The Man Behind the Name

Arriving in Hamilton, Scotland with his family from a war torn Italy at the age of 4, Benedetto (Benny) Tomolillo quickly learned the value of hard work.  His parents worked tirelessly to make a better life for their family eventually saving enough money to purchase a modest café, some ice-cream making machinery and a small ‘barrow’ from which to sell it.

Time to learn the trade 

Together with his siblings, Benny loved spending his time in the café learning the trade.  By the age of 11 he would rush home from school to push the cart around Hamilton selling ice-cream then returning to the café to restock many times before finishing for the night.  Benny’s love of food and the catering industry had begun.

By the early 1960’s, Benny and his brother, Tony, opened a successful grocers shop still in their home town, Hamilton, selling Italian wines and food however it wasn’t long before Benny was looking for his next challenge.  In 1972 he took on a very ambitious project buying a piece of derelict ground on which he planned to build his first restaurant.  

The Friar Tuck

Always relishing the opportunity to get his hands dirty, Benny spent each day on the site with the builders assembling his next adventure brick by brick. After employing a chef and roping in the help of family and friends, the ‘Friar Tuck’ restaurant opened in October of the same year.  

Although the restaurant was proving to be more successful than he had ever imagined Benny was determined to understand every aspect of the business and trained to be a chef himself in order that he could confidently run both ‘back and front of house’.  

The Next Idea

With the restaurant up and running, Benny was on the look out for another venture.  Together with his brother Tony again, they purchased their first fish and chip shop in Dunfermline which they named Golden Chip.  

Growth of The Golden Chip

By the mid 1980s, Golden Chip shops were cropping up in towns across Central Scotland including Linlithgow, Denny, Stirling, Larbert, Bathgate and Rosyth.  

The logistics of running multiple takeaways kept Benny satisfied for the best part of 10 years until both he and his brother started to slowly sell off the shops as they ‘considered’ retiring.  

Time to Retire?

Retirement never came however as Benny had what he referred to as ‘a wee idea that I’d like to try out!’.  This wee idea came in the shape of a standalone fish and chip takeaway and sit-in restaurant.  He had earmarked the site for this venture many years before however the owner of the car garage that had once occupied the site was reluctant to sell. 

The Start of Benny T’s 

When eventually Benny received word that the property was finally on the market, he jumped at it and quickly started the ball rolling to convert and extend the property to create what was to become ‘benny t’s’.

The build took a year and, like all the projects that came before, Benny was on site each day, pouring concrete, directing, labouring…whatever he needed to do to get the building ready to open to the public.

Recruiting the family

Shortly before opening in October 2003 and perhaps realising that the business was a much bigger venture than his previous ones, he convinced his daughter, Dominique, and son-in-law, Mark to take some time out of their careers in marketing to get the business up and running.  

Reflecting on the early days Dominique said, ‘We had thought that we would get the business established then step back after a couple of years, but as the time passed we became more rather than less involved.  We enjoyed what we were doing and the challenges that we faced and overcame.  It’s hard to believe that we opened 16 years ago!’.

Benny’s Legacy Lives on

In 2017 Benny and his family were given the devasting news that he was suffering from terminal cancer.  Seldom sharing his diagnosis with others, he quietly and courageously fought the battle however, sadly he lost the fight in June 2019. He is sorely missed each day by all however his memory and legacy lives on in the business which he built, created and loved.