From firehouse to Smokehouse in Woodstock

WOODSTOCK – For someone sleeping four hours a night, Jason Szmurlo talks with surprising energy.

The owner of BBQ King Smokehouse in Woodstock, full-time Schaumburg firefighter and father of a 4-month-old and a 3-year-old is swamped.

Szmurlo, 35, opened his dream restaurant four weeks ago – a little barbecue joint that's been bouncing around his head since he and his brother, Kyle, started catering for family and friends years ago.

By the time he sits in a wooden chair at his new restaurant, 125 E. Calhoun St., on a quiet Thursday afternoon, leaning his forearms against the table in front as he speaks, Szmurlo is running on fumes. But you wouldn't know it.

"I'm scrambling around because right now, even though we're dead, I'm making sure all my food's ready for dinner," he said. "I'm prepping – I've got to get food on at 6 o'clock tonight for lunch tomorrow. Then I've got to get food on at midnight for dinner tomorrow. So it's a constant cycle, and that's what's so hard."

Instead of making food en masse, cooling it and then nuking individual orders in the microwave, Szmurlo insists that no meat be re-heated. That means, especially in the early going as he's still figuring things out, that he's constantly thinking ahead to the next meal.

The food – and the restaurant serves all the barbecue staples, from chicken to brisket to pulled pork – is smoked 12 to 14 hours overnight. Szmurlo uses a technique he's perfected since falling in love with barbecue when he opened a charcoal wood business about eight years ago.

That business endeavor is coming to a close as the smokehouse gets running, but in a way, one begot the other. Szmurlo tweaked his technique and developed his own sauces and rubs – borrowing influence from both Kansas City and Texas – while he used the wood charcoal from his business to smoke the meat.

Compliments poured in when he started catering for family and friends and cooking for the firehouse.

"It's like a system. This is how you have to do it," he said. "It'd be real easy if I honestly wanted to do it like everybody else does and cool the food down. ... But I'm not going to do that."

Part of that devotion comes from the amount of hours Szmurlo already has put into the restaurant.

After he bought a building just off the square in Woodstock about two years ago, Szmurlo enlisted the help of his brother – who now has a profit share and helps run the business – and a couple close friends for a complete renovation.

They took out a wall, tore up the floors, put in a brand new kitchen open to the rest of the restaurant. To get the 2,200-pound smoker in the building, they had to cut a hole in the wall and rebuild. They also made all the tables and chairs themselves using recycled barn wood. It hasn't been a quick or easy procedure.

"If I had a couple hundred thousand dollars and a crew of contractors, I would have been open in six months," Szmurlo said. "I didn't have that."

Szmurlo knows it's all a process. There's some guesswork involved when you're starting food a half-day before you serve it. Sometimes, food items will run out. Sometimes, the restaurant will get backed up. Szmurlo is urging customers to be patient, and to let him know if they have suggestions.

"It's not to say we don't care about our customers," he said. "It's to say, hey, we're really busy. And we've got a small kitchen. So it might take 30 to 40 minutes to get some food on a Saturday night. That's just something people are going to have to understand."

Customers soon will be greeted with a sign that estimates the wait and lists any meats that have run out. And the restaurant soon will be open Sundays, in time for football season.

Right now, it's closed Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. In the future, BBQ King will close only on Tuesdays.

Starting slow is allowing the staff time to figure things out.

It's allowing Szmurlo – who works as a fireman every third day – the chance to tweak things, get all the parts of the restaurant machine running with better efficiency and, maybe, every once in a while, take a breath or two.

"I told my wife, I will not let this place ruin me," he said. "I'm giving myself five years. If it's not ironed out in five years..."

He pauses briefly.

"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

BBQ King Smokehouse:
What: A barbecue establishment blending influences from Kansas City and Texas. BBQ King also does catering.
Where: 125 E. Calhoun St., Woodstock
Information: Call 815-338-3477 or visit the restaurant's Facebook page: www.facebook.com/pages/BBQ-King-Smokehouse/111905238847939