Why one of Huntsville’s best barbecue restaurants has closed permanently

Their lease was up in June, and it was choice time. After 4 several years in South Huntsville, ChuckWagon BBQ co-owner Stephen Holley elected to near that spot. Their very last day open up was July 2. ChuckWagon’s flagship Madison cafe continues to be open up.

Holley chalks up the SoHu closure to “the COVID hangover.” He suggests, “I do not know how else to place it. We have seen a really big minimize in targeted visitors, and a great deal of men and women are teleworking now. That type of modified the dynamics of that space for us, with lunches becoming a very little slower than they used to be. And hire goes up each individual yr. We decided to contact it quits and lower our overhead.”

New financial inflation leading to quite a few individuals to tighten their home budgets was also a factor. “The initially detail everybody cuts out is food items and amusement,” Holley says.

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Staffing was also “a big problem,” in accordance to Holley, as it has with quite a few places to eat these times. “We’ve had two or 3 genuinely excellent types that definitely went all the way by means of it with us. But as significantly as acquiring new persons that ended up any form of good quality, we just couldn’t discover them.”

Holley isn’t accurately confident why getting and trying to keep quality staff is this kind of a challenge in the service business now. But he has a few theories. A person, he thinks some places to eat that slice staff members throughout the pandemic “handled it incorrect and most likely damaged our reliability a little little bit as a restaurant field.” And two, there are numerous additional employment solutions now in a developing town like Huntsville, which is now Alabama’s most populous. “There are just so several jobs relocating into the region that are greater-paying out positions,” Holley says.

Pre-pandemic ChuckWagon Southside utilized all around a staff of around 10. The very last calendar year, that amount was down to just a few. Holley claims Southside workforce have been offered a two-week observe before saying the impending closure on the restaurant’s Fb web site.

Staff were being specified the option to do the job at the Madison spot, according to Holley. But that drive, about 35 minutes from the Southside spot, was just way too extensive for them they said. Specially with fuel prices what they’ve been currently.

He says the Southside employees have all uncovered other work or, in the circumstance of some youthful workers, uncovered internships. “Everybody’s taken care of,” he suggests. Due to the fact closing, ChuckWagon has also supplied hours to individuals who wished to help breakdown the tools and get the cafe ready to transfer out of its Southside house, which was in the Redstone Ridge strip mall, handle 11700 Memorial Pkwy. S.W., at the rear of a Chick-fil-A.

ChuckWagon closing is a blow to area barbecue lovers. It was conveniently a single of the city’s finest barbecue joints. The Texas-fashion brisket, pork ribs, sausage and pulled chicken had been aces. The sides, notably the smoky Southwest mac-and-cheese and confetti-coloured vinegar slaw, were being rad far too. ChuckWagon’s closing leaves Boarhog’s Barbecue as the very clear numero-uno for Huntsville ’cue now.

My family commonly bought takeout from ChuckWagon Southside. My sweet brilliant mom in particular was a large fan. She was crestfallen just after I told her they had been closing. She created absolutely sure to go by their last working day open up to get some pulled pork, hen and fixings for our July 4 family members get-jointly.

ChuckWagon’s closure is a significant bummer for South Huntsville’s eating scene. Although that working course section of the metropolis is residence to a couple mother-and-pop gems, people are vastly fewer than what’s available downtown, the healthcare district or West Huntsville. Hearth & Spice Tex-Mex Smokehouse and Blue Plate Diner, a few other SoHu standouts, have also been pandemic-period casualties.

Holley and wife Kat Holley, who managed ChuckWagon Southside, are presently missing their previous regulars, he suggests. “During all those 4 decades or so we manufactured buddies that we’re however gonna generate in excess of there to see and discuss to. We’re enormously going to pass up our customer base. They had been superb. We had a few via the pandemic they would just clearly show up and be like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna aid you men by means of this matter.’ They were being solely accountable for our survival.”

The interior of ChuckWagon Southside associated a cowboy motif. ChuckWagon’s initial Madison Boulevard site took that vibe all the way. Founder, co-operator and Holley’s dad Mike Holley would get the job done on the line, slicing up pulled pork, ribs, chicken and sausage to buy in entrance of buyers. Carrying a cowboy hat and brandishing a significant knife, the patriarch evoked a Marlboro Male who smoked meat in its place of cigs.

Wagon wheel chandeliers and saddle lamps ended up also concerned at that charmingly rustic place. To start with timers in will need of a landmark could seem for the significant-white letters “B
BQ” on the restaurant’s purple roof, plainly obvious on tactic from Wall Triana Highway before long after exiting I-565.

ChuckWagon opened in Madison in early 2008. A number of decades previously, Mike Holley, a West Texas indigenous who formerly worked in oil fields as a petroleum engineer, to start with introduced his cafe in Athens, Alabama.

ChuckWagon shut their Madison Boulevard site in January 2019, owing to a disagreement concerning ChuckWagon and the owner they leased the setting up from, above which social gathering should really spend for a litany of repairs which include roof leak, weather management concerns, and floor destruction prompted by a tree root increasing underneath.

Amid early COVID-era issues, it took them about 18 months to open up their new Madison place, at 8048 Hwy. 72. Which is about a 14-minute drive from the preceding location. This a lot more lately made, brick-developing was previously household to a pizzeria.

Whilst Mike Holley doesn’t get the job done the line as a great deal as he employed to, he’s nevertheless keeping busy. He’s guiding the start of a soon-to-open up ChuckWagon in Rogersville near the Elk River.

And Huntsville barbecue fans can get solace in the simple fact Stephen Holley suggests ChuckWagon is eyeing yet another Huntsville spot. One thing “more central,” Stephen says. Till then, he stresses the Madison flagship, “isn’t going anyplace. And I know it’s a drive, but arrive see us.”

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