- April 2, 2026
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In the mid-’70s, Alvis Hunt wanted out of coal country. With his mind set on Florida, he persuaded his family to relocate from a middle-of-nowhere burg in western Virginia to sunny Sarasota. The migration included his daughter Aledia, and her husband, Lee Tush, both in their early 20s. Alvis had been a serial entrepreneur in and around the town of Grundy, Virginia, and he wanted to set up Aledia and Lee with their own business. He homed in on Mr. CB’s Bait & Tackle, which first opened in 1959 on Stickney Point Road, and presented it to the kids as an opportunity. “He pulled me off the beach to go see it,” Aledia (pronounced “Aleeda”) Tush says.
The young couple was perplexed at first. Given their small-town Appalachian roots, neither had an affinity for bait, tackle or boats, let alone boat rentals and repairs. When they expressed their doubts to the paterfamilias, Alvis responded, “You’ll be fine.”
He bought the property and fronted the seed money to his daughter and son-in-law.
Aledia Tush (rhymes with brush) recounts this bit of family lore while eating Chick-fil-A in the cluttered upstairs office of CB’s Saltwater Outfitters. Also on hand is her son and business partner, Mason Tush. “Daddy was a man of few words,” she says of her late father. “And you’d better be listening when he talked.”
Alvis Hunt turned out to be right — and then some. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Tush family’s ownership. (Lee Tush, while no longer involved in the day-to-day operations, remains active in bookkeeping and strategic decisions.) The company has grown over the years to include a vast selection of clothing and beach products, a rental fleet of 18 boats, fishing charters, Jet Ski and golf cart rentals, and parasailing and Tiki-boat tours. In addition, CB’s has expanded from its original footprint to include the next-door Fin Island Co. boutique. In 2011, at Mason’s behest, the company bought an adjacent BP gas station, tore it down and put up a new building. They lease the top floor to the Daiquiri Deck.
Over the decades, CB’s Saltwater Outfitters has entrenched itself as a Siesta Key institution. And sitting at the head of the table is Aledia, the matriarch, still keeping full-time hours. “She’s the hardest worker of anyone I’ve ever known,” says Mason.
On this brisk morning in late January, a few days before her 73rd birthday, Aledia is wearing jeans, white sneakers and a royal blue Patagonia pullover that matches her eyes. A gold company name tag is pinned to her chest. To this day, she speaks with a coal-country drawl.
The woman exudes vitality. You’d expect nothing less from a three-time winner of the Sarasota Tarpon Tournament. Over time, Aledia became an avid angler but the early days of running a bait-and-tackle shop took some adjustment. And courage. “I remember one day gettin’ shrimp for a customer and one jumped out on the floor, and I thought … ” she pauses. “Luckily, the man picked it up for me and put it back in the tank. And I thought, ‘Well, I’m gonna have to do this one day.’ So I learned how.”
CB’s Saltwater Outfitters embodies the kind of family business that’s getting washed away with the tides. It’s the antithesis of a tacky retail emporium. The main store has expanded over the decades to about 4,000 square feet but retains a sense of intimacy. Friendliness permeates the place, whether it’s Alan, a retiree who greets me with “Welcome aboard!” as I enter the store, or the young man who smiles and says hello while working on a boat out back.
CB’s has long employed an array of part-time workers who range from seniors to high school kids. “We like to say it goes from AARPs to student IDs,” Mason says. People who come seeking a job at CB’s don’t get turned away and are told to fill out an application online. In fact, they might get interviewed and hired on the spot.
Of course, this ingrained conviviality extends to customers as well. “We have so many people coming in on vacation and the first thing they do is stop at CB’s, get their fishing license, bait buckets, beach stuff,” Mason says. “And they’re all excited. They’re on vacation now. We’re really proud of that, and we don’t take it for granted.”
Aledia Tush’s parents grew up in rural communities near the border of Kentucky and Virginia. Her mother, Edith, a schoolteacher, was a “rule follower,” according to Aledia. She and her younger sister, Barb, were expected to follow suit. Their father Alvis, more of a nurturer, was business driven. He served in WWII, got a degree from University of Kentucky on the GI Bill, worked in the coal business — although never in the mines — owned a hardware store and had interests in a bank and a Chrysler dealership. “I grew up ‘Alvis Hunt’s daughter,’” Aledia says proudly. “He was very well respected in the community, and I felt I had to live up to that.”
The Hunt family lived comfortably, Aledia says, certainly better off than many of her peers in the coal-centric community. The Hunt girls worked hard, stayed out of trouble and scored good grades. “I think I graduated 11 [in my class],” Aledia says. “I was really mad that I missed the top 10.” Going to college was a given. She graduated from Morehead State University in Kentucky with a double major in business and psychology. “I liked psychology, but my dad said, ‘You won’t be able to make any money doing that,’” she remembers. While in college, Aledia met Lee Tush, a couple of years older. They were married in 1974. The couple worked in Louisville for a year — Aledia at a bank, Lee in computer sales — before the move to Florida.
When the Tushes opened Mr. CB’s in 1976, business was anything but gangbusters out of the gate. “We didn’t even make minimum wage the first year,” Aledia recalls. “And it was a lot of hours. I remember our first $350 day, which was a pretty big deal.” As it happened, the Tushes had something working against them. Chuck Berecki (CB), the previous owner, was known as a grumpy character, lacking in people skills. “We started out with a business where nobody wanted to come in,” Aledia says, her eyes widening. “If we’d known that, we probably would’ve changed the name.”
The company didn’t drop the “Mr.” in Mr. CB’s until 1996.
Aledia says there was no master plan to build a saltwater retail dynasty, but there were a few inflection points. One, fairly early on, was when Lee convinced her to add T-shirts to the store inventory, which boosted traffic and launched their apparel line. After eight years co-running CB’s, Lee left to join an aluminum business that was associated with the family.
Adding Mason, now 43, to the company roster in 2005 provided a major boost. In high school he planned on joining the family business — but perhaps didn’t make that clear enough to mom. Aledia remembers, when “I was about 20, 25 years in [business], we were ridin’ in the car, and I’m sayin’, ‘Maybe it’s time to quit this, to sell it.’ And Mason — he was in high school — pipes up out of the back seat and goes, ‘I thought that’s what I was comin’ back to.’ So I figured I could last another, six or seven years.”
And counting …
Mason earned a marketing degree from University of Florida, took a couple weeks off and started work. He’s been the primary driver in acquiring the new properties, leasing to the Daiquiri Deck and forging partnerships that have added Jet Ski rentals, parasailing and Tiki boat tours.
For roughly the first half of her five decades as owner of CB’s Saltwater Outfitters, Aledia Tush dealt with the travails of being a woman in a so-called man’s business. She recalls going to trade shows in the early years, stopping at booths and “no one would pay attention to me.” As time went by, and CB’s grew to become a widely known brand, she earned her due respect. Two men she had met at those shows finally came around. Aledia recalls, “I was [at CB’s] 20 years and they said to me, ‘Well, we talked about it and we think you’re gonna make it.’”
All told, though, the sexism she endured didn’t take much of a toll. “I was too busy,” she says. “I didn’t have time to worry about all that.”
Aledia has no plans to retire, in part because she doesn’t know what she’d do with all the extra time. But she’s “actively, in her head, trying to” cut back on her hours, Mason says with a chuckle. Mother and son agree that, while they occasionally have disagreements, their working relationship is strong. “She puts a lot of stress on herself,” Mason says of his mother as we’re wrapping up our interview in the office. “She’s done so much. I’d like to see her relax more, have some fun.”
Aledia interjects, “I do have fun. I think I’ve gotten better at that. You know, the truth of the matter is, I’ve been pretty good at this. At a certain age, I’ve come to understand that the business is in good hands.”
She pauses, then adds quietly, “We are CB’s. We can. We will. And we do.” A company motto, if you will.
With that, her eyes mist up.
