D. Allen Wint said he was “recruited” to come to Ardmore. In fact, he and his wife Marilyn visited Ardmore before they were married.

“We knew a man named Cecil Woods who was manager and president of the Tom Cooper Dairy,” Wint said. “He kept telling me to come to Ardmore and run the restaurant at the dairy, so he invited us down to Ardmore to show us around and introduce us to some people.”

Marilyn’s aunt and uncle also lived in town, so they also showed the young couple around a bit as well. Wint said he saw potential in the restaurant but didn’t have the money to go into it.

“It had a good little business going, and I thought I could build it up, but I didn’t have any money. I couldn’t even buy the inventory because I just got out of college.”

But Mr. Woods gave him a deal.

“He said if you can get together a $100 worth of to put as change for the cash register, I’ll let you sign a note for all the inventory, all the groceries in the refrigerator – which would have been $700 or $800 back then. If you work your butt off and you get involved in this community, you’ll make it,” Wint said.

Wint took Woods up on the offer.

Wint and Marilyn were married on Feb. 6, 1960 in Stillwater. They then took a honeymoon at Lake Murray, and he opened the Tom Cooper Dairy Restaurant on Feb. 10.

Wint said the dairy restaurant did well until 1962 when the dairy was sold to a company out of Dallas who shut down the dairy and the restaurant.

He then had the opportunity to purchase the Tower Restaurant.

“I built that up really well and started doing a bit of catering out the back door even though I didn’t know anything about catering,” Wint said. “It was a good business until I-35 opened and it cut my business in half.

“I realized I needed to do something different. So I started investing in more catering.”

At about this time a former teacher reached out to Wint and asked if he would be interested in getting together in Nashville with a small group of guys to talk about catering.

“We had a guy from Minesota, one from California, one from Louisiana, one from Texas, and they all had their own little niche,” Wint said. “So we just picked each other’s brains.”

This little group started to grow and eventually it turned into the International Catering Association, a group with over 40,000 members.

Wint said his catering business really got started by doing some work for Uniroyal, but it grew from there. He said it was his barbeque that really put him on the map.

One of his first big interstate jobs was in Riverside California.

“I signed up to go to the World Champion Internation BBQ Rib Cookoff in Cleveland,” Wint said. “We were up there for a whole week, and we weren’t doing very good.

“About the third day this guy came up and told me he did big event in Riverside, CA out by the racetrack they always had a tent for three or four days. He said he wanted me to serve some real food. He asked if I ever did any catering out of town.

“One of my connections with the International Catering Association lived in Tarzana, California so I called her up and asked her if she wanted to make some big money.”

Then there was the time when he became the toast of the New England jet set.

“One of my most interesting parties I did was up in New Hampshire,” he said. “I got a phone call from this guy who said he was a party planner who was hosting a party for the Mellon family and some other family on their estate up in New Hampshire.

“They wanted a true western party. They were going to build a big barn and decorate it, but they needed me to do the barbeque.

Wint said he asked the man how he got his contact information and was told that Mrs. Mellon had tried his food at an event hosted by Judd Little.

“I’d never been to New England before, but that place was gorgeous,” Wint said. “Then from that party someone from Pittsfield, Massachusetts got my info. A guy called me and said his fiancé wanted to have a Texas Barbecue the night before their wedding.”

That event was another success and that led to Wint taking a job from CBS Boston to cater one of their events.

Wint said he officially closed his business in 2006 but has continued to do some smaller local events.

“I actually officially closed my business in 2006, but when I did my wife and son said you need to have a place to go every day,” he said. “And they were right. I like to stay busy.”