A downtown tradition for nearly 73 years, the family-owned Tunnel Bar-B-Q restaurant has been sold to the University of Windsor and will eventually be demolished to make way for a new arts school.
The announcement came Friday at a media conference at Mayor Eddie Francis’ office attended by the mayor, university president Alan Wildeman, TBQ owner Thom Racovitis, and daughter Helena Ventrella.
The restaurant at 58 Park St. E., internationally famous for its ribs and chicken, was the last visible part of a once impressive hospitality empire that was begun by the Racovitis family in 1941.
At its height, Tunnel Bar-B-Q and its various branch operations had 596 employees. Now, only 49 remain at the restaurant across from the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel.
“I didn’t sleep last night,” said the 71-year-old Racovitis in anticipation of Friday’s announcement. “But I have a habit of that.”
Racovitis wore his familiar TBQ chef’s uniform to the news conference. Carrying a cane and aided by his daughter, he appeared frail and was wearing a hospital band on his wrist because of regular dialysis treatments.
It was a far cry from the robust, outspoken restaurateur who for decades has been Windsor’s hospitality patriarch.
Wildeman tried to put a positive spin on things by saying, “The TBQ site will go from nourishing the body to nourishing the mind.”
Tunnel Bar B.Q. owner Thom Racovitis discusses the sale of his business to the University of Windsor at City Hall Friday, May 2, 2014. The University of Windsor bought the property for $4 million and will use it as an alternative location for the arts programs. (DYLAN KRISTY/The Windsor Star)
The irony is the university was forced to buy the Tunnel BBQ property to avoid disturbing the Detroit-Windsor tunnel directly below its Armouries development.
Plans originally called for the use of the former Greyhound bus terminal on University Ave. E. to build an ancillary structure to the new School for Arts and Creative Innovation in the old Armouries.
But studies showed it would have proved too costly to avoid interfering with the tunnel which runs underneath.
The university paid $4 million for the restaurant and surrounding land, including a parking lot to the north and a residential building on Goyeau Avenue. The cost of the new building is estimated to be $8.5 million, and is in addition to the $32.6 million already slated for the Armouries project.
Mayor Francis declared he will miss TBQ. “Growing up it was a treat if our parents came home with ribs. I’ve been spoiled being able to work here for the past several years because when it’s my time to make dinner, I can just go across the street and dinner is served.”
The restaurant will remain open through the summer, said Racovitis, and close in September. But he hinted that might not be the final chapter for his business.
While the restaurant business as a whole is in decline, he said, take-outs and catering are up.
“I feel this is the right time (to sell). But I feel that one door closes and another door opens. We’re going to look at other doors opening, and probably in the food business.”
Ventrella, who went to work for her father at the former TBQ’s Other Place as a “salad girl” when she was 13, said the family will look to expand its take-out business and market the popular TBQ Sauce.
Harry and Helen Racovitis opened their first restaurant in 1941 where Thom and his sister, Valerie Stoiantsis, started working as kids.
The business greatly expanded under Thom Racovitis to include an upscale restaurant and caterer, TBQ’s Other Place, on Dougall Avenue, a catering business at Willistead Manor, another restaurant, TBQ’s Market Place, in the Holiday Inn Select on Huron Church Road, and a wholesale pastry supplier. In 2008, the family was pulled apart by a court battle over proprietary rights to the sauce.
Most of the businesses are gone now and employment at the restaurant is down to just 49 from a high of 139. Once a popular breakfast stop for legal workers from the former provincial courthouse nearby, TBQ isn’t even open for breakfast anymore, except on Sunday.
Racovitis declared bankruptcy in 2005 and closed briefly under the weight of a $3.7-million debt. Following restructuring, the operations resumed within months, but staff and operating hours at the restaurant were cut back.
Racovitis said his employees were not so much surprised by the sale but by the fact he’d finally agreed to sell.
“We’ve been approached many times over the last 30 years at least,” he said.
He said other offers have been higher than the $4 million from the university, but they didn’t offer the chance to be part of a continuing legacy.
“It was important to us to see the facility, rather than go on to be demolished with no potential for the future, to see it used for higher education.”
Ventrella said the Racovitis name will forever be connected with the site, and added, “I’m thrilled to see the University of Windsor take over. I love the concept that this is almost going to be like a little Ann Arbor in Windsor.”
