They share the same impish grins.
A dog-eared family photo captures 1970s Punta Gorda super-developer F. M. “Don” Donelson giving his young grandson, Chris, bunny ears.
He also gave him a family heritage.
“When I was a kid, I didn’t really know what I wanted to be,” confesses Chris Evans. “But I always admired my grandfather. Development kind of ran in my veins, I guess.”
Family heritage means so much to Evans that he recently christened his future 120,000-square-foot Punta Gorda office development, across from the Charlotte County Justice Center on East Marion Avenue, with his grandfather’s name. It will become Donelson Park.
In his day, Donelson developed Fishermen’s Village and Emerald Pointe, the yacht club condo community whose 1975 ad proclaimed it “could be the last of its kind … located at the confluence of the Peace River and the tarpon-teeming waters of Charlotte Harbor.”
Former Punta Gorda mayor Charles Phipps once said of Donelson, “Whoever’s going to negotiate with him, he’s a foot and a half in front of them before they start.”
On the eve of the Fishermen’s Village opening, Donelson was collaborating with local shrimp boat captains to form a cooperative that would ensure their docking space at the new development.
That same sort of collaborative spirit motivated Evans last year to create a Marion Avenue consortium — Taste Marion Ave. — that would unite the efforts of the restaurateurs surrounding his Turtle Club Coastal Tavern and Claw Bar, all up and down Marion Avenue.
“What’s great about this collaboration is the positive mindset to help each other out. We’re in this together and can bring new business to Punta Gorda,” he declared at the time.
Evans says today, “I think it’s still a great idea — even though we all got so busy with season that we couldn’t devote the time to really make it something. But we’ll regroup.
“There’s no reason we can’t all work together to build the brand of the street. We all borrow stuff from each other, from a tea bag to a box of chips. We’re all in the same ship rowing in the same direction.
“Build relationships and a sense of community — if you do that, the business will come, and your own business will be successful.”
When Evans graduated from high school, there was nothing much to do on Marion Avenue. Half of what‘s now The Turtle Club was Waldo’s Bistro, the rest was Captain Bill’s Tackle Shop. When kids weren’t partying with friends, they went to Regal Cinemas in Port Charlotte.
So, around the same time Doug Amaral, owner of River City Grill, started scoping out Punta Gorda, Chris Evans left town, at 19, to learn the ropes working for a Minneapolis vacuum hose manufacturer.
“After my second winter at 20 below zero, I called my dad and said, ‘I’m ready to come home.’” Once he got back, his first school-of-hard-knocks lesson was six weeks underneath Harpoon Harry’s, replumbing the grease and sewer lines.
After 13 years with Smuggler’s Enterprises — during which he and partners launched Laishley Crab House, Marina Management, Smuggler’s Foundation, and Harbour Graphics & Design — Evans decided it was time to carve out his own destiny.
He describes his process, which sounds much like his grandfather’s, with an air of near-surprise. He makes it sound downright easy.
“I drove past the Turtle Club on the way to a meeting one day, and called (Naples restaurateur) Peter Tierney, whom I’d met in the past. I asked him, ‘What are your plans for the building?’ We met for lunch, and I left with the keys.”
In October 2014, he unlocked the long-shut iron gates to The Turtle Club.
The place was quickly pronounced Harbor Style magazine’s “Best New Restaurant.”
New York developer Bill Socha became a regular there, thoroughly enjoying the hot new “juxtaposed-concept” ambiances created by the club’s Coastal Tavern, Claw Bar, brick-walled dining room, and courtyard patio. Evans’s next collaboration followed naturally.
Socha had just completed building a 60,000-square-foot, glass-walled, mixed-use landmark in Glenville, Schenectady County, New York. When a potential restaurant tenant fell through, he told Evans, “I want a restaurant, we love what you guys do, and I don’t want to do it myself.”
They partnered first at The Turtle Club, then almost immediately began developing its sister — The Glass Tavern in Glenville — due to open in mid-July.
It’s a mirror to The Turtle Club in more ways than its spectacular glass facade.
The Glass Tavern’s own juxtaposed concepts — outside patio, tavern, main dining room, and bookshelf-lined private library — are being crafted with 8-inch beams from two local barns and original brick from a downtown Schenectady building.
Evans sees similarities between Glenville and Punta Gorda, both of them moneyed villages within sprawling counties.
Glenville, a beautiful rural community of rolling hills, colonial-style homes and farms, has also grown dramatically within the last few years, to include a Lowe’s, Target, Wal-Mart, Applebee’s.
“You know if the big boxes are coming, the demographic feasibility is there. And there’s nothing in the area that does what we do: four different settings like we have at The Turtle Club, all unified by our house brand of hometown hospitality.”
Socha adds, “The Glass Tavern is poised to become a community favorite both locally and as a dining destination.”
Sure sounds like The Turtle Club formula.
What’s next, after The Glass Tavern and before Donelson Park breaks ground?
When he isn’t spending quality time with wife Ashley and daughters Briley (16 months) and Tyler (11), already an accomplished soccer player at Lamarque Elementary in North Port, Evans has a few more irons in the fire.
One suspects he always will.
He’s working on other development projects, including multifamily and assisted living facilities.
The vast blue sea turtle mural that appeared overnight, swimming down The Turtle Club’s west-facing wall, is a tipoff to next year’s addition of a blues club, The Blue Turtle, with happy hours and specials calibrated especially for Charlotte County wallets. And, Evans hints, “In any new development that’s building as many rooftops as in (17,000-acre, solar-powered) Babcock Ranch, there are all kinds of opportunities for professional restaurant space.”
Partner Bill Socha’s dad once said, “The harder you work, the luckier you get.”
“That is a true saying,” agrees Evans with a laugh. “I believe my dad told me the same thing!”
Send restaurant and bar news and recommendations to columnist Sue Wade at suewade47@aol. com.