COLOMBIA, SC – After more than three decades hosting presidential candidates testing their courage among voters in southern South Carolina’s first primaries, Greenville’s landmark Tommy’s Country Ham House is turning the fryer off and closing its doors.
On Sunday, owner Tommy Stevenson announced that his restaurant would close this spring. The owner said he will slow down a bit to stay with his grandchildren, instead of waking up at 4 am six days a week to make fresh sausage, grind meat and cut pork chops.
“Country Ham House has been my life,” said Stevenson, who turns 80 this year, in a statement. “None of us are guaranteed tomorrow, so I thought it was time to retire, relax a little and do some of the things I haven’t been able to do.”
The building is being purchased by a Charleston-based restaurant group that plans to reopen it with a “new dining concept” in 2022.
Since the mid-1980s, Tommy’s has been a staple for politicians, aspiring politicians and process watchers, all gathered around vinyl-lined tables for southern breakfast, as well as fried chicken dishes, biscuits and apple pie with a cup of sweet tea.
In Greenville, in the heart of the conservative hinterland of South Carolina, Tommy’s has become a regular stop for candidates hoping to connect primarily with Republican voters – although Stevenson has always said that all affiliations are welcome. Some notable Democrats like former US Senator John Edwards of North Carolina – a native of South Carolina – and US Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio tried to campaign on Tommy’s.
“Currently, it seems that Republicans and Democrats do not have much in common, but we all enjoy a great meal at Tommy’s Ham House,” US Representative William Timmons, who represents the area, said in a statement to The Associated Aperte. “Tommy Stevenson has created a place that brought together people from all walks of life, and Greenville is going to miss it a lot.”
As the status of South Carolina’s primaries grew over the years, so did Tommy’s popularity among the candidates. In 2008, former US senators John McCain, Fred Thompson and Edwards visited Tommy’s only in January – and not on their first visits.
In the run-up to the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, then US Senator Jim DeMint said during an interview that “any candidate seeking support in South Carolina should go to Tommy’s Country Ham House”. Donald Trump paid a visit in 2016, proclaiming that Tommy’s sausage was “the best I’ve ever eaten”.
Sometimes the place was so crowded with candidates that they almost met. In early 2012, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney missed the collision for a few minutes at Ham House, with Romney arriving almost an hour ahead of schedule and making a brief visit to avoid Gingrich, who at that time was threatening his status as a Republican leader.
Crowds of supporters competed for space inside the Ham House, just as their campaign buses did in the parking lot. When Gingrich came in the door, he thought, “Where’s Mitt?” and challenged Romney to a debate on the spot.
Gingrich ended up beating South Carolina, stepping deep into what – up to that point – had been Romney’s rise. Gingrich’s victory also ended South Carolina’s 30-year run in choosing Republican presidential candidates; Romney ended up overcoming that year’s ticket.
Candidate visits to Tommy were not always appetizing. In 2000, animal rights activists, dressed in pig costumes, unloaded a pig dung truck in the parking lot while George W. Bush was sitting inside the restaurant – eating bacon, by chance.
“Let me tell you something about the Ham House,” Bush reported during a retelling of the story at a South Carolina rally for his brother Jeb’s presidential candidacy in 2016. “Even a steaming pile of manure can’t ruin your good bacon.”
Tommy’s was also the scene of events that led to political ruin, such as a city hall in 2009 where then US deputy Bob Inglis was reprimanded by constituents for his support for economic bailout legislation.
“He was booed after scolding voters for being too conservative and told them to ‘shut down Glenn Beck’,” said Terry Sullivan, a Republican Party consultant who worked with DeMint and visited Tommy’s frequently in the 2000s.
“Many political careers may have been launched in that place, but that day was where Bob Inglis ended.”
Meg Kinnard can be contacted at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.