Scott Mitchell joins us to discuss the legendary Bob Snow, Seville Quarter and downtown Pensacola’s vibrancy.
BOB SNOW
“Bob Snow was the founder of Seville Quarter, the mentor for all of us and lifelong friend and did a lot of great work for downtown Pensacola. A lot of people have forgotten because he basically moved to Orlando in 1976 and did it bigger and better in Orlando. Downtown Orlando wouldn’t be what it is. There would be no Orlando Magic, none of that stuff.”
Scott shared how Snow and his dad, Wilmer Mitchell, come together. “Bob Snow walks into his office and says, ‘People say you should be my lawyer.’ They’d never met. It was a few weeks before Rosie O’Grady’s opened and my uncle Dickie Merritt, who ran the Pabst Blue Ribbon and Falstaff distributor, said, “You need to meet Wilmer Mitchell. Jerry Brower, my dad’s other roommate from college, also pointed Bob Snow to my dad. My dad had seen his band at Trader Jon’s, which by the way, was the hot spot – that shows you how bad the nightlife was. In the summer of 67, Trader Jon’s was the hottest place downtown.”
I’ve written about how Wilmer helped Snow get a bank loan to put for the bar’s air conditioning, but there’s more to the story.
“The part my dad left out is Bob Snow said, ‘I’ll give you half the business for 3,000 bucks,'” Scott shared. “And my dad said, ‘My wife is about to have our fifth child (Buck Mitchell), and she would kill me if I came home and said I took whatever savings they might’ve had and invested in a bar and restaurant.’ And we like to, every once in a while say, ‘We could have had half all this for that,’ and my dad laughs about that.”
And the audio version:
