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Sarasota Crash Victim Loved Cooking Up Restaurants

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By MARK ZALOUDEK

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: July 11, 2008

SARASOTA - Restaurateurs Judy and Larry Terrell, who founded several restaurant chains including Durango's, Santa Fe Steakhouse and Whiskey Creek Wood Fire Grill, were always thinking about their next venture.

He was making plans to open an inexpensive burger and rib restaurant in Florida. She was excited about starting a fast-food restaurant for the health-conscious.

All that changed when a teenage driver broadsided Judy Terrell's Dodge Neon on June 8 on Proctor Road in Sarasota.

Authorities say 17-year-old Riverview High School student Brad Knight ran a red light shortly after 7 p.m. and crashed into Terrell.

The 49-year-old, who enjoyed sharing her love of the outdoors with her husband and 13-year-old son, was critically injured and airlifted to Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, where she died the next day.

"I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do now," her husband said. "I've lost my partner. Right now, everything's on hold."

He estimated they had opened more than 60 restaurants in 17 states since they were married in 1981.

They met in 1980 while he was managing two Fat Boys Bar-B-Que franchises he owned near New Port Richey. He hired the St. Petersburg native and sixth-generation Floridian as a dining room manager.

The couple opened a Fat Boys franchise in Colorado after moving to Fort Collins in 1983.

In 1984, they started a ribs and steak restaurant, the Great American Rib Co., which quickly grew to three restaurants in Denver and Fort Collins.

They returned to Florida to open an upscale breakfast and lunch restaurant in Boca Raton in 1987 and a Mexican restaurant, Bandito's, in Lakeland in 1988.

They created a Southwestern-themed restaurant, Santa Fe Steakhouse, in Venice in 1989, and opened a second one in Sarasota two years later.

They sold the franchise rights to a group of investors in the early 1990s but retained ownership of the restaurants in Sarasota and Venice.

They opened their first Western-style steakhouse, Durango's, in Clearwater in 1992, followed by several other Durango's in Florida, before selling the chain to a partner in 1995.

That same year they founded the Whiskey Creek Wood Fire Grill in Orlando and opened one in Port Charlotte the following year. They returned to Colorado and opened several more Whiskey Creek restaurants in the Midwest before selling the chain, which now has more than 20 restaurants, in 2000.

The couple returned to Sarasota about a year ago to pursue new restaurant ventures.

"We were total partners until we got a concept totally figured out," Larry Terrell said. "Once we actually started a new operation, I put together the kitchen and she did the dining room and bar and handled the personnel. She was an absolute guru at building a team-spirited work force."

They sold most of their enterprises and closed "maybe two or three that were in the wrong place," he said.

Judy Terrell turned to the outdoors for relaxation from her demanding career.

"She was happiest when she was sleeping in a tent somewhere in the Colorado Rockies. She loved hiking, whitewater rafting, skiing - all the things you do in the mountains," her husband said.

Two years ago, she helped her son, then 11, to earn a special Boy Scout merit badge by spending the night in an unheated tent in the Rockies where the outdoor temperature never climbed above 10 degrees below zero.

Services for Judy Terrell were held in June in Sarasota.

In addition to her husband and son, Travis, she is survived by a stepson, Allen, of Bradenton; her parents, Bob and Erlene Prevatt of Aripeka; a brother, Bob Prevatt Jr. of Largo; and two sisters, Sheryl Adams of Nashville and Nawana Fogg of Aripeka.

Memorial donations may be made to the Judy Terrell Memorial Fund at Wachovia banks for her son, a student at Sarasota Middle School.

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