Barbecue is the nation’s passion, and it has never been bigger. Big Moe's is making the most of it.
Paul Pritchett literally began his barbecue business hand to mouth.
“We were winging it,” says Pritchett, owner of nationally-known Big Moe’s BBQ in Kalamazoo. “We just thought we could sell barbecue on a street corner and make money. So we set up a grill and started cooking.”
That was in 1992. Fast forward more than a decade--one filled with success and failure and success. This year's good fortune includes a small restaurant and take-out business called Big Moe’s BBQ Express that he opened this fall at 1928 Gull Road.
“This is our first attempt at a restaurant in about 10 years,” he says. “We opened it up because people want to eat quick and they want to eat a good product.”
The restaurant has seating for about 20 people. The menu features ribs, tips, chickens and all of the usual sides, in addition to bottles of his award-winning barbecue sauce.
Pritchett said he wasn’t really thinking about making a second attempt at restaurant ownership. He closed his first restaurant on Alcott Street in 2009 after four years in business because of health problems. A group of investors, coupled with revenue from sales of his barbecue sauces, made the decision to try again financially feasible.
“This is such a great time,” Pritchett says about opening his new restaurant. “The economy is coming back and people have disposable income and people like barbecue.”
Plus, sauces bearing the Big Moe’s label aren’t available anywhere else. The combination of ingredients in the original sauce was perfected by Pritchett’s great-grandmother who used to be the head cook at “the big house” on a plantation in New Market, Ala., near Huntsville. A cotton plant sits on one shelf in his den as a proud reminder of those humble beginnings.
She passed on the recipe, which is a closely-guarded secret.
Pritchett in turn has passed on that secret recipe to his own five children who, like him, know their way around a grill.
Barbecue is the nation’s passion, and it has never been bigger. It is perhaps mankind’s oldest method of cookery, according to FoodBusinessNews.net.
Former National Football League defensive end Al "Bubba" Baker used to feast on quarterbacks, earning a reputation for sacking signal callers. But nowadays, Baker focuses on barbecue and has racked up a reputation for offering some of the best fare in Ohio.
Baker, who spent 13 years in the NFL, is proprietor of Bubba’s-Q, a restaurant and catering business in Avon, Ohio, that features traditional Southern-style barbecue cuisine. Baker was named to three Pro Bowls and was also the NFL’s Rookie of the Year in 1978, but football takes a backseat to barbecue.
“My job was to play football, but my passion is barbecue,” the 56-year-old Baker tells FoodBusinessNews.net.
Dave Anderson, founder of Famous Dave’s, a chain of about 200 barbecue restaurants, says barbecue is “exploding.”
“Barbecue is more than a food category, such as Chinese or Italian,” says Anderson. “Barbecue is an American lifestyle.”
When Chef Myron Mixon began competing in barbecue competitions in 1996, he never expected to become a celebrity who writes cookbooks and appears on cooking shows, such as “BBQ Pitmasters,” a reality TV series that follows barbecue cooks as they compete for cash and prizes in barbecue cooking competitions.
“Barbecue has become the chic thing,” says Mixon, who also operates Jack’s Old South restaurants in Miami and New York.
Kansas City-based Paul Kirk, known as the Baron of Barbecue, has won more than 475 cooking and barbecue awards, including seven World Championships. Kirk gauges the growth and success of the barbecue industry by the increase of participation in industry events.
When Kirk first participated in the American Royal World Series of Barbecue in 1981, there were 23 teams. Now the event attracts almost 500 teams.
“It’s the world’s largest barbecue contest,” he says.
In 2010, there were 200 barbecue contests sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society, the world’s largest organization of barbecue and grilling enthusiasts. In 2012 there were 400 contests.
“And then there are all of the ‘ribber’ events, which attract thousands of people,” Kirk adds. “More communities are holding these events.”
Pritchett has won more than 200 barbecue competitions. An all-state linebacker at his high school, his fellow players gave him the nickname “Be-Mo” after the former Kalamazoo-based potato chip company. He came up with his trademark name by changing “Be” to “Big” and adding an “e” to “Mo.”
On any given weekend during barbecue season, he and his team are competing in three to four different events. His first foray into competitive barbecue began in 1988 at the Iowa State Fair. In 1999 he won the Grand Championship in Michigan and his sauces have taken placed in contests throughout the United States.
“We go all over when they say there's prize money. We’ve won more contests in Michigan than anyone else,” Pritchett says. “I like to think we’ve got the best product in the United States.”
His sauces are sold at local supermarkets, including Village Markets, and he also has been hired to provide concessions for festivals such as the Faster Horses Festival in Brooklyn, Mich.
Each week Pritchett prepares and sells close to a quarter of a ton of meat out of his restaurant storefront. The meat comes from local and regional producers. Rib tips are the number one seller, followed by St. Louis-style ribs, and hand-pulled pork.
Pritchett grew up on a farm in Allegan. And his mother taught him how to cook. Meals on the farm ranged from liver and onions with fried cornbread patties to chicken feet and noodle soup and “hoof soup” made with the hooves of pigs. The family raised chickens and pigs.
Pritchett’s father would go to grocery stores and pick up day-old produce to feed the pigs.
“I learned at an early age to work with what you have,” Pritchett says.
Jane C. Parikh is a freelance reporter and writer with more than 20 years of experience and also is the owner of In So Many Words based in Battle Creek.
Photos by Susan Andress
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