The Ovation Bistro & Bar at 4715 S. Florida Ave. is gone. In its place, in the same building South Lakeland families have been pulling into for years, is Margarita's Cocina Mexicana, which quietly started serving friends and family on July 17. The walls are deep green now, the menu is Mexican, and for the moment the doors do not open until 4 p.m.
The owners are the same two people who ran the Ovation: brothers Joel Rodriguez, 47, and Fernando Rodriguez, 44. They are Army veterans who served together in Afghanistan and came home to the United States on July 4, 2005. Between them they now operate five restaurants in Polk County: two remaining Ovation Bistro & Bars and three Margarita's.
Joel spent roughly $50,000 on the conversion. Along with the paint, he hung Mexican hats and prints from La Lotería, the bingo-style card game the family played at home when he was a kid.
Who Margarita is
She is their mother, and she is a real person who still stops by the restaurants to check the food.
Margarita grew up in China, Nuevo León, in northeastern Mexico, and came to the U.S. at 16 to work as a nanny, following an older sister. The nanny work was seasonal, so she picked fruit in Indiana and Florida in the off months. She met the brothers' father at a migrant camp in Indiana.
When her sons decided to build a restaurant around her cooking, she helped them scale the recipes so the kitchen could actually turn them out. Joel says everything is made in small batches, and that the spices and rubs are done in-house rather than bought in. His framing of the concept is that a customer is being invited to the family's house, and that the food on the plate is his mother's food.
Why Lakeland was next
The first Ovation opened in Davenport in 2014, built out of the barbecue the brothers used to cook for fun. Joel had come up through restaurant kitchens after the Army, starting as a dishwasher at Outback Steakhouse and working his way to managing partner in Clermont before deciding the corporate side had stopped being enjoyable.
The Mexican concept arrived a decade later, in Davenport, and it worked faster than he expected. Last summer the brothers converted Social on Cypress in Winter Haven into a Margarita's, and Joel says sales there doubled what the previous concept was doing. That is the math that put Lakeland in line third.
Where to find each concept now
If you were an Ovation regular, the brand still exists. It is just no longer in Lakeland.
| Concept | Location |
|---|---|
| Margarita's | Lakeland, 4715 Florida Ave. S. |
| Margarita's | Davenport, 45653 US-27 |
| Margarita's | Winter Haven, 7350 Cypress Gardens Blvd. |
| Ovation | Davenport, 42605 US Hwy. 27 |
| Ovation | Winter Haven, 7130 Cypress Gardens Blvd. |
A family payroll
Joel's oldest daughter, Ariana, 19, manages and bartends at the Davenport Margarita's while studying photonics. His sister, Nelly, runs the Winter Haven restaurant. His wife, Tamra Legron-Rodriguez, a chemistry professor, handles the interior design, which explains the green walls and the Lotería prints. The youngest, Cecilia, 6, is the household taste-tester, and her stated preferences are tacos and tater tots.
The military thread in the family runs back further than the brothers. Their great-grandfather served in World War I and their grandfather in Italy during World War II, with relatives in Vietnam and Desert Storm. Joel enlisted at 18 straight out of high school, got out, then reenlisted a couple of months later specifically so he could deploy to Afghanistan alongside Fernando. He served close to 10 years.
If you're going
The Lakeland location is listed at 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week, with a phone number of 863-300-0545. That is a shorter day than the Davenport and Winter Haven Margarita's, which both open at 11 a.m., and it reflects the deliberate slow start: the owners are working out kinks and getting staff trained before pushing volume. Expect lunch service and longer hours to follow once the kitchen settles. Menus and online ordering for all three are at margaritascm.com.
More Lakeland openings, closings and neighborhood business news is at Lakeland Community Website, and you can read more local business coverage in our business section or see what's opening next in coming soon. Been in yet? Tell us what you ordered and join the conversation in our Community Forum.
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