On November 30, 1976, Joe Tortorice Jr. and his friend Rusty Coco, along with partners Pete Verde and Pat Broussard, opened the first Jason's Deli in Beaumont's Gateway shopping center.

They named it for Tortorice's oldest son, Jay.

Tortorice and Coco grew up around neighborhood grocery businesses, learning firsthand what it takes to serve customers and keep the doors open.

The first location outside Beaumont opened in Tyler in 1982.

Jason's Deli grew from that original Beaumont storefront into a national restaurant chain.

The company says it removed artificial trans fats from its food in 2005, years before many other restaurant businesses made similar changes.

Tortorice died in 2019 at age 70, but the business he helped build remains associated with Beaumont.

The original Gateway Street deli is still part of the company's story.

For anyone building a business today, the lesson isn't that every small shop must become a national chain.

It's that a business rooted in a community can grow while keeping that community in its identity.

Want to support a Beaumont original? Visit jasonsdeli.com or stop by the original Gateway Street location.