Restaurant owner focuses on consistency with a new test kitchen

EVAN WILLIAMS / FLORIDA WEEKLY Iguana Mia founder Dirk Atherton Dirk Atherton founded one of the area's best known Mexicanthemed eateries, Iguana Mia, in Cape Coral 18 years ago. That was after he moved to Lee County from his hometown, Tulsa, Okla.

In Sept. 1990, he asked friend Julian Prieto from Tulsa to come help him manage the original Cape location. (Mr. Prieto is now a part owner). It has become a local mainstay for comfort food and margaritas; and a landmark, in part for its neon-green paint job.

Two other locations opened in the 1990s, in the same bold color, near Page Field on U.S. 41 and in Bonita Springs.

The color is based on the shade of an Iguana, but it also matched an accessory Mr. Atherton bought for his sunglasses so many years ago: bright green, polypropylene tubing.

"I took it to Flex Bon (paints) and said, 'match this,'" he said.

The Cape restaurant was given one newspaper's dubious "ugliest building" honor in 1995 for being so outstandingly green. Mr. Atherton, in his amiable, unpresumptuous manner, offers little more than a shrug as comment. But the 14-year-old article is pinned to the bulletin board at his main office in Fort Myers like a point of pride. Connected to that office, which is separate from his three Iguana Mias, he built a gleaming, full-sized kitchen.

It opened last year at the cost of $160,000 (including a new delivery truck), even as the economy continued to sink.

The facility will serve as a test kitchen, central management location and catering site. It will also be used to make products like enchilada sauce, béchamel sauce, the base for salsas and chili con queso in large batches (up to 80 gallons at a time), so they remain consistent throughout his three locations. It takes fewer hours of labor as well, for one cook to make all the products in a central kitchen.

"I could see we needed to cut some of our labor costs and get our consistency under control," Mr. Atherton said. "We weren't happy sometimes, with the quality of the foods at the store level. People would say, '(the food) is great. We don't know what you're talking about.'"

It might have been great food, Mr. Atherton said, "But it wasn't the same."

He borrowed most of the money used to open the new kitchen, after a slow year.

"It's been really tough," he said, but with his track record of success, banks had no trouble lending him cash. "After 18 years, we have a good reputation."

The secret to staying in business so long?

"First, you have to have a passion for food, a passion for taking care of people," he said. "It may wax and wane a little bit, but you have to keep it."

And also, he said, "not to look over your shoulder at what everyone else is doing, but look inward and find ways you can do better."

The food at Iguana Mia is mostly based on traditional regional recipes, primarily Sonoran style foods (northern Mexico), such as chimichangas. Other regional dishes include Baja fish tacos (from southern California) and Pozole soup (from the Jalisco region in central Mexico). Mr. Atherton also travels to places like Guadalajara, Jalisco's capital, once a year for vacation and food research. He feels free to draw from various Southwestern U.S. and Mexican locales as he sees fit.

"There is no such thing as 'authentic' Mexican food," he says. "It's like saying I serve an 'authentic' hamburger. Well, hell. What's an authentic hamburger? There are traditional ways of cooking and traditional concepts, but 'authentic?' I don't buy it."

All the food at Iguana Mia is prepared by traditional equipment: an oven, a griddle, a charbroiler and a deep-fat fryer. There are no microwaves in the house, and Mr. Atherton swears he will never buy one.

"People don't believe us because they still come in and ask to have their baby bottles heated up in the microwave," he said.

Mr. Atherton, 49, got his start in restaurants cooking in kitchens in Tulsa.

"I'm basically a glorified short-order cook," he said.

He has two daughters and was divorced in the 1990s amid long, exhausting hours running his restaurant, He was remarried six years ago.

In Tulsa, he also became an owner in a Pizza Hut franchise and opened The Potato Patch, a stuffed baked potato concept restaurant. It closed in 1985, in small part due to the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, he said, because it covered north Idaho with ash, causing the price of potatoes to go from 9 cents to about 50 cents per pound.

When he arrived in Lee County in 1986, seeking a better economy, Mr. Atherton was the project manager for the building of a retirement community in Fort Myers. But soon he succumbed to the desire to open another restaurant.

"I love this business," he said. "It's crazy, it's stressful, but it's kind of strange that you get that immediate gratification, like when someone pats you on the back and says 'that was a great margarita.'"

He added, "It's been an interesting ride. It doesn't seem like it's been 18 years."