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the Barbecue issue

The Hog - Father by Tim Acosta, Rouses Marketing Director

B ig Mike Lewis, pitmaster and owner of Big Mike’s BBQ Smokehouse in Houma, believes in patience, family and the kind of good barbecue that’s worth studying for a lifetime. Lewis grew up in Florida and learned about barbecue eating at places like Big John’s Alabama BBQ inTampa, an open pit barbecue restaurant founded in 1968 by the late Rev. John A. “Big John” Stephens and still run by the Stephens family. “There’s generations of barbecue knowledge there,”Lewis says.He ate barbecue wherever he could find it and became a dedicated student of the old joints that dot Texas and the Gulf Coast. “I guess barbecue got in my blood.” After years in the Sunshine State, Lewis and his wife, Judith, moved to Houma in 2007 so they could be near his father, Harold Lewis, who had recently retired from running a mechanic shop. “Pop was 75 and I just wanted to spend time with him. Louisiana was calling my name.” The couple decided to open a restaurant and soon found a spot on the West Side of Houma — a former Tastee Donuts — and Big Mike’s BBQ Smokehouse opened for business. Like Big John’s (their inspiration in Florida), Big Mike’s was a family affair fueled by hard work and cooperation. Some parts of it never change — even after a long day of tending fires and serving folks, someone has to rise well before dawn to light the pits. And for years, that job fell to Big Mike’s dad. “Dad would get up so I didn’t have to. He knew I was already working 12 to 14 hours a day.That man always had my back.”

The Lewis men worked side by side to build the restaurant. “Dad didn’t take a salary the entire time he worked with me. In 2012 I retired him. I said, ‘Dad, the train is moving; this is your stop. It’s time for you to kick back and enjoy your life.’I sent him a retirement check every single week, but he never spent a single cent.” Things ran pretty smoothly until an electrical fire totaled the West Side restaurant. Lewis scrambled to find a new spot, eventually relocating to a Shell gas station right by the Rouses Market in the Village East Shopping Center. “A gas station wasn’t our first choice for a barbecue restaurant, but it actually ended up being a good location for us,” he says. Lewis eventually moved from the old station to a new outpost on Barrow Street, and now he’s planning a second location in Thibodaux.

He’s also created his own line of barbecue sauces, rubs and fully cooked sausages, which he debuted at Rouses. “We made a barbecue rub, which is for brisket and pork, and a poultry rub, which we use for grilled chicken and smoked turkey. Our original sauce is a savory sauce, then we have a sweet heat version.” Every pitmaster dreams about having his own line of food, but what was it like for him to see his vision come true? “When I actually walked in and saw my products on Rouses shelves? Well, I can’t begin to describe how great that felt. I’m at Rouses every day, and I still get excited when I see my stuff.”

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MY ROUSES EVERYDAY MARCH | APRIL 2017