Ellen's Homestyle & BBQ Express, LLC

About

Ellen's Homestyle & BBQ serves only the freshest foods like smothered pork chops, fried chicken, collards, cabbage, yams and so much more

Story

How and why I started Ellen's Homestyle & BBQ

July 2007:
Ellen Harding Tomiye's house was the one friends and family always flocked to for good eats.

"I enjoy cooking and I love good food," said the 41-year-old Portsmouth native, who's obsessed with shows about cooking.

Now, others can share Tomiye's culinary passion at her new restaurant, Ellen's Homestyle & BBQ Express, near Alexander's Corner.

Pork chops, ribs, barbecue, fried chicken, gumbo, a huge variety of chicken wings, and grandson Arriyon's favorite - macaroni and cheese - are among items on the menu.

The take-out restaurant is a fantasy of Tomiye's come true. But life in the past was no dream for this hardworking grandmother.

Growing up in Truxtun as Ellen Harding, she had to drop out of the old Cradock High School at 16 to care for her daughter, Sharonda.

"We had some hard times, but I always made sure (Sharonda) never went without," said Tomiye, who earned her GED in 1998.

Tomiye was also the one her four siblings turned to for advice, she said.

That's why her family was shocked when the former hospital emergency room registrar was arrested for cashing forged checks in February 2000.

"I can't call it a mistake," said Tomiye. "I knew what I was doing was wrong."

Tomiye, then 34, who had never been in trouble before, was sentenced to nearly three years in jail for passing "a couple thousand dollars" of forged checks. Her own brother ratted her out after he got caught cashing a forged check from her.

"I blamed him for getting caught," she said. "It took me a long time to realize that it was my own fault."

Tomiye thought her time at Virginia Correctional Center for Women and Brunswick Work Center for Women was the low point in her life. She didn't realize the worst would come after her release.

Although she repaid the money she had taken, Tomiye was a convicted felon, branded with the same scarlet letter accorded rapists and armed robbers.

A sobering moment came in late 2002 when Tomiye told an apartment rental agent about the felony.

"She said, 'We don't rent to felons,' " Tomiye recalled. "I said that it was check charges not murder. She said, 'A felon is a felon ma'am.' "

Tomiye received the same treatment when applying for jobs and even school.

"I felt that almost everyone looked down on me for what I did," she said. "No one wanted to give me a chance. "

Discouraged after weeks of job hunting, Tomiye was desperate when she applied for a bartending position at Majik City, a Portsmouth nightspot.

"I told the owner I had a felony for making bad checks, and she said, 'So? I don't take checks here,' " Tomiye said.

It was the break she needed. Tomiye worked hard at Majik City. She also met the man who would become her husband in 2004, Sanmi Tomiye, a Nigerian friend of her employer.

In 2006, Ellen Tomiye started a temporary job as a field clerk with a construction company. Her job will end in July, and she didn't want to go through the humiliating process of looking for another.

With her husband's blessing, Tomiye decided to start a restaurant.

On May 4, Ellen's opened its doors, and Tomiye said business is going well.

She receives business advice from Lynne Delaney, owner of Amazin Wings, and Wachovia Bank.

"A felony record can stop your life if you let it - I let it, but never again," said Tomiye. "I will never forget how it feels to have almost every door slammed in your face."

Tomiye wants to help others experiencing similar job discrimination.

"My plan is to buy and sell real estate from my (restaurant) profits and make enough to start other businesses that will employ felons trying to get their life on the right track," she said.

Tomiye has spent several years regretting the actions that got her in trouble. She is determined to live an upstanding, Christian life.

"I can't stand being hot," she said, "so I know when I die, I don't want to go to that place."

Lia Russell, 222-5829, [email protected]

Opened Ellen's Homestyle & BBQ Express #2 3/20/2014