Steve's BBQ To Reopen

[UNTLifer]

Volunteers helping rebuild

'You'll be back' - so will Steve's

06/16/2003

By Tom Reedy / Denton Record-Chronicle

Kill the fatted calf and put it on the smoker: Steve’s Bar-B-Q Pit is coming home soon.

Steve Logan will be serving up his own unique blend of brisket and brusqueness at the corner of Hickory Street and Bell Avenue again.

“It’s going to be rebuilt,” Mr. Logan said. “It’s going to be real nice this time, though.”

This week, workers will begin demolishing the red-and-yellow-striped shack where he served up falling-off-the-bone tender barbecue for 20 years before fire gutted the building early Easter Sunday.

A brand-new, steel-framed brick building will rise out of the ashes in about three months to replace it, thanks to a consortium of area businesses and individuals who teamed up soon after the fire to get Mr. Logan back doing what he does best: smoking meat.

“He’s a fish out of water right now, and a lot of folks want that place back in business, and I’m one of ’em,” said Kurt Schmitz of Nuconsteel Commercial Corp.

He and his colleague, Lance Neuman, solicited material and labor from area construction companies, and Steve’s will reopen at the same location in the fall.

“Man, I never dreamed people would want to help me out this much,” Mr. Logan said. “God is good, isn’t he?”

But help is still needed, Mr. Schmitz said. They still lack a plumber, and they need donations to help pay for kitchen utensils, furniture and other items.

Mr. Logan began turning out beef brisket, pork ribs, sausage and other artery-clogging delights in 1983.

A half-dozen booths ringed the uneven patched wood and linoleum floor, and along the walls, autographed pictures of celebrities hung among the family portraits and newspaper clippings about the restaurant.

His smoker was inside the building, and soon a dark patina of woodsmoke covered everything in the place. Some items on the walls were too soot-blackened to be deciphered.

“It was tiny and old, and if you rubbed up against the wall, you’d come out smelling like a turkey,” Mr. Schmitz said. “He loved his old smoker, but it had its faults.”

So Mr. Logan is designing a new smoker to replace the old one.

“It killed me to make that decision,” he said. “I’m going to have to go in there and burn the hell out of it for about seven days before I cook any meat in it.”

Mr. Logan said he uses 20 spices in his dry-rub seasoning, which he puts into everything he cooks, including the potato salad.

“I’ve been making that seasoning for over 24 years, and every time I make it, I go right by that same recipe,” Mr. Logan said.

Mr. Logan got his sauce recipe from a friend in Beaumont by loosening his tongue with some beer. He uses no vinegar, no sugar and no salt, and it takes two days to cook properly, he said.

“I’ve never written that recipe down; I don’t have to,” he said. “I can go back there and look at it and taste it a little bit — I go by the smell, too — I know it’s ready then.”

But Mr. Logan is not just known for his down-home cooking. He’s also famed for what has been called — charitably — his “intriguing” personality. It’s been said that he’s probably the only restaurateur within two counties who can tell off customers and leave them laughing about it.

“He’s a pirate of sorts; there’s nobody like him,” said Mr. Schmitz.

The combination of gourmet and grouch has made Mr. Logan a Denton icon over the past two decades.

“I’ve been told that, but I don’t see it,” he said. “I think I’m a gripey old bastard, is what I think.”

Maybe so, but he’s inviting the whole town to his grand opening when the building is finished.

“I plan on doing maybe two pigs and some chicken, and if you want to make a donation, fine, but I plan on doing it for free,” he said.

But until that day comes, Mr. Logan — and the rest of Denton — will just have to wait it out.

“I loved being in that place; it’s my whole life,” he said. “I’m waitin’.”

TOM REEDY can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is treedy@dentonrc.com.

The Steve Logan Benefit Fund

What: A fund to help Mr. Logan rebuild his barbecue restaurant

Where: Point Bank

How to donate: Checks can be mailed to P.O. Box 51724, Denton, TX 76206.

Other ways to help: To volunteer to help in other ways, call Lance Neuman at 940-321-1716, Lori Wilson at 940-365-9930, or Frenchy Rheault at 940-387-3164.