ORANGE BEACH, AL – When Mike Lane’s cousin and long-time business partner asked him if he wanted be in the restaurant business, his answer came quick.

“No!” Lane said with a laugh. “Absolutely not.”

He was sitting restaurant number four the pair have opened together. Their third Cactus Cantina was scheduled to open May 30 in The Commons in Orange Beach.

He and Bobby Wade had been in business together in Georgia since their teens. And a thriving insurance business they started with several offices was practically running itself.

“I got into the insurance business when I was 19,” he said. “I’m 36 now.”

They were looking to expand their enterprises in a new direction while keeping the insurance business.

“We’ve been in business together since we were 16 pushing lawnmowers,” Lane said. “All the insurance offices had their own managers and they all ran pretty smooth.

“He said ‘what do you want to do?’ I said ‘I don’t know what do you want to do?’ He said ‘why don’t we open a restaurant? Why don’t we open a Mexican restaurant?’”

After his initial reaction, eventually Lane warmed to the idea and in 2011 they opened Sticky Cactus in Atlanta. They have since sold that store, but opened two on the Gulf Coast under a different name.

Cactus Cantina in Gulf Shores opened in 2013 and has been quite successful. The second is in Pensacola across from the airport.

Diners on Pleasure Island have of late been given several new restaurant options with at least 15 new restaurants opening, preparing to open or with buildings under construction.

Lane and Wade’s new venture will be in the space formerly occupied by Century Link in a busy section of Canal Road that already has the iconic Doc’s Seafood Shack, Cosmo’s, Big Fish, Hot Rod’s Diner, O’Chopper’s pub, China King, El Potro as well as fast-food staples McDonald’s, Subway, Pizza Hut and Domino’s. Cosmo’s Courtyard recently added Luna’s Eat and Drink and BuzzKatz Coffee and Sweets.

“People always ask are we Tex-Mex, are we authentic Mexican?” Lane said. “I just like to describe it as authentic Mexican with an American twist. We have cheese grits on the menu and it’s got a little spice to it. It’s my aunt’s recipe.”

Cactus Cantina has thrived, Lane says, because they believe and fresh, quality ingredients.

“The food vendors always come to us and say all the other restaurants are selling this and it’s half of what you’re paying for your current beef or your current steak,” he said. “We’re never interested. We want high-quality stuff.

“We get it brought in every couple of days. Everything’s fresh, nothing’s ever frozen, everything is made from scratch every single day.”

Patrons rave about the light, tasty chips.

“The chips are fried every day, the salsa’s made every day,” Lane said. “When we first tried the chips and we went to the food vendor and tried probably 40 different chips that day. We didn’t want chips for a month.”

Like the other choices, Lane said, the chips they want served cost a little more, but it’s what people like.

“They are thin and crispy, they break easier so our yield’s less which costs us more money,” he said. “They’re probably $6 a case more but we don’t care about that. If you read all our comments on social media everybody compliments our guacamole, our salsa and our chips.”

Without an abundance of parking, Lane and Wade hope to get the city to allow them to have a patio in the few spots right by the front door. The Orange Beach Planning Commission tied 4-4 in a vote to allow the patio, but the tie means the request is denied.

They're appeal to the city council in a special meeting on May 23 was approved by the city.

The plan is to pour concrete even with the curbing around the parking spots with wrought iron fencing imbedded in the concrete to secure the area.

“If all goes well we’ll have a patio,” Lane said. “We’ll do it the first year with big canvas sails and see how that works. Then if we decide we want to cover it we’ll do the fans and TVs and all that stuff next year.”