When Terren and Kelly Williams launched their Texas-style barbecue brand back in January of 2023, they bought the bus from Pila Sunderland, one of Starland Yard’s Fab Four owners. Since then, what was Loki Food Bus went all Lone Star and became the mobile home of Slow Fire BBQ.

“He loves our barbecue and is a big barbecue fan in general,” Williams said of Sunderland. “Since he was always coming, I made the comment, ‘Man, we really need a kitchen.’”

“I didn’t mean we needed a restaurant necessarily,” he continued with a Texas-sized grin. “I just wanted a big kitchen set-up.”

Sunderland took the offhand wish to heart.

On December 25, the Williamses announced on social media that they had signed on the dotted line, posting a video montage of Slow Fire BBQ’s first year in business that includes a shot of Terren and Kelly standing out front of their Waters Avenue property, kissing while together holding the key.

“We’re a team,” Terren Williams said.

Who knew Santa’s bag was big enough for an entire building?

SLOW FIRE, FAST TRACK

When the hunt began, Sunderland initially suggested the former Larry’s Giant Subs across from Memorial Hospital and the brick icehouse across from Victory North, but both were “going to take too much” work to make them Texas BBQ-ready.

“I kind of had lost hope, thinking nothing’s really going to happen,” Williams admitted.

Suddenly, Sunderland mentioned 1902 Waters Avenue, a uniquely shaped building that connects to 1904 and takes up the full block between East 35th and East 36th Streets. The address was in the stable of Harley Krinsky, Sunderland’s friends and owner of Congress Street Social Club and Sorry Charlie’s, among other area properties.

Last operational as The Kick Back, a neighborhood place for a breakfast sampler, cheesesteaks, and fried shrimp, the building sat dormant for nearly a decade.

“As soon as I saw inside, I was sold,” Williams said with a snap of his fingers. “There’s so much room. There’s so much potential. There’s just so much character to this building.”

“It’s almost a prerequisite. You have to have a humble building to serve humble food,” he reasoned.

Becca Goossen, who is set to open Goodfortune Market a few blocks south, found a photo of the property dated 1946 from the Georgia Historical Society when it was a gas station, and today, its bygone pump lines and canopy stanchions are clearly visible in the patched pavement out front.

“I was told that it was a pet store at one time,” Williams said.

Though no renovation renderings have been done yet, he praised Keith Howington (Greenline Architecture) who is heading up this comprehensive project.

“We’re going to keep the rounded front, all of the curves, all the appeal,” Williams said. “We’re going to try really hard to keep the essence of what it was,” which will include refurbishing the awning and restoring the existing glass block.

“The timeline that we’re trying really really hard for is middle to late fall,” he said, adding that they do not want to open during the winter or wait until a year from now.

I do not want to wait that long either.

NOT THE Q YOU ARE USED TO

“This is important for people to know,” Williams explained of his soon-to-be BBQ joint’s workings. “It won’t be the same experience that they’ve had at the bus,” meaning no order-pay-pager-wait setup.

“This is Texas meat market style,” he continued, reminiscing about his Lone Star years and his informal education at bona fide barbecue paragons around the state.

After he lived and cheffed in Atlanta, the Savanna native went to Dallas in 2010 to attend bible college, which is where he met Kelly, a born-and-raised Texan who fell in love with Savannah on a visit the couple made simply to introduce her to his hometown.

During their Dallas days, Williams went on a fishing trip with friends, and a “slight detour” took him to a true Texas meat market.

“I had never heard of these OG places,” he admitted in the moment, “I was a fan of barbecue but had no idea. As soon as I walked in, I was hooked. I just got it.”

Recreating what he first saw more than a decade ago, Williams’s brick-and-mortar Waters Avenue restaurant will be fueled by two custom-built 1000-gallon Texas-style offsets, essentially smokers built from giant propane tanks, twenty-feet long each and standing more than ten feet to the top of their stacks.

The beasts will be housed in a bespoke 700-square foot back pitroom located directly behind the building’s middle section, which will be a cold-prep kitchen.

“We’re going to make sausage. We’re going to cure bacon. All that kind of stuff,” said Williams. “Trim the briskets and the ribs, get it all ready for the smoker, and it’ll feed right into the smoker room.”

The restaurant’s hot kitchen will be in the building’s back corner behind the Texas-style service line. This will be sit-down dining but after patrons have their food.

“People tend to want to use the word ‘cafeteria.’ That’s not what it is,” Williams said of the system. “A line will feed you down the side, and you’ll come to a butcher block where a meat cutter will ask you, ‘What would you like?’”

Right there, smoked meats will be cut up and portioned out before a diner moves down the line to the hot and cold sides.

“You’ve got your food, right then and there,” he concluded, and then folks find their seats.

The renovated restaurant’s interior is slated to have roughly fifty seats plus a bar that has a walk-up window to serve refills for the patio that will seat another fifty patrons. Williams hopes to obtain a full liquor license and is all but assured of being able to serve beer, based on the proximity of a few churches.

All told, the two conjoined buildings comprise more than 3000 square feet, and the block-long property has enough room for two-dozen parking spaces.

MAKE ROOM FOR DESSERT

By his culinary training, Williams is a pastry chef, so sweets are also part of Slow Fire BBQ’s future plan.

“That’s one of the things that I have to do here,” he said, emphasizing the have. “That’s my love. I have to spread my wings and do that.”

Williams anticipates a “really cool dessert program,” saying, “From Day One, we’re going to focus on ice cream,” which was never possible in the limited space on the bus.

He expects his flagship flavors to be lemon meringue pie and praline crunch and hopes to build a fan following within the first year before utilizing the attached property as a separate-but-associated sweet spot.

Banana pudding and other desserts will be available where the BBQ is sold, but Williams expects to offer much more at 1904.

“Out of here, our initial plan is to scoop ice cream, and we’ll do cakes and pies. Red velvet, carrot, hummingbird,” sold by the slice or whole, he said.

BACK ON THE BUS (FOR NOW)

After a final St. Patrick’s Day stint at Starland Yard, where Slow Fire BBQ has built its biggest following, the bus has almost exclusively been at the Waters Avenue property, and Williams said that he is now “in love with the outside” just as much as the interior, though he knows that the entirety needs “so much work.”

For the foreseeable future, he expects to be serving onsite on Waters every Saturday and Sunday, the former being beef rib day, so bring your Fred Flintstone appetite.

“Sunday is brunch day,” he added. “We’ve been doing some fun brunch items that you can only find that day.”

On the weekends, the family affair will be run inside the bus by Terren, Kelly, and the kids, Gatlin (10) and Kessler (7), and folks can eat their fill at picnic tables in the parking lot or grab-and-go.

“I couldn’t do any of this without Kelly as she works just as hard and has sacrificed just as much as I have, if not more,” Terren Williams shared. “She left a teaching career of eleven years to help pursue this dream of BBQ, not really knowing where it would lead.”

Before too long, the Williamses hope that they can resume the periodic pop-ups at Starland Yard, Service Brewing, and Eastern Wharf, “just to get some of this going,” and in the meantime, restoration can commence without interrupting bus-based BBQ business one bit.

“Hopefully, we can grow it into where we can bring Friday back,” he said of the new permanent-ish location, “and then ultimately Thursday.”

For this family, the fall will come faster than a prairie fire with a tail wind, and when it does, I will be first in line at their Texas-style meat market, especially if those mac-n-cheese brisket bites are back on the menu.

Slow Fire BBQ (1902 Waters Avenue) is open Saturday (noon to 7 p.m.) and Sunday (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.), plus occasional pop-ups elsewhere as posted on @slowfiresavannah.

This article appears in Connect Savannah I April 2024.