John Lewis is tired. After three-days towing two flatbeds carrying four smokers and a giant sausage cooker from Austin to Charleston, today’s the day the barbecue baron’s smoker arsenal gets craned into place at his Lewis Barbecue construction site (464 N. Nassau St.). 

“We got in around 2:30 a.m. last night,” he said standing next to his father John Lewis Sr. and his friend Jimbo Glass. “In Houston one wheel rolled off the trailer, so that added some days.”

Fortunately, the convoy was going low and slow on the drive and nothing was damaged. If it had been though, Lewis had a backup plan. “We brought our welder with us,” he said. Lewis, his father, and Glass built the smokers themselves at their Austin Smoke Works over the past year.

Looking at the muddy construction site he added, “Eventually, you’ll be able to sit outside and look at the smokers through a screen. Next to them will be a bar serving aguas fresca cocktails.” 

But that’s all a ways off. Right now Lewis expects he won’t be serving any of his sweet meats until spring. For now, it’s just another rainy day of construction… and maybe some lunch at Martha Lou’s later to treat his co-pilots.

 

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