BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT
25
Much of the Adams Ranch beef going to market is from ABEEF cattle, a breed developed on Adams Ranch.
Sumter counties in Georgia.
“The good news is it hasn’t changed,’’ Mike Adams said.
“My grandfather started estate planning to pass the ranch to
dad years before his death and dad was the same way. It’s
taken a lot of planning.’’
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Although a family enterprise, Adams Ranch Inc. is also
a Ànely tuned corporation. The ranch was incorporated in
1963, and Bud’s three sons took over in 1985, with Mike as
president, Lee as vice president, Robbie as director and Bud
as chairman of the board. Today, the company’s management
team is completed with LeeAnn Simmons, Lee’s daughter, as
corporate secretary.
Mike Adams said that nearly all of his father’s stock in the
ranch was transferred before his death. The corporation has
some 30 stockholders, mostly family members, with Lee, 67,
Mike, 62, and Robbie, 60, as majority shareholders.
While the sale of cattle represents the majority of the
company’s revenues, income is also generated from hunting
leases, land leases and commercial property owned mostly
on the Treasure Coast. The commercial property ranges from
the historical P.P. Cobb Building in downtown Fort Pierce to
the Flying Panda Trampoline Park in Port St. Lucie. One of
the company’s larger land leases is a 500-acre citrus grove at
its Fort Pierce ranch with Blue Goose Growers.
RANCHES TO RESTAURANTS
And now, in its boldest move outside its traditional cattle
roots, the company is getting into the restaurant business
with Gus Gutierrez, developer of the Galleria of Pierce
Harbor at the southeast corner of Second Street and Orange
Adams Ranch touts its natural beef for its marbling and tenderness.
Avenue in Fort Pierce.
The partnership plans to open two restaurants at the Galleria:
Rooster in the Garden and the Braford Steakhouse,
which will feature Adams Ranch Natural Beef. The Braford
is named for the cattle developed by Bud Adams. Plans are
for Chris Bireley, owner of the popular Osceola Bistro in Vero
Beach, to operate both eateries.
“We’ve got some of the best cattle in the country raised in
our own backyard,’’ Bireley said. “Now we’ll be able to bring
it to local tables.’’
The restaurants will have diͿerent concepts, Bireley
explained. One will be a steakhouse and the other a farm-to- >>