McCray’s BBQ hosts three-day event to commemorate 90 years in business
A black business in West Palm Beach in 1934 was a hope, an acorn planted with the dream that it could — with proper care and luck — grow into a tall and mighty oak tree.
Today, McCray’s Backyard Barbecue and Seafood is that oak tree, a well-established business with long-standing ties to West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach.
To commemorate 90 years in business, McCray’s is hosting a three-day outdoor event at its West Palm Beach location at 3950 Georgia Avenue. The event, which began Friday and runs through Sunday, features a DJ, pool, art and, of course, food. Lots and lots of food.
Food has been at the heart of McCray’s since its inception all those years ago. Food and fighting.
“I had to go through some tough times,” said Derrick McCray, the current owner of the business. ” It was very difficult. »
McCray was talking about the business dispute that forced him out of the 45th Street location in Riviera Beach, which customers became aware of. He also spoke about the deaths of his father, Herman McCray Jr., his mother, Lillian McCray, and his brother, Demetrius McCray Sr.
They all took turns running the company founded in 1934 by Derrick McCray’s great-great aunt and her husband, Jay Harvey.
West Palm Beach was a very different city then. Its population was approaching 30,000, a far cry from its current 117,000.
Today, Florida is all about sunshine and palm trees, but then it was a mosquito-infested area, often inhospitable to black people in general, let alone black people having the audacity to open a business.
Larry Little, Miami Dolphins legend and longtime friend of Derrick McCray, said he knew it couldn’t have been an easy road.
“I heard him tell the story of the hell his grandfather went through in Palm Beach County,” said Little, who, like another former NFL star, Anthony Carter, stopped by Saturday to join the celebration and enjoy some barbecue.
It was all smiles on Georgia Avenue on Saturday, as children splashed in the pool, music blared and Derrick McCray’s many friends and relatives came to give him hugs and hugs.
McCray, once a star athlete who made it to the NFL, was in an expansive mood, trying to tell a little of his company’s history as people came into a small studio near his business to say hello.
What started with Harvey was passed to Herman McCray in the late 1960s. Herman McCray would reorient the company and use it as a platform for civil rights work, advocating for black residents of West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach.
In the 1940s, he had lost his father and needed work. He went to Harvey’s and asked for a job. “My father eventually learned how to cook ribs, clean them, everything,” McCray said. “(Harvey) raised him like a son.”
When it was Herman’s turn to run the company, he did so with the help of his own sons.
“I worked for my dad when I was a kid,” said McCray, who took over the business in the early 2000s as his parents’ health began to deteriorate. “I had to step up, be a man and take care of my parents.”
The road hasn’t been easy, but McCray has made friends with people who have been happy to lend him a helping hand in difficult times. Those friends include Little and Carter and Rodney Mayo, who runs businesses on Clematis Street and has allowed McCray to operate a Georgia Avenue property he owns.
McCray’s NFL ties have also been significant. He’s been a food vendor at 18 Super Bowls and plans to bring his barbecue and specialty sauces to New Orleans when the Big Easy hosts the big game in February.
In August, it plans to open two new locations, one at Roseland Drive and Henry Avenue and another at 237 Blue Heron Blvd. at the Riviera beach.
McCray, whose two sons, Derrick McCray Jr., 35, and Kindall Jackson, 31, help him in the business, connected with a consultant, Charlie Guzzetta of DEPO LLC, to help him to expand its opportunities.
Guzzetta said the future is bright for McCray’s and could include franchising, sauce manufacturing and corporate store development. “There are great opportunities for growth and development with McCray’s,” Guzzetta said.
McCray said he sees things the same way. He said he would be open to partnering with investors to continue growing the business.
“Our hopes have always been high,” McCray said. “I want to keep it going for another 100 years.”
Today’s celebration is from 1 to 5 p.m. at Peach, 3950 Georgia Ave., West Palm Beach.
Wayne Washington is a reporter covering West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and race relations for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at wwashington@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today.
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