THE STORY BEHIND PEBBLES

Before the doors opened for the first time, Pebbles had served more than 450 people.

For six months prior to the April 1985 opening of the first Pebbles in Longwood, the owners served invited guests samples of the restaurant’s “casual cuisine,” listening to their comments and making the neccessary changes.

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“Our menu was designed by our guests,” said Manny Garcia, chairman of Davgar Restaurants, which owns Pebbles.

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It was an immediate success, and now the restaurant, which now has four locations, has placed first in the “favorite restaurant for all reasons” category of The Orlando Sentinel’s Palate Pleasers Readers’ Choice Awards.

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Garcia said he got the idea for the restaurant because he and his wife, Gerry, wanted a place to eat – which may seem a strange thing to say for the man who owns virtually all the Burger Kings in Central Florida. The Garcias would regularly spend evenings visiting the night managers of the local Burger Kings. Afterwards they would look for a place to relax and grab a bite. TGI Friday’s and Bennigan’s came close, but it wasn’t exactly what they wanted: something more “adult,” with a higher class of food.

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“Pebbles is for the graduates of Friday’s and Bennigan’s,” Garcia said.

The second Pebbles opened at the Crossroads in Lake Buena Vista in 1989. That same year another Davgar restaurant, Latitudes in Winter Park, was converted into a Pebbles. Last year Davgar took over Bailey’s Cityside restaurant in downtown Orlando and renamed it Pebbles Cityside. It’s now called Pebbles Downtown.

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Garcia attributes much of the restaurant’s success to to the sincerity of his staff.

When someone greets you with a smile as you walk into a Pebbles, Garcia said, he or she really means it. “It’s got to be genuine or it just won’t work.”

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