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Restaurant's Success Sticks To Your Ribs

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By MEGAN HUSSEY, Tribune correspondent

Published: October 28, 2007

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LACOOCHEE - 'Hard work, good food and good, satisfied customers' is how owner Gene Alford defines the winning formula behind George and Gladys' Bar-B-Que, a Dade City area restaurant that is celebrating 50 years in business this year.

According to a customer count begun in 1977, more than 3,500,000 people have dined at George and Gladys' - and that doesn't count those served at outside events catered by the restaurant, or those who visited George and Gladys' prior to 1977.

'We figured that, if we lined all those people up, it would form a line from Florida to the Canadian border,' chuckled Larry Alford, Gene Alford's son and manager of George and Gladys'.

The restaurant was the brainchild of Gene Alford's parents, George and Gladys Alford. In 1955, they built a 24-by-24 foot building, on an acre and a half of land just off U.S. 301, five miles north of Dade City.

'They were self-starters,' said Gene Alford. 'They liked being self-employed.'

They also liked restaurant work, this owing to the family's multigenerational 80-year involvement in the culinary business. Their restaurant grew quickly, with major building additions in 1962, 1971 and 1974. The eatery became known for signature dishes such as ribs, chicken, chipped pork and beef.

'I can't name one dish that's more popular than the others,' said Hazel Pratt, a retired George and Gladys' waitress who served the restaurant for 36 years. 'It all equals itself out.'

According to Gene Alford, servers like Pratt further enhanced the restaurant's popularity and success.

'She came to know customers' names, and what they order,' he said.

Pratt, for her part, credits the Alfords with creating a positive, family-oriented atmosphere.

'This is my second family, and they make the restaurant a good place to be,' she said. 'I still come here to eat and visit all the time. It's a wonderful place.'

Indeed, George and Gladys' remains very much a family affair. A photo of George Alford, who died in a 1964 auto accident, and Gladys Alford, who died in 1990, is featured prominently in a restaurant brochure. Aside from Gene and Larry Alford, Larry Alford's sons, Jeremy and Brad, now work at the restaurant.

'This is a restaurant people go out of their way to visit, from places like Brooksville, Zephyrhills, Lakeland and Tampa,' said Gene Alford, who noted that a few of the longtime customers who attended the restaurant's 50th anniversary celebration Oct. 7 were more than 100 years old. 'People like the family atmosphere.'

Some of this clientele has included celebrities such as tennis star Jim Courier, who mentioned the restaurant on an internationally televised broadcast of the French Open in 1991. George and Gladys' later catered Courier's retirement party.

Through the years, George and Gladys' Bar-B-Que has sought to balance the old with the new. A covered wagon sits outside the restaurant, and its decor features classic model car displays and nostalgic photos and paintings. Yet its menu has been updated to add popular dishes such as chicken wings and cold submarine sandwiches to the traditional barbecue fare.

Even so, as it prepares to enter its fourth generation of family ownership, the corporate slogan of George and Gladys' Bar-B-Que remains the same: 'Nothing fancy, nothing new, just good bar-b-que.'

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