Old Hickory BBQ named Small Business of the Year with more than 11 employees

By Matt Weafer
Greater Owensboro Business Magazine

Ninety years of success as a restaurant is virtually unheard of. But at Old Hickory Bar-B-Q, the Foreman family has been serving quality food at low prices for nine decades, which is why it was named the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business of the year with more than 11 employees.

Owner John Foreman is the great great grandson of Charles “Pappy” Foreman, an Owensboro blacksmith who began barbecuing mutton in 1918.

Nearly a century later, with the same recipe and technique, his family continues serving the food of the local person to local people, anywhere from 400 to 750 of them a day, Foreman said.

“Old Hickory BBQ has prospered through three generations of the Foreman family and that’s a real testament to the business’ success,” Jody Wassmer, president of the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce said.

With hungry diners flocking to the door for three generations, the Foreman family hasn’t changed much in the restaurant. “Basically it’s the same as it’s always been,” Foreman said. “We try to keep things simple. Our main thing is quality.”

Of those hundreds of diners a day, most of them ate at Old Hickory when they were kids, Foreman said. Now they’re bringing in their kids and grandkids and the food is almost the exact same.

In an industry that turns over restaurants like pancakes, 90 years is evidence of a successful equation. That equation in its plainest form is quality food at cheap prices.

“I hate to raise prices,” Foreman said, which is fresh on his mind given rising gas and food costs, and the fact that many of his colleagues are changing menus to offset or recoup costs.

“My dad always said it’s better to make two nickels than one dime,” he said. “When your average ticket price is low and the food is good, customers come back.” And that’s the goal in the restaurant business, retention.

While other restaurants in town are adding new items and raising prices, customers are sitting at home budgeting checkbooks and trimming costs, too. So a low ticket price to feed a family seems much more appealing, especially if that low price buys them an evening of entertainment in dining and quality, familiar food.

“Everybody is worried about rising costs,” Foreman said, “In times like these, people do without a lot of things, but they keep dining out as entertainment.”

Foreman said his regular customers eat in his dining room five to seven times a week. The most expensive item on the menu is $11.75. “That’s the combo plate,” Foreman said, “and it’s a lot of food.”

But the average ticket price is about $7 or $8 per person.

“I’d rather treat people fair and have them come back,” Foreman said. “I think people in Owensboro appreciate that.”

Foreman said that employees know many of the regulars on a first name basis. When he needs work done at the restaurant, he’ll usually seek out one of his customers.
“We try to do business with people that do business with us,” he said.

And to keep business as local as possible, Foreman also strives to purchase his food supplies from local vendors.

Though Old Hickory Bar-B-Q has been honed to a finely oiled machine that pumps out good food, quickly, Foreman said he doesn’t see many changes for the future. The family has avoided franchising to maintain consistency.

“We may expand one day,” Foreman said, “but I don’t want to get stretched too thin. We don’t try to make the big sale.”

If there’s a secret to Old Hickory’s success aside from quality food at cheap prices, it may be the family’s tenacity and dedication to treat its regular customers, its friends and neighbors fairly, consistently.

“We concentrate on local people,” Foreman said. “We always consider ourselves the local place where all the locals go.”

Reprinted with permission from the Messenger-Inquirer.