Five West Ashley businesses share their experiences carrying on the family legacy
by Lorne Chambers | Editor
West Ashley has deep roots. And a lot of them come from strong family trees that spread throughout our community and into our local businesses. Mom and Pop shops have long been the backbone of West Ashley and in an erea when big chain stores and restaurants are closing in, we should really celebrate and support those family-owned businesses that have served this community for decades. With Father’s Day on Sunday, June 19, we want to honor the patriarchs who have built lasting businesses and their sons and daughters who are keeping their legacy alive by continuing to run them and evolve them so that they may be around for future generations.
For this special Father’s Day section, West Of Free Press caught up with five local businesses where fathers and sons and/or fathers and daughters have worked (or still work) together to build something special, including West Ashley Dental, Bessinger’s BBQ, A&A Insurance, Burbage’s Meats, and Ledford’s Pest Control. Thank-you to all family-owned business and to all those father’s out there who have taught their children the value of hard work and the importance of family.
West Ashley has deep roots. And a lot of them come from strong family trees that spread throughout our community and into our local businesses. Mom and Pop shops have long been the backbone of West Ashley and in an area when big chain stores and restaurants are closing in, we should really celebrate and support those family-owned businesses that have served this community for decades. With Father’s Day on Sunday, June 19, we want to honor the patriarchs who have built lasting businesses and their sons and daughters who are keeping their legacy alive by continuing to run them and evolve them so that they may be around for future generations.
For this special Father’s Day section, West Of Free Press caught up with five local businesses where fathers and sons and/or fathers and daughters have worked (or still work) together to build something special, including West Ashley Dental, Bessinger’s BBQ, A&A Insurance, Burbage’s Meats, and Ledford’s Pest Control. Thank-you to all family-owned business and to all those father’s out there who have taught their children the value of hard work and the importance of family.
Something to Smile About
Dr. Martin Toporek honors father’s legacy through West Ashley dental practice
In 2008, Dr. Martin Toporek, purchased West Ashley Dental Associates from his father Dr. Stanley Toporek, a legend in the local dentistry world. The elder Toporek, who passed away in 2016, left a legacy that his son honors every day when he walks through the doors of his Ashley River Road practice. West Ashley Dental Association has been in its current West Ashley home since 1989, but Stanley Toporek actually started the business decades earlier in downtown Charleston. When he moved the practice from the peninsula, it was the only medical office located that far out in West Ashley. Now there are dozens. So, he was a pioneer in business as well as in dentistry.
Martin Toporek says the special thing about this office was when his dad started in the 1960s he was the only one that could do complete dentistry, meaning besides cleanings and minor dental procedures, he was doing his own root canals and crowns and things that usually required a referral to a specialist. Like his father, Toporek has created his own niche within the local dentistry scene. Renowned locally for his “smile makeovers,” Toporek mixes cutting-edge procedures with tried-and-true techniques to find the best fit for his patients. Whether it’s Invisalign, vaneers, dental implants, or teeth whitening, his artist side really shines through when working on improving people’s smiles.
Toporek says that he didn’t always want to be a dentist. That initially he wanted to be either an architect or a veterinarian. But found that ultimately dentistry fit him well, as he was able to use his artist talents to help improve people’s lives. Combining his artistic talents with his rigorous dental training turned out to be good business for Toporek, who stays busy with new clients or repeat customers who have been coming to either him or his father for the last 50 years.
Dr. Toporek says he still sees dental work his father did decades ago. “Dad’s work has lasted exceptionally longer than it should have,” he says. But he doesn’t have to see a filling or a crown that his father put on to be reminded that he’s walking in the footsteps of a giant.
“He lives in these walls,” says Toporek. “He sits on my shoulder all day and screams in my ear. I can’t get him out of my head. But he keeps me straight, keeps me honest, and keeps me doing the right thing. It’s a good thing … even if it drives me a little crazy some days.”
Keeping the Fires Going
For more than 80 years, Bessinger’s BBQ has remained a family tradition
Since 1939, the name Bessinger has been synonymous with barbecue. They have been called “South Carolina’s First Family of Barbecue” and these days brothers Michael and Tommy Bessinger Jr. are keeping that family flame rolling at their iconic Savannah Highway barbecue restaurant that bares their name. Tommy and Michael’s grandfather Joe Bessinger started the business in Holly Hill and taught his five sons the craft of making slow-smoked pulled pork with his famous mustard-based barbecue sauce. Joe David, Maurice, Melvin, Robert, and Thomas all went on to run their own restaurants at some point. Bessinger’s Barbecue in West Ashley is a culmination of decades of hard work by Thomas, now 90 years old, but remains a fixture around the restaurant. His sons Tommy and Michael now officially own the business and are keeping the home fires burning while adapting to an ever-changing industry.
Michael started in the family business filling bottles of Bessinger’s famous Carolina Gold Barbecue Sauce at around the age of 7 or 8. By 13 he was officially working in the restaurant. His father has always been there, leading by example.
“I’ve never seen anyone more committed or work harder than that man,” says Michael of his father. “Working beside him over the years, he has taught me a lot. Not really about cooking either, but just watching him, I learned that it takes more than the label of someone call you ‘chef’ to be successful.”
Over the course of the 80-plus decades that Bessinger’s has been in existance, there have been some incredible changes to the industry, to Charleston, and to the country. The Bessingers have been slinging pulled pork with tangy mustard sauce since before World War II. However, the last couple years have provided unqiue challenges that no one could have predicted. It’s not always easy, but Michael says it’s extremely important to keep the family legacy going for as long as he can. Even as the restaurant industry as a whole is experiencing staffing shortages, his oldest son and daughter have stepped in to help. Michael’s wife Faith also works in the family business.
“My goal is to hit a milestone that my father or grandfather could have never imagined. That’s the 100-year mark,” he says. Michael says he will be 64 at that point he may be ready to step away from day-to-day of the business. Whether or not one of his two sons or daughter will be willing to continue the business at that point, he says he’s going to leave that up to them.
Placing a Premium on Family
West Ashley’s A&A Insurance has been a family affair for more than two decades
Marty Adams signed his first insurance contract in 1979. More than 40 years later, the co-owner of A&A Insurance on Sam Rittenberg Boulevard still enjoys coming into the office every day. “I can’t imagine not being here. I can’t imagine being retired,” he says. “The undertaker is going to have to carry me out of here.”
Marty’s son Bradley Adams (the other A in A&A) has been right there along with his father for more than two decades. In 1999 Bradley graduated from Sea Island Academy and Marty wanted to teach Bradley the business. But at the time, he was working for First Federal, who had bought his first insurance company from him. Marty didn’t feel he would be able to properly teach Bradley the ropes of the business while still working there, so he left First Federal and he and his son launched A&A Insurance. Nearly a quarter of a century later, A&A has established itself as well-respected company insuring many homes, businesses, vehicles, and boats in West Ashley and beyond. “
We serve all over the state but we try to focus on local. We both live West Ashley and work West Ashley,” says Bradley, whose daughter is a rising junior at West Ashley High School. In addition to bringing access to a whole new generation of clients, Bradley has also helped move A&A into the 21st century technologically.
“Back in the days when I first started, I had a calculator and rate page to figure out premiums. Now, it’s mostly automated,” says Marty, who has clients who he’s known for decades that still come into the office.
“I’ve learned his way of paper filing and the old way of doing stuff, but I also moved us more online,” says Bradley, who tends to handle most of the sales side of things these days, while Marty still handles the business and paperwork.
“Not everyone can say that they get to come into the office and hang out with their dad every day,” says Bradley. “Yes we have to come in here and yes it’s our job, but it’s not a negative to have to come to work with your dad. We come in and talk about what we had for dinner last night, or the baseball game, or 20-plus years of Gamecock misery.”
“It wasn’t all misery,” interjects Marty, reminding Bradley that that the Gamecocks football team had some good years not too long ago. “We really don’t have many disagreements. He doesn’t always agree with me, but he understands.”
And there’s now a third generation of Adams men in the office. Marty’s grandson and Bradley’s nephew, Parker Adams, has started working for A&A, learning the business from his uncle and grandfather, who between them have 65 years of experience in the insurance world.
Chips Off the Old Butcher Block
In a male-dominated industry, two sisters carry on their father and grandfather’s legacy
Melissa Burbage has been involved in the family business for almost as long as she can remember. The experienced butcher is now the one wielding the big cleaver at Burbage Meats Butchery + Provisions, marking a third-generation of Burbage butchers. The new shop on Wappoo Road may have just celebrated it’s one year anniversary over Memorial Day weekend, but the business has actually been around for much longer. In fact, next year will mark the 70th anniversary for Burbage’s Meats, which operated for decades out in Ravenel, where Melissa and her sister Felicia Burbage-Hodges grew up in the business.
Melissa and Felicia’s grandfather W.A. Burbage Jr. and his wife began the business in 1953. In the 1980s their father, Marion Burbage, took over operations until he passed away in 2017. Melissa learned the business inside and out from Marion, who taught her everything from how to break down a pig, from snout to tail, to how to read the daily stock reports to figure out the price of hogs.
“He lived and breathed this business. This business was his life,” says Melissa, who has taken on the responsibility of keeping the business going and ushering it into a new era. After Marion’s passing, Melissa’s older sister Felicia joined her sibling in helping run the family business.
“I think she saw how much it meant to me and that I needed some help,” says Melissa about Felicia getting more involved in the business. With a shiny new butcher shop that is more customer-facing than the wholesale slaughterhouse and meat-packing facility that their father and grandfather ran, Melissa and Felicia now operate the only female-owned butcher shop in the Charleston area. Felicia’s husband, Scott Hodges, has also immersed himself in Burbage’s Meats, which is a full-service butcher shop as a well as a store where you can find local artisan food products, from bacon jam to barbecue sauce to elderberry syrup. Hodges says their father would certianly be proud.
“We do this to keep him and his father’s legacies alive and to know his life’s work and sacrifices meant something and weren’t for nothing,” says Felicia. “Also, to continue the tradition of knowing where your meat comes from and supporting the others who sacrifice everyday despite conditions to provide that meat, such as our farmers.”
The Family Treatment
Three generations help make local Pest Control business a West Ashley institution
For nearly 50 years, Ledford’s Termite & Pest Control, Inc. has been debugging homes and businesses in the Charleston area. With offices in Columbia and Florence too, Ledford’s has fully established itself as one of South Carolina’s premier independent, family-owned pest control companies. But their story begins right here in West Ashley. The Savannah Highway office—the one with the giant ant in the yard—was once where Charlie E. Ledford’s parents lived. Today that home is mission control for the entire Ledford’s operation. Charlie and his wife Susan Ledford work in the office along with their son Charles S. Ledford and their daughter Amy DiLiegro.
Ledford’s dad started Ledford’s Pest Control back in 1975 after retiring from a Terminix. Unfortunately, just a couple years later, the elder Ledford suffered a heart attack and became unable to perform the physical duties of the business. His son took over as president of the business and over the next several decades built a company with a reputation for quality and service. This is something that he has passed down to his own son, who grew up riding in the work truck as a kid and has now officially been with the company more than 20 years.
“Dad basically built this business and obviously it’s been successful so it’s nice to be able to go back to the foundation blocks from time to time if I have a question about something,” says the younger Ledford, who is now the one going out on calls while his father typically hangs back at the office or takes care of things that might pop up and need attention. “I’m semi-retired,” he says, but admits he’ll probably never fully retire.
Aside from being semi-retired, Ledford is a St. Andrews Public Service District commissioner and member of the St. Andrews Rotary Club and the West Ashley-James Island Business Association.
“We butt heads sometimes,” admits the younger Ledford laughing. “But that’s any father-son relationship in a business. If we’re painting a door, I’ll start at the bottom and he’ll start at the top, but we’ll have the same objective.”
His sister Amy agrees. “We have our moments, but we always have a good time.” Amy says she never intented to work in the family business. She attended Wofford and got a dual degree in Chemistry and German. She moved to Massachusetts for a while and when she came back to Charleston she worked in a lab before being lured into the family business, where she handles payroll, bank deposits, and other financial tasks.
Beyond the immediate family, the entire Ledford’s office is a bit of an extended family. They have all worked together for years in close quarters in the very same house that was once home to the original owners.
