A Rags to Riches Tale on the Avenue:
Barbecue Whiz Sees Her Dreams Come True

BERKELEY -- It all started in 1973 with a dream of a better future. That was the year a poor black woman named Dorothy Everett (now Ellington-Turner), a divorced mother with nine young children to support, decided to try to earn more than the $2 per hour she was making as a cook.

With $700 to her name, a loan from a friend named Cora McKinney, and a week's line of credit from food suppliers, she opened the first Everett and Jones Barbecue on East 14th and 92nd Streets in Oakland.

Her goal? To one day open one for each of her nine children.

Nearly 30 years later, Ellington-Turners's longshot aspiration is amazingly close to fulfillment. The family business now includes six restaurants (five in the East Bay and one in Stockton) which rank highly among many fine barbecue joints lining San Pablo Avenue in the East Bay, including Doug's, Flint's, and Chef Edward's.

Mary Everett, 46, is the sixth child in the family of eight girls and one boy. She took over the Berkeley restaurant, located at 1955 San Pablo Ave., from her mother in 1982. Even with the personal and family success, she doesn't forget growing up poor in a three-bedroom home, three or four to a room.

"We didn't have a choice [not to work]," said Everett, who started in her mother's Oakland restaurant when she was 17. "When you have nine children, they are your employees."

At 21, Everett suffered an accident with a butcher's knife that nearly cost her a finger.

"I cut halfway through," she said, pointing to the location of her sliced finger.

Stitching healed the finger and now it's a fond memory she shares with customers who watch in awe as Jimmy Jones, her cook of 16 years, comes within centimeters of his hand with the three-inch blade.

No longer a chef, she arrives at work six days a week in her yellow Corvette convertible to supervise her employees, who affectionately call her "May." Most of the 16 employees have worked for her for at least four years. Her manager, Mercedes Madison, has been with her 13.

"I've worked a gang of other jobs," said Madison, 35. "This is the best job and the best boss. I couldn't work for anybody else."

Her employees like the way she treats them with respect. Even on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, Mary comes to work, just like they do.

An oakwood smoke scent fills the restaurant. A display on the wall shows autographed photos of noteworthy customers: John Madden, filmmaker Saul Zaentz, and NBA players Joe Smith, Donyell Marshall, and Brian Shaw. A 23 year-old man named Gaylord Franklin appears in the door and a smile lights up on his and Everett's face.

"She is the kindest woman I've ever met," Franklin says, a family friend since he was nine.

Mary, a single mother of three, hopes to carry on the family tradition. Her eldest son, 23 year-old Shamar Cotton, is now working towards his Master's degree in hotel and restaurant management. With the help of his mother and family, he plans to open his own a Sacramento Everett and Jones one day.

"I want each of my three children to own a restaurant one day," she said.