On October 26, 2018, a hungry would be shopper stopped by Jim Torchio’s Finer Meats and Delicatessen and found a hand-written note scrawled on what looked like white butcher paper: “Torchio’s is no longer open for business. Thank you for shopping here over the years. It is time for us to move on. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause anyone. Sincerely, The Torchio Family.”

The news spread like wildfire though social media channels. Some people were outraged at the lack of notice, others were concerned about the family. Customers and friends left well wishes. Facebook posters reminisced about the food and the friendly family service. They wrote mouth watering tributes to their favorite delicacies: pastrami and mozzarella sub sandwiches, Taylor ham rolls, antipasto party platters, stuffed pork chops, filets, and other choice meats. Even vegetarians professed their love for the small store located in a strip mall on Woolbright Road just around the corner from Palm Beach Leisureville.

I remember the store well, its spicy aroma and busy atmosphere. Cases of meat – prime rib, hamburger, veal cutlet, and sausage—fresh ground homemade Italian sausage. Dry goods and vegetables displayed on shelves, in baskets and refrigerated cases, some homemade pies, and a full service deli counter. My mom used to refer it to it as “the stinky store,” a term of endearment that goes back to the Italian butcher and delicatessen we used to visit in Chicago.

This made me wonder who the Torchio family was, where they came from, and how they ended up with a successful 40-year business in little old Boynton Beach? It’s not exactly the meat packing capital of the world—although there was a time, back in the late 1920s, and early 1930s when livestock, namely cows, outnumbered people. Alas, the cows in Boynton were dairy cows, not Brahman bulls. Boynton’s plentiful dairy farms – Melear, Knuth, Goolsby, Keatts, Weaver, Bell, White, Benson, Muggleton, Rousseau, Fideli, etc., supplied milk and cream to Southern Dairies. Dairy cows blanketed the Boynton landscape until the early 1980s.

It turns out that Jim Torchio, a New Jersey born son of Italian immigrants, only owned the Boynton butcher shop and deli for about two years, if that. Torchio, his father Guiseppi, and younger brother Frank were all Jersey City butchers. Jersey City had large stockyards to supply New York City with fresh meat. James Torchio owned and operated an independent butcher shop in Jersey City by 1940 and had a son and a daughter with his wife, the former Angelina Loori. Tragedy struck in 1963 when their 22-year-old son Joseph died suddenly. A few years after Angelina’s 1969 death, Torchio gave up his New Jersey butcher shop and headed south to Palm Beach County with his second wife, Mary Jane Swayze.

Torchio, a successful businessman as well as meat carver, served as head butcher/manager at The Flame Meat Market and delicatessen in North Palm Beach. The butcher shop supplied fine meat cuts to The Flame Restaurant. He incorporated Jim Torchio’s Farmer’s Meats operating his business at the West Palm Beach Farmer’s Market on Congress Avenue in the mid-1970s.

In 1978, Torchio opened a friendly, neighborhood Italian butcher shop and delicatessen in Leisureville Center.

The land the strip mall sits on was part of a failed 1920 boom time development, and before that it was a fresh water lake. The colorful real estate developer K.D. Purdy planned a large, opulent neighborhood around the partially filled in lake.

The hurricanes of 1926 and 1928 slowed progress, as contractors couldn’t get building supplies to meet the boom time demand. The real estate bubble burst…and the land sat mostly undeveloped for years, until Caldros properties developed it in 1968 into a 2,000 home adult community and golf course.

In June 1981, Worley E. Walker, a retiree from Tennessee, applied to operate under the fictitious name “Jim Torchio’s Finer Meats, Inc.” Walker, along with sons Steven, Richard, Terry, and their families, were the friendly faces who operated Torchio’s delicatessen. Jim Torchio, the Italian Jersey City butcher who lent his name to the deli, continued to live and work in Palm Beach and on the Treasure Coast. He was the butcher at Pinder’s Seafood in Jupiter until 1993. Torchio passed away in 1996, but his name will always conjure up mouth-watering memories for generations of Boyntonites. Torchio’s, the landmark, and the Walker family kept Boynton residents and visitors well fed.

While the cows of Boynton have all vanished, so has the family butcher shop. Each generation covers over the previous one with another layer of history. Patronize your local merchants, especially the family operated ones. Some day they won’t be there. You’ll be lucky if there is a kind note left on the door.

I first saw her infectious smile in 2005. Randall Gill and I, who were working together on a book “Images of America: Boynton Beach,” did not know her name. We did however recognize that the small, brown haired woman in the checkered shirt laughing as she posed holding up the sailfish epitomized the flavor of Boynton Beach in the 1950s. Our editors agreed, and out of several hundred photos considered, this ended up as the book’s cover. It helped that rugged and tan Capt. Homer Adams, well-known in the Boynton community and from a pioneer family also graced the cover. The backdrop of the fish board framed by waving palms added to the joyful scene.

At our first book signing, appropriately held at the Boynton Beach City Library, where the book was “born,” someone excitedly announced “That’s Mrs. Pipes! She was married to Mayor Pipes.” We had a last name, but not a first. In the 1950s, many women were still referred to as Mrs. So-and-so, and only their family and friends knew their first names. In 2005, few newspaper collections were available in digital format, so learning more about the pretty lady took time, and involved good old crowd-sourcing.

At another book event, someone remembered that Mrs. Pipes taught swimming lessons. Another person revealed that Mrs. Pipes had a large in-ground swimming pool and invited neighborhood children over to swim. One of the boat captains eyed the book cover and declared “Jean Pipes, she was a wonderful lady angler and won many fishing tournaments.

A display of photographs of past mayors hanging in the Boynton Beach Commission Chambers indicated that J. Willard Pipes was Boynton mayor in 1962. An Internet search revealed that Pipes, of Chicago, retired as vice-president of Pepsi-Cola and moved to Boynton about 1948.

Mrs. Pipes, or Jean as we now knew her, previously led the the dazzling life of a vaudeville-like entertainer – dancing and singing with her sister Loma as a sister act. Jean and Loma performed as The Rider Sisters and tap-danced and sang their way around Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. The duo had gigs in theaters, night clubs and county fairs. They were famous.

Once in Boynton Beach, Jean didn’t totally hang up her dancing shoes, but she channeled some of her energy and vivaciousness into transforming the sleepy bedroom community. She quickly got to work championing for a hospital (Bethesda) and organizing the Royal Palm Republican Club Federated. She helped found the Boynton Lantana Business and Professional Women’s Club and served on the board for the Palm Beach County Libraries and numerous other affiliations.

She enjoyed the outdoors, and the thrill of landing “the big one.” She opened her swimming pool to the neighborhood children. She positioned her husband Willard to become mayor of Boynton. It’s somewhat surprising that she didn’t run for mayor herself.

Rider Road and Willard Way east of Federal are named after Jean Rider and Willard Pipes. Jean Rider Pipes lived in Boynton until her 1999 death, and newspapers from the previous fifty years in Boynton are peppered with her contagious smile. News clips from the 1930s portray the “double pleasure” entertainment of the Rider Sisters. Jean’s obituary claimed that her motto was “Invest in People.” She lived her life well, and left an indelible mark and a little bit of her sparkle upon Boynton Beach.