Coast restaurant empire built on cheeseburgers and turning adversity to opportunity
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Shaggy’s cheeseburger inspired Ladner’s late‑2025 book and new podcast.
- Ladner grew Shaggy’s to multiple locations, ~500 staff and charities.
- Shaggy’s survived Katrina, oil spill, recession and COVID with staff‑first focus.
In a place known for seafood, a cheeseburger was the number one item on the menu at Shaggy’s from the start, and inspired the name of a new book about surviving and thriving on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
The e-book “Shaggy’s Cheeseburgers: A Real World Tragedy to Triumph Story Through Hope, Love and Change” released in late 2025 and the audio version followed just a few weeks ago.
Now the book is the motivation for a podcast, with the first episode being recorded in the Dominican Republic.
On the long route between Pass Christian and the Caribbean, Ron Ladner, Shaggy’s founder and the author of the book, takes readers and listeners along on the journey from his boyhood in South Mississippi to his career start in the computer industry to restaurant owner to spending stretches of time fishing the tropics on his boat the “Cheeseburger.” Nuggets of business wisdom drop into the story like bait on a hook.
“People struggle so much in this world to feel like they belong,” Ladner said, and his book connects business owners, staff, customers and curious readers looking for inspiration and advice that works.
The book climbed to the top spot on Amazon.com’s Biographies of Business Professionals list and currently sits at No. 4, ahead of books written by or about Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, President Donald Trump, Steve Jobs and Anderson Cooper.
It all started in South MS
Ladner had a “normal” childhood in Long Beach, and like other young people, was certain more awaited beyond South Mississippi.
His career started in Dallas, and he excelled in the software services industry. He moved on to Atlanta, where he met his wife, Laura, and where he and his business partner founded a software services firm.
When they sold their business to an international company, he and Laura moved full time to South Mississippi and built their dream house on the beach in Pass Christian.
A wave at least 25 feet high swept through their new house and into Pass Christian as Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005.
“We went from a Norman Rockwell painting to a Hiroshima-like atomic bomb site in just eight hours,” Ladner wrote. “The destruction in Pass Christian was so great that I just didn’t know if I could go back. I wasn’t sure if I had the motivation or courage.”
As the water receded, help slowly poured in, from thousands of volunteers, government grants and Robin Roberts, who took “Good Morning America” viewers to her former hometown of Pass Christian and Ground Zero. The Ladners decided to rebuild their home and their lives.
In his own words
Ladner considered hiring a ghostwriter to tell the story of “Shaggy’s Cheeseburgers” — the title a metaphor for how life is so good but sometimes messy. Instead, he wrote the book himself, dictating the outline as he walked along the beach in South Mississippi and filling in the details chapter by chapter.
He bared his soul, talking about the hard times, and he opened his heart, describing the rescue dogs he and Laura adopted and who added so much to their lives. He originally didn’t want an audiobook, but he was convinced it was imperative — and he should read it himself. At times in the Atlanta recording studio he broke down as he read his story of the last 20 years, the aftermath of Katrina and the challenges and successes to follow.
He didn’t set out to open a restaurant after Katrina, he said,
“The more I thought about it, the more I realized that our town really needed this. We needed a place where people could come to heal, relax and feel normal again. A place for the lonely, the compromised, the broken-hearted — the people who had lost hope, and the people who needed to be cheered up and feel normal again.”
He and Laura bought a building in the wreckage of the Pass Christian Harbor, and in July 2007 launched Shaggy’s, an “over the water” restaurant with beautiful Gulf views, brightly colored umbrellas, a menu of seafood and a well-dressed cheeseburger. Immediately they were packed.
Rimmer adds new dynamic
Soon after Katrina, Ladner was invited on a fishing charter off the coast of Venice, Louisiana.
“I needed a break from the stress of the recovery effort. I needed a change,” he said, “and this might be just what my soul needed.”
That get-away proved to be life-changing for Ladner and Rimmer Covington Jr., the fishing guide.
Covington had a fresh accounting degree and a new desk job at an investment firm in Jackson, but was drawn back to lead fishing charters on the weekends.
“I love being on the water, and right now, honestly, I just don’t love being in the office,” Covington told Ladner. "I went to school for this,” he reasoned. “This is what I was trained for. I wasn’t really trained to be a fisherman, but I miss it. I really miss it.”
Ladner dropped one of the business nuggets on Covington and encouraged him to follow his heart. “And if you’re truly doing what you love, you know, the financial rewards will come at some point,” Ladner said. Covington decided on the water that day to quit his desk job and start his own charter guide business in Venice — and convinced Ladner to invest in him and a boat.
They became partners in the fishing business and later in Shaggy’s, where Ladner continues as president and Covington runs the day-to-day operations. Together they have the top Google review ratings in every one of their markets.
Weathering the storms
The challenges kept coming after Katrina, and with it the opportunities.
In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill grounded the Gulf charter boats, and spooked tourists away from the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
“Ron, I think it’s over for us. They’ve shut down all fishing. This thing may take several months or even several years to recover from,” a scared Covington called and told Ladner.
“Find your big opportunity — it’s going to be OK,” Ladner advised. “You know everybody in Venice. You got boats. You got captains. You’ve got everything people are gonna need to support this effort. Get down there!”
Covington went the next day, got a deal as the sole lodging contractor for BP and the Coast Guard in Venice and built that first contract into multi-million-dollar business in Venice, providing housing and eventually, food and catering services.
As the oil spill business wound down, Covington joined Ladner at Shaggy’s in a “wildly successful partnership.” They now have five Shaggy’s restaurants in Pass Christian, Biloxi, Gulfport, Brandon and Pensacola Beach, with 500 employees serving over 1 million people a year, real estate investments, an international blue marlin fishing team — “and a friendship that would be thicker than blood,” Ladner wrote.
Each crisis required a new business pivot. When Covid shut down the country and the restaurant industry, they survived and thrived again. Their restaurants already had mostly outdoor or open-air seating, and as other restaurant owners struggled with the regulations and finding people to work, Ladner said Shaggy’s pays the staff so well, they were eager to come back to work.
“We decided to pay people what they’re worth, not what they earned at Chili’s or the restaurant down the road, or the prevailing rate,” Ladner said. “What’s he or she worth to us? Let’s evaluate talent and pay people what they deserve. And that really sets us apart.”
When inflation followed Covid, they adapted. “When we opened in July 2007, beef was $2.26 per pound, and our cheeseburger was $10,” Ladner said. “In 2025, beef is $5.45 per pound, and our cheeseburgers are $14,” which is a 100% increase in the price of beef, and a 40% increase in the price of their cheeseburger. “We make this up through operational efficiencies,” he said, or otherwise the price of their cheeseburger would need to be $20.
Covington said he knows how difficult it was for Ladner to write the book of their lives and businesses, “And tell the good, the bad and the ugly. “One of the themes of the book is overcoming adversity,” he said. When you think times are the darkest, “you just channel your energy into making things better and look at it as an opportunity.”
Shaggy’s food, philosophy and giving
When the national Coastal Living magazine featured Shaggy’s as one of the “Best Seafood Dives in the Country,” Ladner said it was a proud moment in just their second full year.
They had found the combination of serving Southern Coastal, Caribbean and Mexican food people craved, the experience of dining on the water and the culture of “employee-first” that kept the staff in place and engaged.
While they built the restaurant business, their Shaggy’s Fishing Team also saw great success, landing in the Top 10 at the 2013 World Offshore Championship in Costa Rica. The team finished sixth overall, in a field of 67 teams from 31 countries.
To introduce local kids to the sport of fishing, they started Shaggy’s Kids Foundation, followed by Shaggy’s Angler Camp, where they charter local boats and have taken 400 campers offshore to catch their first saltwater fish.
They provided “Buddy benches” to local schools, a safe place for kids getting bullied or having a bad day to get some encouragement from another student. They became involved with God’s Haven to help feed homeless children in the metro Jackson area.
They built a unique culture. “If there wasn’t a Katrina, there wouldn’t be a Shaggy’s,” Ladner said. “If there were no Shaggy’s, the hundreds of thousands of dollars the company spends every year to help our communities would never have been there.” They couldn’t have given their employees health insurance, matched their 401(k) retirement accounts or provided assistance that has included financial assistance so they could buy a home, continue their education, pay for new tires, for legal fees and covered the cost of rehab and other medical expenses not covered by insurance, he said.
Read all about it
“One thing that I think surprised us all was just how much interest the book has actually garnered,” Covington said. The book is getting people curious about the brand and getting to know he and Ladner personally, he said. “We’ve already recruited several managers that came as a result of reading the book.”
“Shaggy’s Cheeseburgers” is available online at Amazon. It can be read on Kindle or downloaded to a computer instantly for $1.99. The paperback is just being released for $14.88 and the hardcover is $44.99. The audiobook is $17.71, or free with a 30-day Audible trial membership. Hardcover shipments from Books-A-Million also are available.
More details on their new podcast will be coming soon.
