CLAY, N.Y. - Mall food courts are often dominated by grab-and-go fast food, but inside the Great Northern Mall, there’s a new restaurant offering just the opposite.
Han Blackmer, an optometrist who owns Blackmer Family Eyewear in the same mall, was trying to convince Jon Williams to open a restaurant. He had feasted on Williams’ barbecue at parties and family gatherings and wanted the public to have a taste.
It took five years before Williams agreed, but his efforts paid off and the two opened Route 31 Smokehouse BBQ inside the mall food court in early February.
Williams grew up in restaurants. He was an executive chef at an Embassy Suites and ran his first kitchen at age 18. Later, as a corporate trainer for Applebee’s, he was flown across the country to train the kitchen staff at new restaurants.
Before launching Route 31 Smokehouse BBQ, Williams worked as a truck driver and his cross-country travels are well represented in the menu. The four homemade barbecue sauces: Original, chipotle, whiskey peach and apple habanero, are in-tune with sweeter, Kansas City style sauces. They’re served on the side, because “dry barbecue” is what Williams learned when he was in Texas.
The beef brisket, with a rich, pink smoke ring at least a quarter-inch thick, is another taste of the Lone Star State. The Memphis-style pulled pork sandwich, topped with tangy, vinegar-based coleslaw, would feel right at home in the Carolinas as well.
“I’d put my food next to anyone and take my chances," Williams said.
Williams developed the menu (available on the restaurant’s Facebook page) and cooks the food, which can take up to 16 hours for the pulled pork and 14 hours for the beef brisket. That means early mornings—Williams starts smoking meats most days at 5 a.m. All the side dishes, salads and starters are made in-house as well.
“It’s time-consuming, but it’s a labor of love,” Williams said.
Williams uses only charcoal and hickory wood for the smoker, which is located outside behind the restaurant off a rear parking lot. Fabricated from a metal drum, the smoker is completely manually-operated. The fire is easier to manage in the summer, but when it’s cold and snowy outside, like it was when they first opened, the fire needs to be tended to every hour or so through the night, Williams said.
He parked his car by the smoker and slept there four times that first week.
The restaurant has only been open for around two months, but Williams and Blackmer already have their eyes set on growth. They’ll be selling their chicken wings—smoked for two hours and then deep-fried to crisp them before being tossed with sauce—as their $1 sample at the upcoming Taste of Syracuse. They’ll also be at Harborfest in Oswego and other festivals this summer.
Their intent for the Great Northern outpost is for it to be a stepping stone to a full-service restaurant, as well as a base for their catering operation. They’re eyeing a restaurant on Route 11 in Brewerton, where they’d serve all the smoked meats offered at the current location, as well as an expanded menu of steaks, burgers, fish and other entrees, cooked over a wood-fired grill.
The food court location would remain open after the sit-down restaurant opens.
Route 31 Smokehouse BBQ opens at 7 a.m. daily and closes when the mall closes. They serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast offerings include a smokehouse omelet with pulled pork, onions, peppers and cheese, brisket or pulled pork breakfast sandwiches and one of Williams’ favorites: Sausage gravy and biscuits.
"This is the tip of the iceberg,” Williams said. “This is only grazing the surface of what I can do.”
Jacob Pucci finds the best in food, dining and culture across Upstate New York. Contact him at (315) 282-8611, or by email at jpucci@syracuse.com.
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