Brandon, ‘10, and Colin Washington, ‘13, followed their father’s path to La Salle University. Now they’re honoring his legacy by reviving his business.   

See the Ron’s Signature Sauce website for places to buy.  

Brothers Brandon, ‘10, and Colin Washington, ‘13, took very different paths in life after they graduated from La Salle University. Now those paths have realigned as they work to honor their father, Ron Washington, ‘70, and his legacy through Ron’s Signature Sauce.  

Born and raised in Philadelphia, the brothers spent their childhood helping out at their father’s restaurant, Ron’s Ribs, a staple on South Street for over 25 years.  

“When people came to Philly, if they were coming to eat, one restaurant people would recommend was Ron’s Ribs,” Brandon said, adding that before his father’s restaurant opened in 1984, the storefront at 1627 South Street was Bea Bea’s Lawnside.  

In 2002, during Brandon’s freshman year of high school, Ron sadly passed away and the restaurant closed. Brandon became clinically depressed and barely graduated high school with a GPA that would allow him to attend college. Although he struggled throughout high school, La Salle gave him a chance when other colleges didn’t, he said.  

“My mom said you should apply to your dad’s alma mater, so I did, and it worked out for the best,” he said, about his decision to become an Explorer. “La Salle was my home. I used to go up there as a kid with my dad for alumni things, and then I ended up going there as an adult, and my experience was awesome.”  

Brandon was an Integrated Science and Business Technology major at La Salle. While the program no longer exists, his friendships from his college years do. He describes the connections he made as his extended family and named the Explorer community his favorite thing about his time at college.  

Three years later, Colin joined him at 20^th and Olney.  

“All the signs were leading towards going to La Salle and being three for three with my dad and brother, and it was great honestly,” Colin said. “I followed in my brother’s legacy, and our father’s legacy as well.”  

Like his brother, Colin also appreciated the community he became a part of and the connections he made. They were both members of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, and Colin, a communication major with a journalism concentration and history minor, was highly involved with The Collegian, becoming sports editor in his sophomore year.  

They also got to learn more about their father and his legacy as an Explorer. 

“Learning about my dad too, and his impact at the school, that was cool,” Brandon said.  

After graduating, Brandon went into the tech world, working as an IT professional for a number of organizations, before coming across the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship in 2014. He applied and was accepted to the fellowship, getting his graduate degree in secondary education with a STEM Education focus. Since then, he’s been teaching high school students. Before the ISBT program was discontinued at La Salle, he also acted as an adjunct professor for the program he described as a perfect fit for him.  

While Brandon stayed in the area, Colin decided he wanted to get away. He moved to Los Angeles after he graduated, first working in student affairs at UCLA, while doing freelance media work and starting his own podcast. After three years there, his reporting career took off, and he worked at several news outlets in LA before landing at Fox Sports.  

During his time as an editor there, Colin started performing standup comedy. After an injury in 2019, he decided to commit to performing, eventually moving to New York just before the pandemic where he did comedy shows, while still doing news production. Midway through 2025, he left his job in news to focus on being a comedian and content creator. He’s now performing at all the marquee clubs in the New York city comedy scene and tours around the country on top of appearing in national commercials.

While Colin was relocating to New York, Brandon was reviving their father’s business through Ron’s Signature Sauce, something that he’d wanted to do for a long while. At the same time, he hoped to raise funds through sales for a community center in his neighborhood, the same neighborhood that housed his father’s restaurant when it was open.  

Ron’s Signature Sauce is as tied to the neighborhood as it is to the Washington family, according to Brandon.  

“The sauce is history in a bottle,” he said.  

Colin got involved in 2025 when Brandon brought the sauce to one of his comedy shows. A producer for Good Day Philadelphia happened to be there that night and told them to come on the show.  

“We jumped on Good Day Philadelphia, and it’s like everything clicked,” Colin said. After their appearance on the Fox29 morning show, Colin stayed involved. Like his brother, he appreciates the meaning and history both to his family and their community represented by this new chapter of Ron’s Ribs.  

“It’s over 100 years of recognition and service to the Black community, and service to diverse populations, and not just the Black community, but Black business,” he said. “It’s all that history mixed into what we have now, which is like a historical batch of magical sauce that carries so much hard work from over the past decades. I’m just happy to be a part of it, but it’s also only right that I keep it growing and watch it take off.” 

And Ron’s Signature Sauce has taken off. As well as Good Day Philadelphia, they have been featured in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Cuisine Noir, FYI Philly, Positively Philly, and others. They also took their sauce to another citywide staple, Phillies tailgates.  

“It’s nice to know I wasn’t wrong about keeping the tradition going,” Brandon said.  

For both of them, it’s satisfying to see their father getting the recognition he deserves, both for the sauce and beyond. He was involved with and led a lot of initiatives to promote social equity and equality in the city, Brandon said, and even has a street named after him.  

Brandon’s daughter, who he describes as “my pride right now,” was recently crowned Miss Pennsylvania at the National American Miss Pageant, and received a citation from Philadelphia City Council, where city council made a point to mention that she was part of Ron Washington’s legacy.  

“It’s nice that my father’s getting his flowers because he really sacrificed a lot, not just for his family, which he did, but for the city of Philadelphia,” he said. “Part of that started with his work at La Salle.” 

As well as the business success, both brothers are also finding more personal reasons to be grateful for getting their father’s business up and running again.  

For Brandon, it’s reconnecting with people.  

“After the business closed I felt like I lost some family,” he said. “We had loyal customers there and I feel like there’s some reemergence and I get to reminisce and hear stories about my father from another perspective.”  

Colin, who loves to go to storefronts and spread the word about the sauce, feels that too, as well as a closeness to his dad.  

“It’s cool to see people’s eyes light up, and then be like yeah, we’d love to buy a bottle,” he said. “In each one of those encounters, it feels like I’m getting closer to my dad and I’m sharing this really cool experience that was so big for him and so big for our family. It just feels good, and it just seems so right.” 

Looking to the future, Brandon and Colin hope that their sauce can both become synonymous with Philly, and that it can help them give back to it.  

“I want people to know Ron’s when they come to Philly,” Brandon said. “I also want people to understand with this; you’re doing good too. If you’re buying a bottle, you’ve got great taste in sauce, but it’s also a vehicle for impact.” 

-Naomi Thomas