Alford's Bar-B-Q 50 years of business turns dream into reality

State Representative Otto Bean presents Don Alford with a House Resolution for his 50 years of service to the community [Click to enlarge]

A family restaurant recently received recognition for a half of a century of service to the Kennett area. Don and Mary Ellen Alford, owners of Alford's Bar-B-Q, have worked hard to extend a 50-year-old family tradition of feeding and entertaining the community.

With its normal capacity crowd enjoying an early lunch, State Representative Otto Bean, Jr., R-Holcomb, presented Don Alford with a plaque containing a House Resolution honoring Alford for his 50 years of service to the Kennett community.

Bean talked about his experiences with Alford's Barbecue, "I can remember almost when it began in 1953. It started out with Mr. Alford, George and his wife, Margaret, and they only had about four or five seats in the whole restaurant. But there were a lot of take-out orders."

Not only was there great amounts of food, there were many activities that were offered to the community.

"There were all kinds of activities down there," Bean said. "People would come in and get their take-out orders and maybe there was a basketball game, a baseball game going on, they did so much to keep the children off the streets and they entertained all the time."

The Alford family has also contributed to the history of Kennett.

"When Kennett decided to put their signs up, I believe at that time there were about four entrances that they had signs and Mr. [George] Alford wanted 'Kennett Can' on all of them and for many years on the signs was 'Kennett Can'." Bean reflected.

So how did Alford enter the barbecue business? Looking back, Alford said he was working in Chicago.

"My daddy just had a dream," said Alford. "I came home every holiday, not just because I love my family, but I loved to eat. My dad was a cook! He said that he was ready to quit and one us was going to have to take it over. My other brothers had been on their jobs for a long time, so I moved back in 1967."

Alford went from failure to failure after running his father's restaurant, but then finally got a break with a restaurant that had significant value to him and others around the community. Though the restaurant eventually failed, it broke down a long time color barrier.

Alford explained, "What was big to me was when I was a high school kid, blacks couldn't go into Reed's and eat, nor any other restaurant. And it was through the Man upstairs and my faith in the product that Mrs. Reed later asked me to buy that restaurant."

In 1985 Alford's was born. Alford explains how he finally succeeded and found the right spot, "Bud and Tony Parr would come by the house, Tony was like another son and was around the house all the time," said Alford, "I always bought all my hamburger meat from Bud and he had bought this building but nobody that was in it lasted. Bud asked me to buy the building and finally we got together, made a deal, and Alford's Bar-B-Q was born."

"I would be working on the building cleaning and fixing it up and I would see all these cars turning around in our parking lot and I would say 'these people can't wait' and what it was, was all these kids driving and turning around," laughed Alford.

When asked for thoughts about what the biggest thing Alford's has done for the community, Mary Ellen Alford responded, "We just provided a service that people need, people like to eat. Don has done a lot of community work for organizations and he is on the new First Tee committee and otherwise we're just human, we just live."

Alford added about the presentation, "It's a great honor that someone would care enough about us to say thanks for 50 years." As for Alford's thoughts, "My dad believed in Kennett, I believe in Kennett. I just want all people, especially kids to know that you can be anything that you want to be, color has no barrier." He added, "Be the best janitor, be the best brick layer, whatever you do, just be yourself. Do whatever you set out to do and do it as good as you can do and eventually your dream will come true."