The line snakes around the gravel road at the drive-thru of Johnson’s Southern Style Barbecue in Harrisburg, and no one seems to mind. Engines idle with air conditioners cranked up, fighting off the summer heat. Other customers spread out their lunches at picnic tables inside the screened-in porch.
Indoors, Keith Williams, who has worked at Johnson’s for 35 years, carefully prepares each order, handing bags of food out the window with a smile, then leaning out to greet the next customer. Johnson’s has no indoor seating, so if the picnic tables are full, people take their meals home or back to work, although a few pull over in the grassy area and dig in.
Customers rave about literally everything on the menu. Chocolate pecan pie with a creamy filling (as well as other seasonal pies), meats with wood-smoked flavor, peppers and onions grilled to perfection, deep-fried mushrooms and tangy sides. After a lunch or two, many people start buying food in quantity — smoked turkey by the pound, racks of ribs or an entire smoked ham.
Rupert Johnson, the restaurant’s owner and a member of SouthEastern Illinois Electric Cooperative, got his start in the barbecue business when he was 8 years old, helping his grandfather, who owned a barbecue restaurant in Harrisburg called Ray’s Barbecue.
Johnson’s dad worked there, also. He eventually opened his own barbecue place, as did his siblings and cousins. As suits a family-owned business, the children did just about everything — washing dishes, waiting tables, cooking and bottling the sauce.
The recipe for the sauce was top secret back then and still is now. That’s for good reason. Customers from all over the country order cases of it. Locals buy it by the gallon.
Last year alone, Johnson received 1,500 orders, the majority from other states. Few people eat at Johnson’s without mentioning how good the sauce is, which isn’t surprising since it’s been passed down through four generations so far.
Johnson’s grandfather learned how to make it from his father. It’s a secret that Johnson continues to guard. The recipe lies in an off-site safe and when Johnson prepares it, he locks the door behind him. “My grandfather gave me the recipe as my inheritance,” he says.
Johnson worked in the coal mines for several years after he graduated high school and he gives the mines a lot of credit for teaching him so many skills he found useful when he decided to open his barbecue stand.
After learning welding, electrical work as a licensed electrician, and carpentry, Johnson built his own smokers, all five of his cookers, wired the office trailer he purchased, and did all the drywall and painting.
During the 40-plus years Johnson has been serving barbecue, he’s branched off in several directions. Like his grandfather, Johnson still sells to local grocers, but he also once owned a restaurant in Carbondale. Up until a few years ago, he spent summers setting up mobile carts and selling food at festivals.
Johnson’s day starts at 6:30 every morning and he works seven days a week. He helps cook and serve, makes the barbecue sauce and, with the help of Williams, smokes the meat. Before and after lunch and dinner rush, Johnson takes care of online and local email orders, and in addition to all of that, he bottles his own sauce.
Johnson enjoys experimenting with different flavors. When a customer mentioned that his original sauce was a tad too spicy for her, Johnson spent several years developing a second sauce, called Rupert’s Sweet & Spicy.
He then worked on and began serving a third sauce that he says is mostly a mix of the two earlier sauces. Johnson has added his personal touch in other ways, also. While his grandpa served chicken, beef and pork, Johnson added Italian beef and brisket. In addition to Grandpa’s original potato salad and slaw, he added mushrooms, okra and corn nuggets.
Asked if there will be a fifth generation running the barbecue restaurant, Johnson looks hopeful. “I have a grandson who’s interested,” he says, “but running a business isn’t just about smoking meat.” He glances around his office, lined with framed permits and licenses, an enormous stack of orders sitting at his elbow. “He has a lot to learn,” he adds.
Johnson’s Southern
