ron Ladner’s mellow business memoir Shaggy’s Cheeseburgers is about launching a successful restaurant on the Mississippi coast while overcoming adversity.
A paean to resiliency and entrepreneurship, the book recounts how Ladner, an Atlanta businessman, took a chance on an old seaside bait shop, turning it into a thriving dining destination and eventual chain. He pursued his dream undaunted while facing challenges like Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, both of which killed the tourism his business relied on.
The book begins at as dramatic a starting point as possible, with Hurricane Katrina bearing down on the coast, about to leave only fifty of the six hundred homes in Ladner’s neighborhood standing. Capturing the devastation with pathos, it goes from the nadir to chart how he triumphed in the restaurant business, serving hundreds of thousands of customers and expanding to multiple locations.
The book is sprinkled with facts that contextualize Ladner’s personal story, whether they chronicle Hurricane Katrina’s impact or share sports and news headlines from the date of his birth to establish his historical backdrop. For instance, a cavalcade of background information about Biloxi, Mississippi, makes clear his thinking on why he would want to open his second location there, setting the scene well. The book also goes beyond describing how BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill affected Ladner to account for its full toll on the coast with as sweeping a fact-based survey as a newspaper might provide.
The prose is reflective on the dual topics of life and business, dispensing insights such as “The way we accept suffering and setbacks becomes the control knob for our overall happiness.” Ladner also makes the metaphorical point that being a few degrees off in navigation leads to bigger issues the farther the boat travels. His book also shares lessons on second opportunities to encourage fellow entrepreneurs.
Lines like “Let’s dig in” give the book a down-to-earth feeling, as do its incorporation of whimsy (the burger was smart, but the cheeseburger was genius—a “symbol of peace, joy, love, and comfort” and a way to “make people feel happy”). Descriptions of sportfishing, Cuban cuisine, and tourism patterns vivify its pages further. Its lively photographs, though, are too plentiful in number, and its employee testimonials are repetitive and somewhat superfluous.
A breezy businessman’s memoir, Shaggy’s Cheeseburgers charts the rise of a popular restaurant, sharing the insights and philosophy that made it flourish.
Reviewed by
Joseph S. Pete
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
