It’s Jimmy Buffett Inc. Here’s a look at the singer’s empire in resorts and cheeseburgers
READ MORE
The musical legacy of Jimmy Buffett and Key West
As singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett looks back at 50 years since first arriving in Key West, the Southernmost City is paradise for other entertainers in a growing music scene.
Expand All
Jimmy Buffett’s music career may have begun in earnest 50 years ago after his fateful drive from Miami to Key West in a 1947 Packard. The music has been good to Buffett, with holdings in songwriting and book publishing.
His business empire caught on in 1985 when he opened Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville restaurant and gift shop on Duval Street in Key West.
In 2009, Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens was even temporarily renamed Landshark Stadium for a football season in a licensing deal Buffett was behind. The singer-songwriter even wrote new lyrics to his 1979 song, “Fins,” for the occasion to fit in the Dolphins football team and its fans.
Here’s a look at some of Jimmy Buffett’s holdings.
Food and drink
▪ Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville. A chain of 23 restaurants and gift shops in the U.S. from Florida to New York to Las Vegas; the Caribbean, including the Bahamas, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands; Cozumel, Mexico, and Niagara Falls, Ontario in Canada.
The first opened in 1984 as J.B.’s Margaritaville in Gulf Shores, Alabama, when Buffett had trouble licensing the name for a club in Florida because the Margaritaville name had been appropriated so often, he told the Tuscaloosa News in 1984.
Problem resolved, the first successful Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville opened on Duval Street in Key West in 1985 and is still thriving. The Alabama branch folded by 1988.
Of the 23 cafes, Florida locations are in Key West, Hollywood, Destin, Orlando and Panama City Beach.
▪ Air Margaritaville airport lounge restaurants include outlets at Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, as well as inside airport terminals in Detroit; San Juan; Panama City, Panama; Cancún; São Paulo; Montego Bay.
▪ Landshark Beer, a beer brewed by Anheuser Busch under license by Buffett.
▪ Margaritaville Spirits, a line of tequila, rum and, of course margaritas.
▪ Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurants have all since closed as of September 2020, but merit mention because they were well known, based on the title of his 1978 Top 40 single. Cheeseburger in Paradise was a casual theme-restaurant chain that opened in Orlando in 2002, as a partnership between Buffett’s Florida-based Margaritaville Holdings and OSI Restaurant Partners, with its Outback Steakhouse running the franchises restaurants. One was at the Shops of Sunset Place in South Miami. Cheeseburger in Paradise grew to about 30 locations.
Cruise
▪ Margaritaville at Sea. It only seems fitting that the “son of a son of a sailor” should have his name on a cruise ship. Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville brand entered the cruise business when Palm Beach County-based Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line licensed the name to launch Margaritaville at Sea, the company announced in early December.
The cruise ship at the Port of Palm Beach is due to set sail in April 2022.
Hotels and beach resorts
▪ Margaritaville hotels and resorts include a location on the Hollywood Broadwalk. It’s a $175 million, 17 story, 349-room resort in South Florida that has three pools and a Flowrider surf simulator on the beachfront, a License to Chill bar and a full-service St. Somehwere Spa. Not to mention a giant flip flop in the lobby. The resort opened in 2015.
There’s also One Particular Harbour Margaritaville Marina and Residences at Harbour Isle, a 220-acre private island community on Anna Maria Sound in the Bradenton-Tampa Bay-Sarasota area. Margaritaville hotels and resorts are also in Florida in Key West, Orlando, Jacksonville Beach, Fort Myers Beach and Pensacola Beach.
They’re also in New York City, Cancun, Nassau, Costa Rica, Texas, California, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Belize.
Casino
▪ Margaritaville resorts and casinos are in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Bossier City, Louisiana. A casino in Biloxi closed in 2019.
Clothing
▪ Margaritaville Footwear is a line of casual shoes and sandals sold at retail chains including Men’s Wearhouse and online retailers like Amazon. Of course, there are also T-shirts, as well as household goods.
Entertainment
▪ Radio Margaritaville on Sirius XM and Margaritaville TV stream Buffett’s music and music he champions, plus vintage and current concerts.
▪ Mailboat Records. Buffett’s independent record label, established in 1999, issues his albums. They include the 2020 releases, “Life on the Flip Side” and “Songs You Don’t Know By Heart.” Mailboat Records has also released titles by Bret Michaels of Poison, Def Leppard in North America and the late Dan Fogelberg.
▪ Shrimp Boat Sound recording studio in Key West has become Buffett’s personal studio to record his own albums ever since “Hot Water” in 1988. But he’s opened the waterfront studio to pals like Coral Reefer Mac McAnally, Toby Keith, Alan Jackson, Zac Brown, Kenny Chesney, George Strait and Billy Corgan.
▪ The Buffett musical “Escape to Margaritaville” first opened on Broadway in 2018 and has had road shows, including a 2020 performance at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.
Health and lifestyle
▪ Coral Reefer pharmaceutical cannabis. In 2019, Buffett licensed the name of his Coral Reefer Band to Surterra, a medical marijuana company based in Atlanta with locations in Florida from Miami Beach to Tallahassee. The cannabis line that will bear the Coral Reefer name will include vape pens, lotions and gel caps, to appear in the chain’s stores sometime next spring, according to the Wall Street Journal.
▪ Latitude Margaritaville, a retirement village. Buffett and his partner, Minto Communities (builders of the Artesia development in Sunrise) “figure his fans will pay $200,000 to $350,000 to live out their golden-oldie years in mythical Margaritaville,” a Miami Herald columnist wrote in 2017. “Latitude Margaritaville, west of Daytona Beach (with a shuttle service to a private beach club), marketed to the ‘55 and better’ set, figures to be America’s first rock ’n’ roll retirement joint.”
This story was originally published January 12, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
