The plan is to transform the historic 1919 Oscar Magnuson House, at 211 E. Ocean Ave., into a soul-food eatery with five shipping containers, indoor-outdoor cocktail bars and covered patio seating. (Joe Cavaretta / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Across the street from Boynton Beach City Hall, a desolate pioneer home is awaiting the promise of a funky modern makeover. Picture dining on fried chicken, collard greens and other Southern soul-food staples inside a 103-year-old house, but the meals are cooked out of mural-splashed shipping containers parked in the backyard.

The shipping-container restaurant — the city’s first — is the grand vision of major restaurant players Anthony Barber (Troy’s Barbeque) and Subculture Group’s Rodney Mayo (Dada, Respectable Street), and it’s poised to break ground as soon as this summer. In an ambitious partnership, the Palm Beach County restaurateurs have agreed to spend $1 million to transform the historic 1919 Oscar Magnuson House, at 211 E. Ocean Ave., into a Southern eatery with five shipping containers, indoor-outdoor cocktail bars and covered patio seating for 200 people.

Mayo is no Bob Vila, but he likes giving second lives to aging Florida homes, as he has with his restaurant Dada in Delray Beach and nightclub Respectable Street in West Palm Beach. “I’m a history buff,” he says. “I’ve done a dozen commercial building renovations of places that were built in the 1920s.”

The stakes couldn’t be higher: Boynton Beach officials say the project has the potential to spark a renaissance of food and nightlife on a quiet, empty stretch of downtown.

Under the agreement, Barber and Mayo would turn the century-old Ocean Avenue home — purchased by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency in 2007 — into a dining room and bar with a new air-conditioning system, impact windows and a patio deck. Their plan involves $450,000 in renovations to bring the historic house up to code but skirts the costly business of retrofitting it with a full kitchen, Barber says. That’s because five steel shipping containers planted in the backyard would house the restaurant’s full kitchen, unisex bathrooms, refrigerated goods and storage.

An artist rendering of the new shipping-container restaurant planned for the site of the historic Oscar Magnuson House in downtown Boynton Beach. Restaurateurs Rodney Mayo and Anthony Barber have teamed up on a $1 million transformation of the property, which will include five shipping containers in the backyard and serve soul food. (Anthony Barber / Courtesy)

“We don’t have a downtown like in our neighboring cities, Delray and Lake Worth,” says Thuy Shutt, executive director of Boynton Beach’s CRA. “This [restaurant] will help be a catalyst for our new downtown core.”

During a March 9 City Commission meeting, Boynton Beach officials voted unanimously to approve the transfer of the Magnuson House to Barber and Mayo, who say their as-yet-unnamed restaurant would open by 2023, with construction lasting eight to 14 months.

There are some twists, however: The CRA plans to deed the home and land to Barber and Mayo for free, but only after the pair spends $1 million on renovations and shipping containers, passes final inspection hurdles and collects their certificate of occupancy. Another caveat: If the restaurant fails, Boynton Beach gets its property back.

“We’re not transferring the [Oscar Magnuson] house and land until the project is complete,” Schutt says. “It’s worth about $800,000, and the CRA owns it, so we’re not just giving it away without some safeguards.”

For now, the process is stalled until they can secure permits, and until the city’s lawyers can review proof that the restaurateurs do, in fact, have $1 million in financial backing. Barber on Thursday told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that he’s already sent those financial documents to the city.

“I want to be at the forefront of Boynton’s new downtown. This place is going to be a bigger version of Dada,” says Barber, referring to his partner Mayo’s artsy restaurant in Delray Beach. “My grandmother cooked the best Southern food I ever had, and I wanted to honor her and her legacy of cooking done the low-and-slow way.”

For the past several years, the downtown area of Boynton Beach around City Hall — bordered by South Seacrest Boulevard to the west and the Intracoastal Waterway to the east — has languished with stalled projects. Last summer, the city debuted its $250 million Town Square on 16.5 acres west of the Magnuson House, adding an amphitheater, kinetic art sculptures and a cultural center. Yet that project (with a hotel, restaurants and shops) remains half-finished while Boynton Beach remains mired in a lawsuit against Town Square’s developer.

Around the old Magnuson House, the land is pockmarked with empty squares of grass, and the closest restaurant-bar is Hurricane Alley, three blocks east on Ocean Avenue.

Barber, who is outspoken about his loyalty to Boynton Beach, says he picked the city for the same reason city leaders picked him: to build a thriving hum of nightlife where it doesn’t exist. He has operated Troy’s BBQ near US-1 and Woolbright Road since 2017, taking over the business from his father, Troy Davis, a retired Boynton Beach employee who began his namesake eatery as a roadside stand 30 years ago. Davis, Barber says, taught him how to roast succulent chicken, beef brisket and ribs slathered in sauce from a secret family recipe.

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During pandemic shutdowns, Barber met Mayo through the latter’s nonprofit Hospitality Helping Hands, which delivered 2,500 daily meals to restaurant workers. In November, the duo partnered to open a second Troy’s BBQ in West Palm Beach inside The Peach, an art studio enclave built using portions of an 1870s historic carriage house.

“Rodney is probably one of the best things that could happen to me in this business,” says Barber, 35. “When I mentioned the Magnuson House to him, he presented the Peach idea to me, and they just mirrored each other. He’s probably one of the most humble, selfless, insomniac people that I ever met.”

Kim Kelly, owner of Hurricane Alley, an Ocean Avenue institution for 26 years, feels bullish about Barber and Mayo’s Southern restaurant plans. The only shipping containers she’s seen usually rattle along the FEC tracks next to her bar.

“Anthony’s restaurant would be a great addition to extend downtown from west to east,” says Kelly, who is friends with Barber. “I’ve seen commission after commission do retreats about how to make downtown a vibrant hustle-bustle district, and now we’re making progress. We want it to be innovative and modern while still feeling like a small town. We’re not going to be Delray or West Palm. We don’t want to be.”

Kelly’s Hurricane Alley will be the anchor of a new $73 million live-work-play complex called The Pierce, which will occupy a two-block area between Ocean Avenue and Boynton Beach Boulevard. The Pierce will include 236 apartments, half of them rent-controlled work force housing, plus ground-floor retail and restaurants. Hurricane Alley is expected to relocate from Ocean Avenue to Boynton Beach Boulevard once construction kicks off next year.

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The Pierce’s developer, Fort Lauderdale-based Affiliated Development, thinks downtown Boynton Beach is poised to explode with new restaurants and foot traffic, CEO Jeff Burns says.

“Our company has a history of going into [underserved] areas,” Burns says. “Our job is to be one of those sparks that ignites the downtown.”