Gator Jon offers a variety of barbecue offerings at outdoor stand

Story and Photo by Alice Gerard

Senior Contributing Writer

At Gator Jon’s Barbecue Stand, the southern-style barbecue is cooked low and slow, said owner Gator Jon.

The barbecue stand is located in the parking lot of Kelly’s Country Store, 3121 Grand Island Blvd.

“A lot of love goes into it,” Gator Jon said. “Our briskets take 18 hours to do on the smokers here. Everything that we do is done on the smokers. We don’t have a freezer, other than for ice. Everything is fresh, right off the grills. We’re doing everything from beef ribs to baby back ribs to chicken dinners; and we do brisket, pulled pork, and with all kinds of great sides, like the smoked mac and cheese, our smoked cornbread. Everybody seems to really like that. Our smoked pork and beans. I add a little extra to it; so, I always put pulled pork and brisket to the beans. People seem to really love that. We do pork belly burnt ends. We’ll be doing fun, different things during the summer just to keep things fresh and different. Give people different things to try. I like to play around on the grills anyway.”

Gator Jon said the wood he uses to cook is part of the process of creating the flavor.

“I use cherry wood and apple wood to smoke the food with,” he said. “The cherry is a little more expensive than other woods, but it’s worth it because I think it makes all the difference in the world for the flavor of the food. It’s milder, but it still has that rich, smoky flavor to it. That’s the difference with the woods, and I like using the cherry and the apple because they give the food a really good flavor, whether it’s beef or pork or chicken.”

Other types of wood produce a different flavor, Gator Jon explained.

“There are different styles of barbecue,” he said. “If you go out west, like Texas, they use a lot of mesquite, and that mesquite has a sharp taste to it when you smoke your food with it. Some people like the taste of oak. Hard woods are the best to smoke your food with. You can do it with some softer woods, but I like the hard wood flavors. You’ve got maple, cherry, apple. You’ve got oak. You’ve got alder. You’ve got all kinds of choices to smoke your food with.”

Gator Jon also offers several flavors of sauce for customers.

“I do have my sauce recipes that I put together myself,” he said. “The spicy sauce that we serve here is my own little creation. We also have a tangy sauce and a sweet sauce because people like different things. A lot of people mix and match, too. You can mix them together and try them that way. But the food’s so good, you really don’t need sauce. It’s still really good, fresh barbecue. But people like the sauces. We also have drinks. No alcohol at all. You’re welcome to bring your own. It’s a family-friendly barbecue place.”

Gator Jon’s Barbecue Stand has been open less than a month. Its proprietor opened the stand at the end of May. He said having the venue was a “crazy thought that I had that I always wanted to do something like this. I always wanted to start my own roadside barbecue stand. I love barbecuing, and I’ve been doing it for years and years. I just wanted to do something that is different and this is the perfect spot because of the room out here. It’s like a big backyard, and barbecues and backyards are what it’s all about. And we have a ton of fun.”

Gator Jon’s experience with barbecuing and barbecue equipment is extensive, he said.

“I started designing barbecue equipment about 30 years ago,” Gator Jon noted.

His next step was to sell “grills on the Home Shopping Network in Florida, and grilling equipment and kitchen gadgets and that kind of thing,” he said. “I did that for 20-some-odd years. In doing that, you’re on live television. You’re showing recipes and how to use the grills; basically, showing people all the features and benefits of all of the products that I sold. In doing that, you have to practice a lot with the stuff that you’re doing, so you know what you’re talking about when you’re selling it on live television. I was doing that for quite a few years, and I was fortunate to meet a lot of cool people, like Wolfgang Puck and Curtis Stone and all of their sous chefs and their support staff. I had a ball doing that. But things have changed. Television isn’t what it used to be because of the internet.

“That’s how I got started with barbecue. We used to do these big picnic-ins, we called them, where we’d roast an entire 150-pound hog and invite neighbors, friends, family and everybody. We’d have 150 people in our backyard, and have a great time with good, fresh food. Everybody would bring a plate to pass.

“Barbecue is a community-building thing. It brings people together. And that’s what I want to do.”

When asked how Gator Jon was able to have the space at Kelly’s Country Store’s parking lot, he explained, “I married the youngest of the Kelly clan, Michelle. We lived in Florida for about 10 years, and then we decided to move back up here and help out with the store and do some stuff around here. I kind of semi-retired, so I figured I would use this as my retirement plan.”

Gator Jon said he was surprised by the response he has received from the community.

“I can’t believe it. It’s completely surpassed all of my expectations,” he said. “I wanted to start a little thing here in the parking lot, and it just kind of took off on Facebook, especially. People seem to really love the food and they like the atmosphere here. We play blues all day long. People hang out at the picnic tables and eat here. They can just grab a dinner to go and take it home. On your way home from work, you don’t have to think about what you’re going to eat or how long it’s going to take you to do the dishes.

“At lunchtime, we get a lot of the construction guys, also the road crews, the water and sewer people. The town people come in. It’s good to see everybody. They’re able to take their lunch break here and sit down and relax and unwind and have some good barbecue. We do get busy at lunchtime.”

He added, “We’re only open Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The reason for that is because it’s all fresh food and it’s all done on these grills. And I have to have one day off because I’m the only guy on the grills.”

Gator Jon described how he creates all of that barbecued meats: “Mondays, I do my shopping for the week and try to guesstimate the amount of food that I need for the number of people that I think will come. On Tuesdays, I start smoking the meats. The briskets take 18 hours to do. The pork takes a good 12-14 hours. So, I’m here at 4:30-5 o’clock in the morning, getting the smokers going and getting them on for the following day. It’s been kind of crazy because we’ve been selling out of food every single day before we even get to our closing time of 6 o’clock. I’ve had some people complain about me not having the food, but I think they also understand that it’s all done fresh on the grills. I think people appreciate quality over quantity. You might need to get here a little early for some things, and we run out of things throughout the day, but you know it’s all going to be good quality food.

“So, I take Sunday off for God and for football.”

When there’s no football, Gator Jon said he tries to “golf a little.”

What makes Gator Jon happiest is “the people,” he said. “The way people look at you after they eat your brisket sandwich and say, ‘That was the best brisket sandwich I’d ever had’ or just compliments. It’s humbling. Very humbling. This community has been so supportive of us, and we’ve only been here three weeks. It’s just totally exploded. So, I’m very thankful for that, and the people, and the help that we’ve had from our friends to kind of put this whole thing together. It’s really a great place.

“I’m having the time of my life.”