East Thetford
David McInnis knows about both.
McInnis, the grill master behind Wicked Awesome BBQ, in East Thetford, whose roving black food truck with flames painted on the sides is a well-known presence around Hartford, Norwich and Hanover, is taking the next step in the business he has been slowly building over the past seven years: a 30-seat restaurant at the former Thrifty Car Rental location near Sykes Mountain Avenue in White River Junction.
“We looked all over for a long time,” McInnis said from behind the serving window at the 10-by-12 “barbecue shack” on Route 5 in East Thetford. “But we finally found (a spot for a restaurant) and the location is great.”
McInnis said the site is advantageous because the Hampton Inn, Sykes Mountain Avenue automobile dealerships and the White River Junction VA Medical Center are all nearby, promising a flow of customers, along with “people coming off the highway who want something other than McDonalds.”
Converting the former car rental office into 2,000-square-foot restaurant is not coming cheap. The construction work, which requires knocking down walls, building a beer and wine bar, fitting out a food prep area and installing bathrooms, will total $100,000. And then, McInnis said, he expects to spend $150,000 more to buy kitchen and bar equipment, including a second smoker from “championship” Georgia custom smoker maker Bubba Grills.
“They can run $6,000 to $10,000 for a smoker,” McInnis said.
McInnis is native of Winthrop, Mass., near Boston’s Logan International Airport, and has the accent to prove it. In fact, the name Wicked Awesome BBQ is a tribute to his Boston-area roots, where the phrase “wicked awesome” is local patois for “very,” “extremely” or “particularly,” as in — according to a sign McInnis has posted on the front of his East Thetford shed — “this chowdah is wicked awesome,” or “it’s snowin’ wicked hahd.”
Hooked in High School
McInnis said he got turned on to cooking by accident when he was a teenager. He signed up for a home economics class in high school because “I figured that’s where the girls were.” The first day, he said, was spent deboning a chicken, “and I was hooked.”
After taking a culinary arts degree at Newbury College in Brookline, Mass., McInnis worked on the banquet teams at fancy hotels such as the Seaport Hotel in Boston and the Boston Omni Parker House. At the same time he would host “pig roast and keg parties” for friends on the weekends at his home, where he honed his skills in barbecuing and grilling meats. He turned his weekend hobby into a business by launching a catering company that specialized in pig roasts at customer’s homes.
That’s where he perfected his slow-roasting barbecue technique, “low temperature for a very long time,” McInnis said, that requires 12 hours for pork butts and brisket and four to six hours for ribs, although chicken “can be quick.”
But 11 years ago, McInnis said, “it was time for a change” and he moved to the Upper Valley, where his wife, Debby Fennelly, a classmate in high school, has lived for 25 years. He started out selling barbecue from a trailer and tent set up at Colburn Park in Lebanon and then opened the shack at Huggett’s Mini Mart in East Thetford, just a few miles up the road from the couple’s home at the intersection of Route 5 and Route 132 in Norwich.
In 2014, McInnis introduced the food truck, which is run by Fennelly and their daughter, Becca Town, with an eye to drawing customers on their lunch break or commute home from work. Son Peter Fennelly helps out on the catering side of the business.
In the beginning, McInnis said, he never had a grand strategy for his barbecue business or to involve other family members, but things just evolved with success.
“Originally, I just wanted to feed my family,” he said. “I love what I’m doing. I have no problem working, but this was my thing, not theirs. … I am grateful for my family. They work (very hard). Having a strong crew, especially family, is very important in making it work.”
McInnis said the plans for the restaurant accelerated this past winter when the lack of snow meant fewer tourists and a steep falloff in business. He said there are always fewer customers during the winter months, but this past season was especially tough.
“There were not a lot of people driving past here,” McInnis said of his shack location. “When there’s no snow, there’s no tourists.”
Fortunately, the rental arrangement he has with Huggett’s owner Bonnie Avery eased the difficulty. “My rent is based on a percentage of sales. She makes out in the summer and I make out in the winter.”
Nonetheless, McInnis expects he will have to close the East Thetford location when the Wicked Awesome BBQ restaurant opens in White River Junction because managing two places simultaneously will be “too much to handle.”
As for competing with Big Fatty’s BBQ in downtown White River Junction, McInnis sees them catering to different customers. “I don’t feel so bad about that. It’s a completely different neighborhood.”
McInnis said his restaurant will also have a horseshoe pit out front and he hopes to be holding horseshoe tournaments so customers can experience a picnic-like ambience to go along with the barbecue. He said he is even “eying” some nearby parcels where one day he may be able to open an indoor arcade and games venue combined with an eatery so families can have a place to take the kids for birthday parties and diversionary occasions.
He noted that, with the recent closing of the Mountain Meadow Funplex in Canaan and the previous closing of bowling alley and arcade Upper Valley Lanes & Games on Sykes Mountain Avenue — now being developed into a Subaru dealership — the rainy day options for Upper Valley parents with young children are few.
“I’d like to be able to offer paintball, that sort of thing,” McInnis said. “I envision something like Chuck E. Cheese’s,” the indoor games venue and pizza restaurant.
But all that is in the future. Right now McInnis is focused on opening his restaurant and taking the next step in building his barbecue business. Besides expanding the meal menu — he’s thinking of adding fried fish — he also will be introducing for the first time desserts that pair with barbecue, such as sweet potato pie, chocolate chip cookies and “a mean pumpkin whoopie pie” honed by Fennelly.
“And a good cannoli,” the city-raised McInnis promises. That will be a priority. “You can’t get a good cannoli in the Upper Valley.”
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com.
