Parking problems push another out of the Village

If there is anyone on Siesta Key who believes in destiny, it’s David Havill. The purchase of his restaurant, Anna’s Deli, was serendipitous. And, it resulted in his 2002 marriage to Denise, on the white sands of Siesta Key Beach.

But, fate doesn’t always bring sunshine, and after 15 years of operating the sandwich shop in Siesta Key Village, the 66-year-old said he succumbed to the parking pressures Village merchants face and closed that location May 29.

The scarcity of parking in the Village hurt the eatery in particular, Havill says, because laws allowing 24-hour parking in Sarasota County led to beachgoers occupying spaces during the restaurant’s short hours: 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. One of the perks that drove Havill to take over Anna’s in 1998 was the hours that allowed the proprietor to flip over the open sign and hit the beach before sunset.

In fact, Havill was headed for an early retirement after 40 years in the corporate restaurant world. He helped market Florida franchise concepts, such as Miami Subs and Kenny Rogers Roaster, to the upper Midwest. He was a vice president of a major food group before ending his climb up the corporate ladder. He certainly didn’t expect to find himself back in the food business — albeit this time as an entrepreneur promoting sandwiches.

But the bread and meat beckoned when he bit into an Anna’s Deli pastrami sandwich during his first visit to Siesta Key in 1996.

“I was looking out into the Gulf of Mexico, eating a sandwich,” he says. “And I thought, ‘This is what it’s all about: quality of life.’”

On a subsequent visit, after turning down an offer to work in commercial real estate, he told a Siesta Key RE/MAX agent to tip him off about any business-buying opportunities.

Havill was in luck; Anna’s was listed, privately, for sale. And, after more than a year of paperwork, he became the owner of Anna’s Deli and Anna’s II, which is on the south part of Siesta Key.

He brought Denise Havill, who was not his wife at the time, in on the deal, and the two were married on May 18, 2002. They met in 1990 while working at Bloomington, Ind.-based Huse Food Group, said Dave Havill’s daughter, Ashley Paynter. “She was the best food operator I had ever worked with,” Havill said.

Working in a restaurant together proved to the couple they were destined to be together.

“If you can get through that, you can get through anything,” he says.

But, over the years, the couple has struggled to keep the Village location open, even though it was the oldest eatery on Siesta (Anna’s II has that honor now). Havill noted that it was particularly frustrating because he has a great product; the shop was voted “Best Sandwich” by several area magazines, but parking was so scarce people couldn’t get to it.

“For a lunch-only store like us, it absolutely crucified us,” he says.

But, once again, fate graced the Havills when a member of the Benderson family, the family behind Benderson Development Co. LLC, phoned Havill to coax him into relocating the deli to a development on University Parkway near I-75. He hadn’t been in that area in years and was skeptical about opening a store there. But, after seeing the burgeoning business scene, characterized now by neighbors ScoopDaddy’s and World of Beer, he made the decision to expand the concept to the Manatee County development.

“We have our own parking and Sarasota County can’t take it away,” he says with a smile, sitting at a back-of-the-restaurant table delivered June 19.

In fact, after his daughter turned down a position with Pier 1 Imports and dedicated herself to the family’s sandwiches, he even sees the opportunity for creating a new franchise concept.

“This store is the prototype model,” he says.

One thing Havill couldn’t accomplish at the Village eatery was to serve his meat hot. Fire codes and space restrictions prevented steaming pastrami and corned beef from the menu, but he’s delighted to bring the idea to the new location.

But Havill says he will miss the camaraderie of Village restaurant owners.

“I did slow down my involvement (with the Siesta Key Village Association),” he says. “But that is a great organization that knows how to do business in the Village.”

A customer from his early days slinging “Surfer Sandwiches” — Anna’s signature sandwich — brought in his family after noticing the new restaurant.

“That fella wasn’t more than 15 when I met him,” Havill recalls.

“People come in who have been eating Anna’s (sandwiches) for years, and we haven’t changed much,” he says. “When someone starts saying ,‘We used to do this’ or ‘We used to do that,’ I just look at (32-year employee Pat Salerno) and she shakes her head.”