Today we’d like to introduce you to Lance Westby.
Hi Lance, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Worked as a Safety and Environmental Manager for over 25 years in the Winona area. No culinary school or cooking background. A friend introduced me to smoking when I was in my early to mid-thirties. He taught me quite a bit and then we took that to the next level by building our own smoker for smoking venison jerky, hot sticks and sausage. We used the smoker for smoking pork, chicken and beef during the summer months. Over the years, I worked on several recipes to make for family and friends. These included rubs, sauces, German sausage, andouille sausage, homemade bacon, pit beans, red beans and rice, chili, green beans, coleslaw, etc. Also worked on the smoking and holding process to ensure the quality and consistency of the brisket, ribs, pulled pork and chicken time after time. The Safety and Environmental field was quite a grind the last few years and I lost my passion for it and really wasn’t happy at all with my work life. The Covid downtime was when I decided to make the leap of faith and start up a bbq restaurant using the same recipes and processes I developed while making food for my friends and family. This was obviously a bit scary given the economy at that time. It is still a bit scary with the ongoing tough economy and raw material pricing issues. It took almost a year to get from the concept stage to an operational restaurant. I was able to find an excellent supporting cast, including Nate Krage, who manages the restaurant for me and his partner Shanda, who runs the front counter operations for me. Nate helped me fine-tune the recipes from small scale to large scale (which is trickier than it sounds.) and has been instrumental in the success we have had since opening in April of 2022. We have had incredible support from the community and the word-of-mouth advertising has been unbelievable. It’s been a lot of work and many long workdays, but it has been incredibly rewarding and I’m smiling when going to work every day.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Several issues prior to startup – Roof needed to have work done on it in order to support the hood and rooftop unit, Availability of appliances was an issue due to Covid-related production issues across the country. Hiring employees was difficult, but we found a good crew and we’re happy to have them (currently hire 10 employees).
The soft opening was anything but soft – we sold out within 3 to 5 hours of our first month and a half of business. We were running at about 80% capacity at that time and our main concern was working out the bugs in our process and producing quality food consistently and ensuring our customer service was top-notch. As mentioned before, word of mouth was fantastic and we did no advertising until our grand opening in June. We did gain a reputation for selling out during the soft opening, so many people looked past us for dinner. Things have slowed down a bit since the opening and we are now open until 8pm most every night of the week, occasionally selling out a little early on Friday and Saturday nights.
Pricing has been a major challenge – want to provide people with a good, hearty meal at a reasonable price, which I think we do a good job of. It is difficult to provide good food at good prices in today’s challenging times, but we have been pretty successful so far.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Provided this in the first question. 25+ years in the safety and environmental field with no practical cooking experience. Wasn’t happy with my work life and decided to open the restaurant during Covid.
Some of our customer’s favorites include our brisket, pulled pork, homemade sausages, macaroni and cheese, brisket chili, and our chicken and andouille sausage gumbo.
We’re very happy with our recipes so far, but we’ll always strive to improve them and add others to our menu.
What set’s us apart from others in the area is being able to provide high-quality homemade food at a fair price and with fast food restaurant speed. People can get in and out of the restaurant for lunch in minutes. All of our food is made fresh overnight and in the early morning hours and all of it is in holding cabinets and ready to go at 11am 5 days a week. We have also been able to develop different flavor profiles for our meats. Many BBQ restaurants tend to have everything taste the same. We pride ourselves in developing different rubs, prep processes, and cooking processes to ensure our meats have their own flavor profile.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Always interested in hearing about different techniques and styles from my customers and competitors. It’s amazing what you can learn by sitting down and chatting over a beer with somebody as passionate about it as I am. Learning about both different smoking processes and flavor profiles.
Contact Info:
- Website: backwaterbbq.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100072233183435
