Biloxi restaurant owner, so full of life, requests all wear pink for her final goodbye
Last Thanksgiving Kingjaks restaurant in Biloxi served a free turkey lunch to anyone in the community who wanted to share a meal. This Thanksgiving her family and friends are buying pink and preparing to say goodbye to the young owner of the restaurant.
Ava Gazzo King of Vancleave died Sunday, Nov. 24, after her second battle with cancer. She was 37.
Her funeral service will be at noon Saturday at Bradford-O’Keefe Funeral Home on Howard Avenue in Biloxi. Friends are invited to visit two hours prior.
King liked to sing, dance and help people, said her sister, Angela Sigurnjak of Ocean Springs.
“She loved Mardi Gras and anything pink and sparkly,” she said. “She has asked that we all wear pink to the funeral.”
She grew up in Biloxi and Ocean Springs and has many friends and customers who she got to know through the restaurant.
When Kingjaks on Restaurant Row in Biloxi closed in October, they knew what was coming, Sigurnjak said.
“Nobody was going to run it like she has,” she said of the restaurant.
Living her dream
For five years, King was general manager of Slap Ya Moma’s, which later had a name change to Fat Bottom BBQ.
When the owner decided to close the restaurant on the beach, King said she knew she had to step up and save her and her co-workers’ jobs.
It took her just a few days to turn it around and open her own restaurant — Kingjaks BBQ & Seafood.
“I knew she had been wanting to do that for years,” said her husband, Tommie King.
“That was her dream,” he said, “and she accomplished it.”
His favorite thing she made for him was hamburger steak with mashed potatoes and gravy, he said.
They were together for 16 years and married for 11, with four children: River, Emma, Layla and TJ.
“I loved her dearly. She was my heart,” he said.
Be the best and help others
King finished her final treatment for breast cancer in the fall of 2022 and vowed if she could be healed, she would be the best person she can be and help others. For the next two years, until her passing, she kept that promise.
“She just always wanted to shine her light on people,” her sister said.
She created a “fun, bright and happy” family restaurant when she opened Kingjaks Labor Day Weekend in 2023. She used her family’s recipes and she named dishes on the menu for her children and all her immediate family, like her mom’s banana pudding, her aunt’s cheesecake and Layla’s key lime pie.
She was a great mother and “She cared about everybody,” her husband said. When she heard of someone who had cancer, she told them to call her and she walked them through what to expect.
Right to the end she was concerned about others, her sister said. Their 87-year old grandfather came to see King a few days before she died and her concern was how they could make him smile.
Cancer returns
In February King started feeling sick again and doctors discovered cancer in her liver, lungs and spine. Despite major surgery in March, the cancer spread.
About 50 people were at her house in her last hours.
“I Can Only Imagine,” a song that envisions what happens when a person reaches Heaven, was one of her favorites, her sister said. “Everybody sang along, her sister said, and shortly after she passed away.
“She knew how loved she was,” her sister said.
She is also survived by her brother Anthony Gazzo and sister Karen Gazo, her parents Margaret and Brad Sigurnjak, who lived nearby and helped care for her and the family, and a multitude of family and friends who posted videos and tributes on Facebook.
“Ava was such a beautiful person inside and out,” posted Brooke Johnson. “She fought this battle with everything she had.”
