There’s a Love Story in Alabama Barbecue Restaurant’s Name

By LAWRENCE SPECKER, AL.com

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — There’s a love story within the identify of this restaurant, Bar B Quing With My Honey, and assembly the homeowners places you proper in the course of it.

The newest chapter is being written in midtown Cellular, the place Glenda Marks Witherspoon and her husband, Timothy Witherspoon, have been working their latest restaurant for a couple of months. It’s an enormous place with an enormous menu: Barbecue, burgers, loaded fries, fish, shrimp and grits. There’s a Sunday brunch, and so they’re including a scorching bar for the lunch crowd. In the event you can discuss your self out of going straight for the barbecue, you could strive the fish tacos.

However the story begins lengthy earlier than this location or this menu, and as they inform it, Glenda and her honey sound like a few characters who must be on the coronary heart of some entrepreneurial actuality present. They end one another’s sentences. They inform tales on one another.

Her mother ran Mount Vernon restaurant for many years. Jackie’s Kitchen. “I grew up within the enterprise,” mentioned Glenda Marks Witherspoon. “Watching my mother, serving to my mother. I didn’t have a selection. We began going up there together with her, me and my sister, I used to be 12, she was 13. That’s the place it began.”

She grew up, moved away, lived in different components of the nation, got here again to Cellular. She and Witherspoon, a landscaper, had been collectively for a couple of years when and received the notion to start out a barbecue restaurant in Mount Vernon.

Her: “I noticed a little bit constructing in Mount Vernon, it was once an outdated dentist’s workplace …”

Him: “Let me inform this story.”

Her: “We went in there and refurbished that …”

Him: “What did she say?”

Her: “I used to be telling him how we received the dentist’s workplace. A man had an indication on it …”

Him: “That’s not the best way it occurred. Let’s inform the reality about this. She got here house in the future. I’m a landscaper, been knowledgeable landscaper all my life. That’s the place I used to be making my dwelling … After me and her had been collectively for some time, she was nonetheless working for her mama, she got here house in the future and confirmed me this signal. I mentioned, ‘The place are you going with this signal, this can be a for-rent signal. Why’d you carry this house?’ She mentioned, ‘I need to open up a barbecue enterprise.’”

Her: “Effectively, I had really stopped and took it off the constructing, so no one else would see it.”

Him: “I mentioned, ‘You’re going to get us each in bother.’”

Her dad, a brickmason, helped design and construct the pit. “My mother had the barbecue. What she did for me was an enormous factor. I’ve to at all times say that,” mentioned Marks Witherspoon. “I advised her that I needed to promote barbecue, and she or he let me promote her barbecue, her sauce. What she did, she took it fully off her menu. That’s crucial to me as a result of that’s an enormous deal. My mother made good cash off her barbecue.”

That’s love, proper there.

That was in 2002. Once they closed the restaurant years later, the notion was that she was going to spend a yr or so taking it simple. His firm did jobs in different states, and she or he was going alongside. In contrast to the restaurant enterprise, there was free time. “We have been going fishing,” she mentioned. “I used to be like, is life actually like this?”

It didn’t stick. In 2019 she couldn’t resist the itch to get again within the sport.

Her: “He was in Mississippi working. I referred to as him and mentioned ‘Guess what?’ He mentioned ‘What?’ I mentioned ‘I discovered a restaurant.’ He’s like, ‘Not likely, not proper now. I’ll take a look at after I come again over there.’ However after I checked out it, I mentioned ‘I need it.’ He mentioned, “Are you certain?” I mentioned, ‘I need this spot.’”

Him: “Like a idiot, I did it once more. For the second time. I didn’t know there was going to be a 3rd time.”

This was a small strip-mall retailer within the Loop space. The concept was for it to be a takeout spot, and that turned out to be an excellent name about six months later when the pandemic hit. After a couple of weeks shut down, they settled on a minimal-contact enterprise mannequin: Clients would order prematurely, and so they’d stroll orders out for curbside pickup. “It labored higher than I assumed it might,” mentioned Marks Witherspoon. “It saved issues shifting.”

Even so, instances have been robust. For one factor, costs shot up on ribs and wings. For one more, the truth that the enterprise had been open for lower than a yr made it a lot more durable to faucet on to the assorted COVID-19 reduction packages that have been provided to companies.

“We have been dwelling from each day,” mentioned Witherspoon. “Folks who weren’t doing the correct factor have been getting cash left and proper.”

Nonetheless, it was a time of alternative.

“You understand what it did, in my eyes?” mentioned Marks Witherspoon. “It made one thing out of the little man. It made the little man, or the little firm, turn out to be an enormous firm or a midsized firm. … It did a lot for on-line.”

In 2021, because the pandemic slowly eased, she moved in on one other one in every of her goals: Opening a boutique. Honey Chile Customized Jewellery is primarily an internet effort, with data at www.honeychilejewelry.com.

Him: “That’s one other one I ought to have mentioned ‘no.’ It ought to have been ‘H no.’”

Her: “However that wasn’t his selection, to say no in regards to the boutique. I needed a boutique. He helps me with the whole lot I do and I like that about him. He doesn’t discourage me. Someday I want he would, however he doesn’t. That’s an excellent factor. We’re actually, actually good companions.”

Him: “She helps me in the whole lot I do.” He’s principally retired from landscaping work however promotes concert events by way of his Riverside Productions enterprise. (Arising: A Father’s Day weekend blues present June 18 at Cooper Riverside Park in downtown Cellular.)

By late 2021 she’d additionally set her sights on one other new enterprise. “I needed one other sit-in enterprise,” she mentioned.

Her: “I don’t actually know what we was pondering on this one, although, actually.”

Him: “Let’s speak about her.”

Her: “He’s telling the reality”

Him: “I wasn’t interested by opening up one other location, ’trigger I used to be attempting to get this spot below management. … I didn’t know something about her looking for a location.”

Her: “I didn’t both.”

Him: “We have been brief on ribs, I used to be out getting ribs. I received a telephone name. She referred to as, I mentioned, ‘What’s happening?’ She mentioned, ‘I want you to return over right here.’ ‘Over the place?’ ‘Over right here on Dauphin Avenue.’ I mentioned ‘What, I’m attempting to get these ribs on, I’m operating late.’ She mentioned, ‘I want you to return over right here proper now, I’m speaking to the proprietor.’ I mentioned, ‘For what?’ ‘He’s received restaurant over right here, I need to —’ I mentioned ‘NO.’”

Her: “He did. He mentioned ‘I’m not fooling with that.’ ‘You’re by yourself,’ he advised me. I mentioned, “However you’ve received to return as a result of the proprietor needs us to have this constructing.”

Him: “It took me a while to digest it, actually. I stayed right here all day all night time attempting to determine what to do, what I’m going to should have.” He sat there into the night, listening to the radio, sipping a drink, interested by the work forward. He’d already gone from “no” to “how.” Quickly the work started on the spot, west of Florida Avenue and nicely east of the fast-food hall close to the interstate.

Her: “We’re in right here now. I’m a little bit frightened. He don’t like after I say it. Very robust man, right here. He don’t like after I say I’m a little bit frightened, and I’m. ”

Him: “We received it open. Now we received to do what it takes to maintain it open.”

Each say their priorities for Bar B Quing With My Honey are to supply good customer support in a clear, family-friendly atmosphere. Like seemingly everybody else within the restaurant enterprise as of late, they’ve discovered that hiring and conserving reliable staff is a problem. Marks Witherspoon mentioned she’s happy with the core group she’s assembled however is searching for extra.

In the meantime, patrons have been working their method by way of the menu, discovering some favorites. And it seems that the wonderful pulled pork isn’t the one factor excessive on the checklist.

“Fried catfish with the bone is one in every of our huge sellers, that’s been a shock,” mentioned Marks Witherspoon. “What goes out the door the quickest is the ribs and the fish with the bone. The fish with the bone. I imply, they’re mad at us after we’re out.”

Provide-chain issues proceed to be a gremlin.

“It’s like, ‘fish with the bone, fish with the bone, fish with the bone,’” she mentioned. “We’re out, oh no, the corporate’s out, I’m calling someplace else, we’re out of this fish, oh no, folks we’re out of this fish. ‘Effectively, give me that filet.’ They’re like, with an perspective.”

They’ll get by way of it.

Him: “I like my spouse and I attempt to give her what she needs.”

Him: “We bump heads.”

Her: “We bump heads lots. However we work collectively.”

For extra data on Bar B Quing With My Honey, together with menu and costs, go to https://www.fb.com/bbqwmyhoney.

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