Oftentimes over the years, good barbecue restaurants in Henderson have kept going even when the original owners retired.
So it is with J&B Bar-B-Cue and Catering at Holloway and Washington streets, which as of last Tuesday is under new ownership.
The new owners are Nick Murdach, who will operate the business, and his parents, Gregory and Denise Murdach.
Nick Murdach, who had been working as a paralegal, became interested in acquiring J&B immediately after reading a story in The Gleaner last January reporting that 2020 was going to be the last year that founders John Klein and Barry Burton would be at the restaurant, which would be for sale as they prepared to retire.
“It’s just one of those things,” Murdach, who’s about to turn 28, said. “I read the article and called Dad and said, ‘We should buy it. I don’t want to see it close after 15 years.’” That was in late January or early February.
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His father agreed. Nonetheless, “It’s been a long process, thanks to Covid,” Nick Murdach said. “I’m glad to get it done before the holidays come up.”
Since mid-year, Murdach has been working alongside Klein and Burton. “I’ve been working with them for five months, learning the recipes, the ins and outs of it.”
“I learned a lot from John and Barry,” he said. “Hopefully it will be just as good if not better.”
Each day starts around6 a.m. when the fires in the smokers and open pit are lit, with meat going on about a half-hour later to be cooked and smoked for hours.
“Charcoal and wood, the old way to do it — the good way to do it,” said Murdach, who grew up learning from his grandfather Bill Walker about barbecuing on a backyard smoker with an offset firebox.
“I’ve always been around it,” he said. “Barbecue is in my blood.”
Murdach plans to make some menu changes.
“I’m going to take mutton off,” he said. While it’s a Western Kentucky tradition, it’s hard to make money on mutton. “From a 150-pound sheep I can get 40 pounds of meat.”
“I know Thomason’s (Barbecue on Atkinson Street) is cooking mutton” and can satisfy Henderson’s appetite for it, Murdach said.
He intends to replace mutton with beef brisket. “Nobody is serving brisket around here,” Murdach said. “I’ll try to master that.”
He’ll be adding smoked sausage as well and intends to keep J&B’s popular house-made sides while adding macaroni and a potato casserole.
“I’m really looking to add cornbread to the menu,” Murdach said. “I can’t imagine barbecue without cornbread.”
Next week, he intends to start offering family meals with meat, sides, dessert and tea in sizes that will feed four to six people or 10 to 12 people.
He’s also planning to add Sunday hours — 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. J&B will still be closed Mondays and will close at 2 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday for the time being.
But once the Covid-19 pandemic limits on indoor restaurant dining are lifted, he plans to stay open until 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, as J&B did before Klein and Burton reduced hours at the first of the year when they started scaling back their workload.
Murdach also intends for J&B to get back into catering for weddings.
“Everybody on the staff is going to stay,” including kitchen manager Jennifer Crowley, Murdach said. “She’s the backbone of the kitchen. I let her run the inside and I’ll run the smokers outside. She’s taught me a lot.”
Joining the staff to help Murdach cook meat are D.J. Cravens, a former cook at Metzger’s Tavern, and Joe Pat Griffin.
In the meantime, the holiday rush is on at J&B. It served a traditional Thanksgiving dinner to 890 coal miners on three shifts at Alliance Coal’s River View Mine in Union County and now is gearing up for Christmas, with 120 smoked hams ordered as of last Thursday with three weeks to go, Murdach said.
Klein and Burton are taking turns helping out through the holidays, and will step away for good after Dec. 24.
“I can’t thank John and Barry enough,” Murdach said. “They’re trusting me to take over their business and keep their name.”
Lifelong friends with separate backgrounds in barbecue, Klein and Burton first teamed up to cook and serve barbecue at the W.C. Handy Blues Festival’s former Taste of Henderson Barbecue event.
In about 2003, after Klein retired from the city’s Gas Department, the two opened J&B Bar-B-Cue in the back of a hardware store on Letcher Street, serving carryout only.
When that proved successful, Klein built the existing building at Holloway and Washington, opening for business there April 5, 2005. Now, they’re looking forward to retirement and relaxing.
“They turned a side hobby into something big,” Murdach said. “People from all over the Tri-state come here. There’s nothing like word-of-mouth about great barbecue.”
“We want to thank the people who supported Barry and me over the years,” Klein said. “We appreciate our loyal customers and friends.”
