The marina at Land's End, where Michael Saunders spent much of her youth.
Saunders Stories returns with a look at Michael Saunders' youth and her truly old-Florida existence on Longboat Key. Through the experiences at her family's marina, she learned not only how to make a delicious hamburger, but the importance of showmanship and making a difference in how you work.
At Land’s End when we opened the marina, people would come from far and wide because my father first of all was the most amazing storyteller. Everyone wanted to hear my father’s stories. My father made everyone feel wonderful. He could make kings feel more royal and he could make paupers feel rich. And so I got that spirit of caring deeply about people real deeply from him. So in running the marina, he was the storyteller and we were the workers, I figured that out too, my sister and I, we were the ones in charge in cooking hamburgers. So my father would tell stories and take the orders and we had this big metal grill and we knew that if we filled it full, we could get 24 hamburgers on it. We could run to the end of this 280 ft dock that we built for the marina, dive in - (and in those days, either the health department didn’t care whether we wore bikinis or not) but we would have our bikinis on and we would run out, dive in, swim back in, flip the hamburgers and then they were ready! And so everyone thought we got 50 cents more a hamburger because it was all a show. So, I learned the importance of showmanship and making a difference in how you do things.
Check out our other Saunders Stories from Michael and Drayton:
Introducing Saunders Stories: The Beginnings of Michael Saunders & Company A Very Magical Spot: Growing up on Longboat Key Where to Build: Growing the Divisions of Michael Saunders & Company Woven into My Essence: An Entrepreneurial Spirit Michael Saunders & Company: Your Local Connection to the World of Real Estate The Difference We Make: MSC in the Community Michael Saunders and the Story of Her Scarves
