J&B Bar-B-Cue owners look to retire after 2020

It’s a determinedly rustic building at the corner of Washington and Holloway streets, at the edge of Henderson’s East End. Its owners planned it to look that way.

The exterior siding is half rough-finished wood, half locally manufactured vinyl shingles. Corrugated tin awnings hang above the front windows.

Inside, a dining room takes up about half the building, amounting to five booths and three tables. The walls are covered with framed souvenirs of some of the owners’ hobbies: fishing, horse racing, St. Louis Cardinals baseball.

The floor, though handsomely finished with an acid wash, is concrete.

And yet many times during the lunch rush, there’s isn’t an empty table at J&B Bar-B-Cue and Catering. Sometimes there’s not even a spare seat.

It’s been like that pretty much since partners John Klein and Barry Burton had the building constructed and opened for business on April 5, 2005.

But 2020 could be the last year for J&B, at least for Klein and Burton.

After a two-week shutdown to rest up following the frantic holiday rush — during which they smoked more than 500 holiday hams in addition to some large catering jobs and a big uptick in carryout barbecue — J&B has reopened with reduced hours: 10:30 a.m. through 2 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

And near the end of this year the partners expect to retire from the restaurant business, though they might do some occasional cooking elsewhere.

It will be the end of an era, and — unless some enterprising soul wants to buy the business and get some guidance and counseling from Klein and Burton — it could leave just one brick-and-mortar barbecue restaurant (the venerable Thomason’s Barbecue on Atkinson Street) in a city that 40 years ago boasted 10 or more.

Almost inevitable

In hindsight, it seems almost inevitable that John Klein and Barry Burton would wind up owning a barbecue restaurant together.

The two had known each other since they were in fourth grade at the old Weaverton School.

They were each involved in cooking from an early age. Klein learned to cook from his mother and grandmother before getting steady practice while preparing meals with his roommate while living off campus during college.

Burton, meanwhile, is the son of the late Sonny Burton, who despite his attempts to maintain a low profile was locally famous for barbecuing chickens (and, later, pork chops), at no charge, for nonprofit organizations’ fundraisers each Saturday from late March until mid-September for 35 or 40 years.

Sonny Burton learned to smoke chickens from old barbecuers like Skinny Barron and Charles “Dutch” Herzog, and Barry was exposed to barbecuing “as far back as I can remember.”

“I started helping Dad when I was 14,” he said. While Sonny insisted that the charity for which he was cooking provide some workers, he also tried to maintain a core of experienced helpers. But sometimes, there weren’t enough.

That’s when, during the predawn hours on Saturdays, the phone would ring at the Burton home. “He’d call Mom and say, ‘Bring the boys (Barry and his older brother, Gary); I don’t have enough help.’

“I didn’t want to” roll out of bed before the sun was up, Barry said. Too bad: “He (Sonny) didn’t ask.”

The work wasn’t limited to Saturday mornings. On Thursdays, the Burton boys often helped their dad load up the five barbecue pits in Atkinson Park with scrap lumber from the old Period Furniture factory or tree bark from longtime logger Terry Peckenpaugh, among others. Then early on Saturday mornings, the Burtons and their help would rub down chickens with salt and pepper while waiting for the wood to burn down to hot coals so cooking could begin.

Barry continued to help his dad into adulthood. “If I wasn’t working Saturdays at Peabody (Coal Co.’s Camp 1 mine in Union County, where he spent 23 years),” he’d be at the pits with his father.

John Klein got experience cooking with former coach “Bull” Dawson for the Henderson County High School Booster Club over 20 years as well as some experience working alongside Sonny Burton for the Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church Men’s Club.

Klein also cooked to earn some spare money, such as smoking turkey legs with pals to sell at the Tri-Fest.

But his focus turned to barbecuing pork with the launch of the W.C. Handy Blues & Barbecue Festival in 1991.

In the early years, the Handy Fest included a Memphis in May-sanctioned barbecue contest. Professional, semi-professional and talented amateur barbecuers rolled into town from several states, hoping to win trophies and prize money and, in the case of the grand champion, admission to the prestigious Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.

That was when Klein got bit by the barbecue bug; he longed to win a trophy and maybe a trip to Memphis. He pulled together experienced barbecuer Richard Morse and other friends to form a team to compete in contests in Henderson and beyond.

Contests in Evansville, meanwhile, got Barry Burton’s attention. “I didn’t really get excited about barbecuing until they had those contests,” he said.

Suddenly, spending long hours slowly smoking meat wasn’t just a chore. It became a passion.

It wasn’t just barbecue contests that brought Klein and Burton closer to their eventual partnership. Late in his cooking career, Sonny Burton was asked by the Weyerhaeuser paper mill here to cook 250 chickens for a big event. It was a bigger job than he wanted to take on; Sonny turned it over to Barry, who recruited his friend John Klein.

“It was a hot day,” Klein recalled. But it launched their catering career.

At about the same time, in 2000, Klein became one of the original two barbecue crews that cooked and sold to the public at the Handy Fest’s Taste of Henderson Barbecue. His booth went on to become the most successful along what grew to be a dozen cooking teams. His booth always had the longest line, which meant he and other crew had to do the most work.

“It was so overwhelming,” Klein said.

In time, he recruited Barry Burton to help cook and expanded to a double-wide cooking space on Main Street. Burton’s presence merely drew even more customers.

Even with Burton’s expert help and a team of helpers, the chore of setting up a mobile kitchen on a Friday evening, cooking through the night, serving hundreds of customers on a Saturday and then tearing it all down and hauling it away 24 hours later proved exhausting. “It started to lose its luster,” Klein said.

Yet they continued soldiering on with barbecue. Building on their teamwork at the Handy Fest and beyond, Klein and Burton began talking about going into business together.

Burton had been laid off when the Peabody Camp One mine closed in 2000. “I was wanting to have some kind of restaurant,” he recalled.

Klein, who retired from the city Gas Department in 2002, had the same thing on his mind. He had a specific vision for a barbecue joint: Not too big, kind of quaint, no beer, hopefully no excessive hours.

They settled on what arguably was the humblest barbecue joint in modern Henderson history: The rear room of a hardware store at the corner of Powell and Letcher streets in the heart of the East End. “I think that was the only place we could find,” Burton said.

It was strictly carryout; customers had to step down from the sidewalk onto a concrete block and then to the floor below. The smokers were located in the rear parking lot. They were open for lunch only, Wednesday through Saturday. The only advertising was the sweet smell of barbecue smoke that wafted through the neighborhood.

But that was enough. Cooked meat flowed out of the back of the hardware store. Klein and Burton’s reputation for delicious barbecue preceded themselves.

“I liked it over there,” Klein said.

Not that there weren’t adversities. “That first year we got two feet of snow” when a blizzard struck just days before Christmas, Klein said. “We had 100 hams to cook,” which meant trekking out back through the snow and cooking outside in winter weather.

The money they took in was enough to supplement what Burton earned with a commercial cleaning business he had started and what Klein received from his city pension.

“I thought it would just be a hobby,” Klein said. “It didn’t pan out.”

The pair decided to relocate, in large part because city codes wouldn’t permit them to put up a carport out back to keep them dry in rain or snowy weather.

Klein acquired the corner property at 48 S. Holloway St., and up went the quaint 1,200-square-foot barbecue joint he had envisioned. J&B opened for business in the spring of 2005.

It was a hit from the first. Even with side and rear parking, the parking lot regularly filled up and overflow vehicles parked on streets. J&B Bar-B-Cue became a mainstay on the local smoked meat scene.

Rave reviews showed up on an unofficial J&B Facebook page.

“I have ate a lot of BBQ in my life, and J&B has to rank among the best anywhere,” one satisfied customer wrote in 2017. “The food is delicious, the staff is very friendly and the service is very fast.”

IT professionals who came from The Evansville Courier & Press to work on computers at The Gleaner over the years would strategically schedule their visits to coincide with lunchtime at J&B. Indiana residents still constitute a significant portion of their dine-in business.

They’ve even served celebrities, including former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and University of Kentucky basketball legend Kenny “Sky” Walker.

More than just meat

J&B serves barbecued pork, ribs and, this being Western Kentucky, mutton, of course. And naturally they brought the Burton flair for barbecued chicken (“Home of the Open Pit Chicken,” is J&B’s motto). Today, J&B has no fewer than 10 smokers plus open barbecue pits set up outside, primarily under a corrugated shed.

But they didn’t stop with slow-cooked smoke meat. They made homemade potato salad their signature side along with smoked baked beans flavored with meat. They offer a selection of non-barbecue entrees, including pork chops and one of the best cheeseburgers in town, plus homemade desserts.

During Lent, they offer fish. During the winter, they serve soup (on one recent morning, Klein was cooking clam chowder in an Instant Pot electric pressure cooker).

Almost from the start, property owners tried to lure Klein and Burton as tenants to sites on U.S. 41-North or Downtown Henderson. But the pair judged them to be too big — so big it would force them to be open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. That wasn’t in the cards.

However, it soon became evident that their nearly new building was too small. For one thing, the restaurant accounted for only a fraction of their business; they had catering jobs at coal mines, factories and other sites for as many as 850 people, serving not just barbecue but also steaks, chops and other entrees.

“Catering is 65 to 70 percent of our business,” Burton said.

“That made it” for J&B to become a successful enterprise, Klein said.

Within three years, they acquired an adjoining property on Washington Street, tore down the old house there and had a second, 900-square-foot building constructed to serve as a prep kitchen and provide needed storage.

But J&B’s success doesn’t rest solely on the shoulders of Klein and Burton

They had friends who knew how to cook barbecue — Richard Morse, Luther Burton, Joe Pat Griffin and the late Johnny Barron (whose old overalls hang in a frame in the dining room) — who helped out. Sonny Burton lent a hand during the early days as well.

There has also been a long string of woman who helped in the kitchen and served customers. Two of the longest-serving were Burton’s sister, Lulu Jones, and Jennifer Crowley, who has been at J&B for 12 years and counting. There have been too many others to name.

“All those girls have been special help,” Klein said. “It wouldn’t have been possible without all those girls, especially during the holidays; it’s pretty demanding. If it wasn’t for them, we would not have been able to make this thing operate.”

Together, they made J&B a profitable enterprise. But Klein and Burton also made a point to give back.

“We donate a lot to our community,” Klein said. “But it comes back to us 10-fold.”

He recalled a woman who moved to Henderson just as he and Burton were getting started. She was out of work, down on her luck and had children to feed. Could they spare her some food?

“We just did a big catering job and had a lot of food” left over, Klein said. They gave her ham and milk and other food.

“Probably seven or eight years ago, she came by and said, ‘Remember me?’” he said. The woman told them who she was and what they had done for her. By then, she had a job and was making it on her own. She just wanted to thank them for their kindness years earlier.

“It kind of makes you feel great,” Klein said.

But barbecuing and big catering jobs take a toll.

There’s the time required. “Before we sell a product, we’ve got to prep (and cook) it four or five hours before anything goes out the door,” Klein said. One of the partners has to be at the restaurant by 5:15 a.m. to start the ribs and Boston butts, then put the chicken on at 7 a.m. It’s all hands on deck at lunchtime, and until recently, one of the partners had to stick around to close at 6 p.m.

 “I didn’t expect it to be a full (time) deal,” Klein said. “… I gave up a lot of weekends,” which he said wouldn’t have been possible without the support of his wife, Nancy.

The work is also physical. “Eighty-pound boxes of meat, five-gallon buckets of sauce,” Burton said.

“The hams get heavier every year,” Klein said.

“The elements of winter” — all of the smoking of barbecue takes place outside — “gets tougher every year,” Burton said.

And they’re getting older. Burton turns 61 this week; Klein will be 62 in April.

“It’s been great,” Klein said. “It’s just time to slow down a little and start a different chapter in my life.”

Burton is mindful that a single careless misstep while carrying a heavy load could result in an injury that could haunt either of them for the rest of their lives.

“We just don’t want to work until we’re broken down,” Burton said. “We want to golf and fish and go for walks” and spend more time with his wife, Donna, who just retired.

 “We just figure it’s time,” he said.

This doesn’t mean their cooking days will be over after 2020. J&B started serving barbecue in the Ellis Park grandstand during the thoroughbred racing season last summer. “We were their No. 1 food vendor last year,” Burton said; he, for one, can envision keeping that up. (It’s a sort of spinoff from a catering job that Sonny Burton secured 30 years ago to feed all the workers on the track’s backside on behalf of the Kentucky Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association that J&B has continued.)

The future of J&B remains undetermined. There have been inquiries from prospective new operators, but it’s not clear how serious they are.

Ideally, a solid buyer would emerge by this fall. If so, “We’d stay with them a few months and be with them through the Christmas season,” Burton said. They also have 10 or 12 big catering jobs on their books every year. A new owner would “have the chance to maintain that the first time” to prove themselves, he said.

“We’ll see how our options work out toward the end of the year,” Burton said.

But for now, Burton said, the last day of he and Klein running J&B is set: “Christmas Eve, that’s it.”