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Joel Rodriguez, 47, has deep roots in Polk County and family stories that keep him connected to his Mexican heritage — now, his family is sharing their culinary traditions at Margarita’s Cocina Mexicana, 4715 S. Florida Ave., formerly Ovation Bar & Bistro.
Joel and his brother Fernando, 44, are business partners with five restaurants in Polk County: two Ovation Bar & Bistros, now three Margarita’s Cocina Mexicanas, one was previously Social on Cypress.
The original Ovation opened in 2014 in Davenport. Three Ovation Bistro & Bar locations later, Joel decided to take a chance on another concept in 2024. “I already had this plan in the books,” Joel said, to open a Mexican restaurant to honor his mother, Margarita, who grew up in China, Nuevo León, about 30 or 40 minutes northeast of Monterrey, Mexico, “depending on how bad the road is on that week,” Joel said.
In the past two years, Joel and Fernando transitioned Social on Cypress to a Margarita’s, and this summer after shuttering Ovation in Lakeland, they transformed the location into a third Margarita’s.
The restaurant opened quietly with friends and family on July 17. They’re taking things slow to work out all the kinks and make sure all the staff are prepared, said Joel.
A family legacy
Margarita, the restaurant’s namesake, went to school in Mexico through third grade, then started working on her family’s ranch, alongside her 11 siblings. The boys worked the cattle, and the girls did farming, sewed clothes, made dinner — everybody had a job.
At 16, Margarita followed her older sister to the U.S. to work as a nanny. The work was seasonal, so the girls got work visas to travel to Indiana and Florida to pick fruit during the off times.
“That’s where she met my dad, at a migrant camp in Indiana,” Joel said. “She only had my dad as a boyfriend her whole life.” He proposed, “like two months in.”
“The rest is history, right?” Joel said.
Margarita, helped her sons scale her recipes for the restaurant. “We’re inviting you to our house,” Joel said. “We make everything in small batches … We make it all, make all the spices and rub ourselves, so it’s really just home. This is my mom’s food.”
A family business
Joel’s oldest daughter, Ariana, 19, manages and bartends in Davenport, while studying photonics — the science and technology of generating, detecting, and manipulating light. His sister, Nelly, manages in Winter Haven. His wife, Tamra Legron-Rodriguez, a chemistry professor at the University of Central Florida, oversees interior design. Their youngest, Cecilia, 6, is the taste-tester — she loves tater tots and tacos. Margarita stops by to ensure the food and experience meets her standards.
He spent about $50,000 to transform the South Lakeland Ovation to Margarita’s, painting the walls a deep green and decorating with Mexican hats and prints from La Lotería, a popular Mexican game similar to bingo. “It’s the game we always played at the house growing up,” Joel said.
From the armed forces to food service
Joel and Fernando’s great grandfather served in World War I, and their grandfather served in Italy in World War II. They had relatives in Vietnam and Desert Storm. “We’re a military family,” said Joel, who joined the army at 18, right after high school.
“I got out,” Joel said, “and then like a couple months later and I went back in.” He reenlisted to join Fernando in Afghanistan. “You keep us together for the year,” Joel told Fernando’s commander, “I’ll reenlist.”
The brothers returned to the U.S. on July 4, 2005. Joel had spent nearly 10 years in the military.
They came back to Polk County and went to work at Outback Steakhouse. Joel started as a dishwasher, before becoming a cook, then a kitchen manager. “I just went through the ranks,” he said.
Tamra was a bartender at Outback when she and Joel met. The two had Ariana, got married, and Joel became a managing partner at the Clermont location. But after the company went public, “It wasn’t fun,” Joel said. “Too many bosses, too many reports to fill out every night.” The brothers started thinking about other possibilities.
“Me and Fernando used to always do barbeque for fun,” Joel said. And In 2014, they decided to open their own restaurant — a little bit barbeque, a little bit steakhouse, a little upscale — not quite like the barbeque joints they were used to. “And that was when Ovation was born,” Joel said.
Ten years later, when the first Margarita’s opened in Davenport, it was a hit, Joel said. “I was shocked.”
The Davenport location did so well in its first year that last summer Joel decided to transition Social on Cypress in Winter Haven to Margarita’s. “We doubled our sales from Social on Cypress, and then, I was like, ‘Well, hey, if the lightning can strike twice, why not a third time?’
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