South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Remember Tom’s Place BBQ in Boca Raton?
Landmark family-run restaurant’s famed ribs back in Boynton Beach
Belinda Wright and her staff wear shirts that call the restaurant “unsinkable.” A restored grill once used by her late father sits out back. A few weeks ago, workers put finishing touches on a new sign as past customers drove up, one in a Bentley, to ask if Tom’s Place had indeed returned.
A South Florida barbecue comeback has quietly begun. Tom’s Place, a legendary, familyrun restaurant known for its ribs, chicken, sauce and sides during its Boca Raton heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, was reborn in August at the Boynton Beach Mall.
“My vision and purpose is to honor my parents and keep their legacy alive,” says Belinda Wright, 58, daughter of Tom and Helen Wright, the restaurant’s late founders. “I want my dad to be proud of what we’ve done and what I’ve become.”
The new 200-seat restaurant
has no website, no Yelp reviews in its first three weeks, and a Facebook page that has recently come to life. But Belinda says hundreds turned out on opening weekend and a steady stream has come to check out the eatery, a site that was formerly Buca di Beppo. “I’ve got the snowbirds calling, customers from the old restaurant, saying this will be the first place they come after the airport,” Belinda says.
The restaurant, at 801 N. Congress Ave., features the same Southern soul food that her parents served at the original Tom’s Place, including ribs, fried catfish, pork chops, collard greens and black-eye peas. And the same barbecue sauce that once was bottled and sold at local supermarkets. Prices are reasonable to moderate, with sandwiches and platters ranging $6-$22. A $10 rib special (a half-pound with two sides) is available on Saturdays and Sundays. The new Tom’s Place is filled with memorabilia and autographed photos from past customers, including fight promoter Don King and football announcer John Madden.
Two of the six Wright children are involved with the relaunch. Belinda oversees the operation and her brother Kenny, 54, works the kitchen line at nights. At one point, Belinda’s sister Cassandra, 62, and brother Tom Jr., 61, were going to take part but they dropped out. “It’s been stressful,” Belinda says.
A fresh start
Tom and Helen Wright started Tom’s Place in 1977 in a small building on Dixie Highway near Glades Road, where lines were long and seats were scarce, then moved to larger digs on North Federal Highway in 1988. The restaurant closed in 2004, after Tom suffered a stroke. Helen died a few months later.
This isn’t the first rebirth of the famous name. Two of Belinda’s siblings revived Tom’s Place in West Palm Beach a decade ago, but it didn’t last. And Belinda started offshoots — a food truck and a small eatery on Boynton Beach Boulevard — earlier this decade.
The previous Boynton Beach restaurant made headlines when Belinda and her ex-husband, Jerome Juan Johnson, were arrested in 2012 and implicated in a drug ring. Police and prosecutors said Johnson used Tom’s Place as a safe haven to store and sell crack cocaine and opioid pills. He was convicted and is serving a 10-year prison sentence.
Belinda denied knowledge or involvement in the drug sales. Prosecutors dropped five of six charges against her, court records show, and a judge ruled her guilty of conspiracy to commit racketeering after she pleaded no contest. She was jailed for 64 days after her arrest and was sentenced to two years probation, a term that was cut by a year after she performed community service and stayed out of trouble.
“I’ve been in recovery 15 years — I was devastated by what that put on me,” Belinda says.
Faced with the prospect of a long prison term because she had a cocaine-possession conviction in 2000, she says she decided to take a plea deal.
“I’ve been clean a long time,” Belinda says. “I’m not going to tolerate any of that nonsense here.” She says she hires others in recovery and will drug-test employees. She is involved with the Crossroads Club of Delray Beach, where those with substanceabuse issues gather for meetings and support.
Belinda says Tom’s Place will always be closed on Tuesdays because that is when her cocainerecovery support group meets. Tom’s Place has multiple dining rooms, with each dedicated to a Wright family member. Belinda’s room is decorated with photos of friends who have helped her, and those she has mentored and sponsored who are open about their recovery.
Words of encouragement are seen throughout the restaurant. The menu says, “We give God the glory.” Signs and framed placards hang outside the kitchen: “Be kinder than necessary.” “Grateful, thankful, blessed.” “Be the good.” “Go with the flow.”
The kitchen is headed by barbecue veterans Ernest Wesley, of West Palm Beach, and Darnell Johnson, who last worked at a South Carolina restaurant. The new Tom’s Place has a full bar. Because felons cannot hold liquor licenses in Florida, Belinda had to step down as a corporate officer last month. State records list a business partner, Zeilder Williams, as CEO and her daughter, Starmieka Wright (who works at the restaurant on weekends), as president. Belinda previously called herself proprietor and manager. “Just call me Tom’s daughter,” she now says.
A daughter grows up
Belinda Wright says her father’s love of barbecue came from his Georgia childhood, where he grew up working on farms and in cotton fields before moving to
Florida. He started as a dishwasher and became an accomplished chef in a French restaurant. The success of Tom’s Place brought the family from public housing to a comfortable suburban house. It also brought Belinda
trouble. She says she became addicted to alcohol and drugs in her younger days.
“I worked at the restaurant and I always had cash in my pocket,” Belinda says. “I was spoiled. We grew up eating steak and shrimp scampi at home. At Christmas and the holidays the living room was always filled with presents.”
Belinda says she has been sober for 15 years, since July 28, 2004, the day her mom died. Her father died in February 2006. “My dad worked so hard for all of us — I took a lot of things for granted,” she says. “It wasn’t until they were gone that I really grew up.”
Her parents were married 48 years. Tom oversaw the food and Helen, a stylish dresser, would work the front of the house. On the “Let’s Eat, South Florida” Facebook group, longtime customer Charles Shollenberger recalled going to the original Tom’s Place in the early 1980s and being greeted by Helen “in her Tina Turner wigs … Tom would bring quarts of beer when you waited in line. The jukebox had a sign ‘No dancing at meal hours.’ ”
Tom’s Place engendered loyalty from customers and employees because the Wrights treated people right, Belinda says. Customers from the Boca Raton glory days say they are eager to see Tom’s Place reborn in Boynton. “Counting the minutes,” Eric Turco wrote on Tom’s Place Facebook page. “We used to drive from North Miami Beach to Glades Road … sooooo worth it,” wrote Rhonda Sawransky on Facebook. “Looking forward to the grand opening,” wrote Socky Feinberg.
Belinda has been loyal, too. Through all her years and businesses, she has kept the old Tom’s Place phone number.
The Buca di Beppo site had been vacant for a while, so Belinda says it took longer than expected to fix, clean and redecorate the new restaurant. “I don’t want to be one of those restaurants on TV with the bugs,” she says. “We’re going to do this right.”