AJ's celebrates silver anniversary

DESTIN, FL - It all started with some raw oysters. When they “put a grill out back,” the party machine we know as AJ’s Seafood & Oyster Bar started evolving and hasn’t stopped.

“I came to Destin because it looked like the future,” said AJ’s owner Alan Laird. “There was a lot of opportunity for a broke young man.”

This weekend, AJ’s is celebrating its silver anniversary with a family reunion for the employees, friends and patrons of the Destin landmark. Laird started out with one employee, Frankie Robinson, shucking oysters and grilling burgers on the harbor in 1984 where Gilligan’s Watersports sits today.

He listened when customers started calling the shots on what they wanted on the harbor and took their yearnings to heart. “It’s really dawned on me this week,” Laird said. “It’s probably the only thing I’ve done consistently for 25 years, other than breathe.”

AJ’s started growing up alongside Fisherman’s Wharf and Harbor Docks. In 1990, AJ’s moved to its current location where it has sprawled into a huge complex for dining, partying on the deck and enjoying what the harbor has to offer. Laird said the goal was to try and keep families at AJ’s all day with fishing, dining, drinking, snorkeling and shopping.

“AJ’s was really just driven by the customer,” he said.

Hurricane Opal interrupted operations in 1995 when the storm claimed the building. The remains were bulldozed and AJ’s was rebuilt and reborn. Laird said he was able to build back up so strong, because of his employees. He boasts a low turnover rate, such as Ken Levy, his beverage manager of 23 years. House band Mike and The Micros has been around just as long.

Laird said his business philosophy is a little different from the usual hospitality mindset of taking care of the customer first. He said he opts to take care of his employees first, because they are the ones who keep the customers. What Laird has learned the most over his 25-year haul with AJ’s is that the people he comes in contact with are the ones who matter.

“Our true culture is not in these buildings, it’s in our people ... our fishermen,” he said. Laird’s 3-year-old son Merrick, complete with his dad’s curly hair, has shown Laird that family is where it’s at. Laird is a jokester and said how his son gives him advice, trusting that the little tyke will hopefully take over the AJ’s “empire” one day.

He, like his pal Chester Kroeger who owns Fudpucker’s, said family life can prepare one for running a business.

“Chester, now I know why you did so well in the family business, you have a test site at home,” Laird said. “Good job, Chester, I love you!”

So, in the spirit of family, Laird is inviting one and all to AJ’s 25th anniversary celebration. “This is our way of saying thanks,” Laird said. “Sometimes we get so engrossed in business, it’s easy to forget how you got here.”