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Charley Woodsby, who co-founded Red Lobster in 1968 with partner Bill Darden, joined the ranks of

franchise giants such as Kroc, who founded McDonalds; Sanders, who started Kentucky Fried Chicken; Wendy’s Thomas; and Burger King cofounders McLamore and Edgerton.

If anyone told Charley Woodsby some sixty years ago at his home town of Spartanburg, SC., that he would one day move to Florida and eventually become partners in a restaurant in Orlando, what would he say? Furthermore, if he was told that he would then help shape and bring alive a brand new concept, which would become the Red Lobster restaurants of today, would he believe it? Probably not.

Charley Woodsby came from humble beginnings to say the least. He was born during the depression in 1931. He describes the hard times as his own family taking in family members that were out-of-work, having a two-holer outhouse in the backyard, and his parents not being able to re-sole his shoes and instead placing cardboard inside them so he would not have to walk on the ground during his 1 ¼ mile route each way to school every day.

Charley says that it was these very hard times that drove him to look for a better way to live. After lying about his age, he enlisted with the Air Force and became a radio operator on C-47 cargo planes flying supplies into air strips for the

troops in Korea. He returned home as a sergeant three years later, met his first wife Jean Harris and they were married.

To find their future, the couple moved to New York where Charley worked at a diner and went to culinary school at night for four years. It was during this time at culinary school that Charley learned from his professor the importance of consistency in the restaurant business. He worked in the diner with his brother and really enjoyed serving good food and meeting people. This is how he decided to make a career out of the restaurant business.

The couple had their first born, a son while still in New York and decided that they wanted to raise their family in a smaller town with more opportunities. They picked Atlanta, a fast growing city, where Charley bought a Tea Room, serving dinner only. Taking notice of the high-rise buildings replacing the big estates of the town and the growing number of businesses operating in this newly developing downtown, Charley decided to open the Tea Room for breakfast and lunch as well.

The Tea Room was a big success.

Being young and ambitious, Charley felt a bigger place would be more profitable. He sold the Tea Room and leased a much larger building, once home to a grocery store. He completely remodeled the new location, but his business model had built in failure. Charley spent too much money on another person’s property and had no operational cash. He went bankrupt and lost everything. It was a very valuable lesson learned.

Charley had a family to feed and take care of so he accepted a job with Miss Georgia Dairy delivering milk house to house. He delivered milk in the predawn hours of 3:00AM to 8:00AM every morning and then continued work the rest of the day to grow the company’s clientele. But Charley’s heart was not in the milk business and his wife encouraged him to follow his passion and go back to the restaurant business.

With his family’s encouragement, he attended a Georgia Restaurant Association meeting where he would meet Bill Darden. Darden and his brother, Denim, were looking for a manager for

one of their restaurants, The Thunderbird, in Jacksonville, FL. Charley had a different idea. He knew that he did not want to be a manager but to continue his path as an owner or as a partner. That conversation would eventually lead to the Woodsby family’s move to Jacksonville, a turning point to mark the beginning of the story of Red Lobster restaurants.

Charley’s appreciation for consistency that he acquired in culinary school would allow him to excel in any undertaking that he put his name on. It may have been what Bill Darden recognized during that faithful meeting. In his first partnership with Darden, his discipline for consistency drove him to write job descriptions for every employee so that they understood what was expected of them on a regular basis. It was this same consistency that turned that single restaurant partnership into five, almost overnight. And when the idea for the Red Lobster came together as a no frills, fast, sit down, casual seafood restaurant; that idea was to be built on quality, value, service and most importantly, “on consistency,” in Charley’s words.

Back to Jacksonville, Charley, Bill and

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Meet The Woodsbys

I will always remember my professor saying that the most important thing in restaurant operation is the consistency of food. If a customer comes into your restaurant and orders beef stew and it is just mediocre but likes it, the next time he comes in he is expecting mediocre beef stew.”Charley Woodsby, Co-Founder, Red Lobster

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Denim became partners in five restaurants. When an opportunity rang the bell, Charley and Bill would decide to expand to Orlando, and purchase an existing seafood restaurant called Gary’s Duck Inn on South Orange Blossom Trail. There they would improve processes, retrain the employees and expand the restaurant to double in size while continuing to serve fresh, local seafood with affordable pricing. The restaurant would become so well known that celebrities like Dolly Parton and Bob Hope amongst many others would become frequenters to eat “many of the two thousand pounds of shrimp served per week each year during the restaurant’s 1970s and 1980s heyday,” Charley wrote in his book chronicling his years in the restaurant business titled: Red Lobster…The Beginning.

With the experience and learning gained from Gary’s Duck Inn, the partners were able to create a new casual dining concept. They noticed that the simplicity of Gary’s allowed for lower overhead costs and higher profit margins. And in this way, the idea of a chain of casual seafood restaurants was born. It was to be economical while offering great hospitality, high quality service and freshness.

To test their idea the partners chose Lakeland, FL for their first Red Lobster location. Lakeland had a good sized population and there was a lack of seafood restaurants. Sticking to their original plan of consistency, Charley and his team made training a forefront of their operation and trained and retrained their employees, with values like professionalism, pride in their work, and belonging to a team and that most importantly, consistency was key.

Within one week of opening in 1968, Charley and Bill knew they had to expand the kitchen. They had to add a holding bar for the customers waiting in line around the restaurant to get in!

“We expected to do $300,000 that first year and we actually did $1,000,000. I saw the line around the restaurant every day and immediately I knew we had a winner,” Charley remembers in his book.

By 1970, they had five successfully operating Red Lobster Restaurants. That same year, the General Mills Company was looking for a concept to take nationwide and showed interest in Red Lobster. After much discussion, Bill Darden and Charley Woodsby sold Red Lobster to General Mills, while signing a three year management contract to help take their operations nationwide. By 1973, Charley and Bill had opened 72 Red Lobster

restaurants and they were all profitable. At that time, Charley decided it was time to retire.

After a short retirement of one year, Charley decided to go back into the business. Because of a non-compete agreement with General Mills, Charley could not open a seafood restaurant. So he opened a steak house. During the renovation process of his new restaurant, Charley remembers that the owner of a retail store across the street asked him what he was doing with the renovations. “I am opening a new restaurant,” he said. The shop owner laughed: “Lots of luck. I have seen four or five open and go bankrupt.” To which Charley answered: “We will not go bankrupt because we are going to be ‘the talk of the town’.” He named his newest restaurant Talk of the Town Steak House, and the talk of the town the restaurant became.

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Today the Talk of Town restaurants are owned and operated by three generations of Woodsbys. In his book Charley mentions his son Ron growing up in the kitchen of their restaurants and his ever present passion in the restaurant business. It is not surprising that today Ron is the President of Talk of Town Restaurant Group.

Charley, his son Ron, and his grandson Clark, who attended the Culinary Institute of America, own and operate ten restaurants in Central Florida. Their brands include Charley’s Steak House, Vito’s Chop House, FishBones, MoonFish, Johnnie’s Hideaway and Texas Cattle Company. The company has over 1,000 employees.

Charley’s determination in conquering anything he set his mind to, the success story of Red Lobster and of the Talk of the Town restaurants are a testament to a life lesson Charley shares in his book: “I have often felt that nothing comes easy… anything is possible if you are willing to pay the price.” In Charley’s book, Red Lobster…The Beginning; there is experience based insight and inspiration to find one’s passion and to follow it with process-based planning and execution in place.

As a couple, the Woodsbys’ motto reflect their experiences: “Embrace your dreams with passion. One person with passion is better than a hundred with only an interest. Believe you can, and you can”.

Charley’s appreciation for and gratitude to MaryLou is easy to take notice in the book’s foreword: “... To my second soulmate, my wife, MaryLou. Thank you for your endless support during the writing of this book.….”

Charley Woodsby now has 3 grown children with his first, now deceased wife Jean, 6 grandchildren, 1 deceased grandchild, and 10 great-grandchildren. He lost Jean to cancer after 54 years of marriage. He then met his second wife, MaryLou in 2005 and the couple married in 2007. They feel that God led them to each other.

Nowadays, the Woodsbys continue to pursue their hobbies and passions. The couple both have a love for traveling the world and they also enjoy playing golf-croquet. They truly cherish their Windermere neighborhood and find their community to be very friendly. They enjoy that Windermere is close to everything from the airport, to good shopping to wonderful neighbors.

Charley, with his son Ron and grandson Clark, have established a private charity called Talk of the Town Restaurant Group Foundation and continue to focus on the Talk of the Town Charities. Over the years, they have donated over $600,000 to local charities throughout Central Florida. MaryLou and Charley are also passionate about spreading the word through the Jesus Film Project. In 1979, a film was made of the life of Jesus and has been translated into 1,700 languages around the world.

Charley Woodsby’s book, Red Lobster…The Beginning is available on Amazon.com in Kindle, paperback (black & white) and hardcover (full color) versions. One hundred percent of the royalties generated by the book will go to charity.

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Charley Woodsby's book, Red Lobster…The Beginning is available on on Amazon.com