Ed: I’ve been doing barbecue my entire life. My old man had a 55-gallon drum cut in half with refrigerator racks laid across the top, sitting on cinder blocks. That was our grill. We didn’t have much, but we’d cook chicken legs and Danish ribs for the holidays. We’d doctor up generic barbecue sauce on the stove with syrup, lemon, and Accent. That’s how I learned to cook when I was six years old. Never thought I’d own a restaurant.

Angela: I never thought we’d have any of this. We bought a houseboat and saw this restaurant down the street. Now it’s Shotgun BBQ Restaurant and Grill. 

Ed: I wanted a houseboat. Angela was that adamant we were not getting a houseboat. Then I got COVID back when nobody knew what to do.

Angela: I was sleeping in one room, and he was sleeping in another. I’d crack the door to see if he was still alive, throw his food in there, run back out, and wash my hands.

Ed: For five weeks.

Angela: I was sending him pictures from the other side of the house. “Look at this houseboat.”

Ed: She thought I was fixing to leave this world. Decided she’d better get me a houseboat and keep me alive.

Angela: We bought one in Bay Minette. We lived in Chickasaw and had never heard of the place.

Ed: Then we bought another houseboat a month later, thinking one day we’d retire up here. I was a warehouse manager and then a consultant for about ten years.

Angela: One day, Ed said consulting wasn’t working out. I told him he could resign, but he’d better find something else to do. “If I’m still working, you best be working.”

Ed: I was still getting paid for a while, but I was buying boats and guns and having a good old time.

Angela: That wasn’t working. I was putting in twelve-hour days while he was moving a little slow to find a food truck or what’s next. Then we walked into this place. It was an old biker bar with carpet on the walls. Signs said, “Walk in. Crawl out.” But it was also a church on Sundays.

We went to the closing with a cardboard box full of money. The owner counted it, then pushed some back across the table and said, “Y’all take this. We’re not here to take everything you’ve got.”

Ed: This was just supposed to be a food truck. I wasn’t going to open a restaurant. So much for that plan. I sold everything I had — boats, guns, whatever it took to get the restaurant ready. If we needed something, I sold something. We bet the house. Worked day and night to make this happen.  We opened November 2023.

Angela: Back then, we didn’t have a plan or a clue. I was still working nights, keeping track of every dollar Ed spent, figuring out what we could and couldn’t do. Before we knew it, people were lined up at the door. We were known from barbecue competitions and catering weddings.

Ed: I’ve been catering since I was eighteen or nineteen.

My uncle gave me my grandfather’s shotgun for my birthday. The gun had been missing for years. We were trying to name our sauce when somebody said, “Why don’t you call it Shotgun Barbecue?” That’s where the name came from.

Angela: I love seeing people leave here happy. We don’t turn folks away. Workers come in, just starting work with the Novelis plant, and say, “We’ve only got this much money.” We tell them, “Come on. Let’s get you fed. Catch it next time.”

We do GED classes here on Wednesdays. One young woman graduated last November, and we had her graduation right here in the restaurant: cap, gown, the whole thing. Her husband is getting ready to graduate.

We do benefits for people who’ve lost homes or family members. We just ask, “How can we help?”

Ed: You don’t know when it’s going to be you or somebody you love. We’ve been feeding people at Joe Cain for about ten years. It’s not just giving food away. It’s helping people enjoy themselves. We cook all night — whole hog, gator, baked beans with peaches. We also take a grill on a boat to Gravine Island and feed folks there.

As long as everybody’s happy and we’re healthy, I’m not walking away from this. I’m a gambler. A hardcore gambler. We bet the house on this restaurant.

But I think this is my last gamble.

The shotgun that inspired the name.

The boat that delivers barbecue.