Art and Troy’s BBQ front and center at The Peach in West Palm Beach

You wouldn’t get it from the name, but The Peach is an art collective looking to make its mark with West Palm Beach’s urban urbane set.

So named because the retro-chic complex is at 3950 Georgia Ave. — Georgia peach, get it? — the combination art gallery, artist studios, workspace units and performance venue will have a grand opening Sept. 24-26.

This will be the first of monthly art walks and will include creative vendors, open ateliers, live music, DJs and sampling from Troy’s Barbecue from 6-11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 2-6 p.m. Sunday. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 561-389-4800 or go to Facebook.com/ThePeachWPB or Instagram.com/thepeachwpb.

“I always liked the concept of a cooperative gallery,” says Rodney Mayo, owner of the Sub-Culture Group. “And then I, of course, met a tons of artists that worked with us on street murals and things like that. And they were always asking to use our storage spaces to do large projects.”

That’s what Mayo was using the former auto body/paint shop for — a warehouse to store equipment.

Sub-Culture’s stable of drinking/dining properties includes 17 restaurants and bars, such as Boca Raton eateries The Dubliner and Kapow, as well as Dada and Honey in Delray Beach. Already in West Palm Beach, the roster includes Howley’s Restaurant, Voltaire lounge, Respectable Street bar and Hullabaloo gastropub.

They snapped up the property that is now The Peach about three years ago. Artists started moving in this past spring, says manager/artist Craig McInnis.

“Other visual artists, working in 2D, are in the front units or studios, including myself,” he explains. “The back…is more diverse, 3D printing, architectural design, art therapy, videographers, photographers. There’s a not-for-profit skateboard [designer] who gives skateboards to those in need. There are lots of good giver kind of people, and that is part of Rodney’s vision as well.”

Mayo’s charitable side is what led the entrepreneur to strike up a friendship with Anthony Barber, the owner of Troy’s Barbecue in Boynton Beach — and now West Palm Beach.

During the pandemic shutdown, Mayo started Hospitality Helping Hands to provide meals to, at first, restaurant workers and eventually a host of other groups and charities. Barber offered to help with the 2,500 meals they were cooking every day. Now Barber, who took over the 25-year-old barbecue business from his now-retired father Troy Davis in 2016, will have a second location at The Peach. (A Boca Raton location closed earlier this year.)

“On the property was this old 1870s historic carriage house for horses,” Mayo says. “It was half burned down. But I thought it lent itself to a barbecue shack. So, we moved it from the back of the property to the front of the property. It’s a cool, cool spot. It’s the Hollywood of barbecue shacks.”

He went on to say that The Peach also hopes to work with G-Star High School of the Arts and Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts, perhaps producing a student film festival.

At the opening, all six studios will be open.

“We’re going to open these huge glass bay doors,” McInnis says. “Outside we’ll have what I’m calling an artist village with lots of stuff to browse through and buy, from local and not-so-local vendors.”

Mayo adds, “And then we’ll have some barbecue and complimentary beer and wine. A lot of people said, ‘It’s free?’ And I said, ‘We only open once…so we might as well do it all out.’ ”