"Zeke's Landing" is so called in memory of a farsighted turn-of-the-century Pleasure Island land pioneer.

This man, whose descendants still live in the area, envisioned greater things for the 1,000 acres of wild and glistening white, sand dune-covered land he homesteaded after a vicious hurricane in 1926 drove out the previous settler. The area from Fort Morgan to Romar Beach was an unpopulated peninsula. Only a few families’ bad preceded Zeke to the Orange Beach area.

Zeke was not a man to shirk. A native of Mobile, be earned a varsity letter on Vanderbilt University's 1909-1910 basketball team, and is known even today as "one of the university's greatest," A mechanical engineer by trade, Zeke was an avid fisherman and sportsman/explorer traveling to the far reaches of the world

Most folks of Zeke's time and place were bewildered by his fascination with this difficult to reach claim between Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. But Zeke knew the answer. He found its natural beauty irresistible the snowy dunes, the clear Gulf of Mexico beating on a pristine shore; the abundant harvest of the sea and the teeming shellfish banks in its bays.

Biting flies and ferocious alligators in swampy areas where the norm in these parts so long ago, The miserable hours spent traversing a "three-trail-road" wagon wheels on the outside; mule in the middle and the final, often hazardous skiff voyage to reach the homestead barely dimmed Zekes enthusiasm for his newfound Eden, according to accounts.

Zeke, reigned for a time as king of this remote paradise. The land bas over the years been subdivided but Zekes name lives on, not only in this restaurant but at Romar Beach, were a combination of Zeke Martin’s name and that of his partner, Spurgen Roach, keeps the legend alive.