Sean and Stephanie Hale have opened, Savory Smoke, a Memphis-Style barbecue restaurant in Downtown Morro Bay.
Morro Bay’s newest Downtown restaurant brings a taste of the Barbecue Belt to the Central Coast, fulfilling a dream of the owners to have a place of their own.
Stephanie and Sean Hale said they’ve been working in restaurants for over 30 years. While she hails from The South, he is from San Luis Obispo. The two have been married over 21 years and together for more than 27.
Stephanie said she’s originally from Oakridge, Tenn., but grew up in Walnut, Miss., in what is euphemistically called “The Barbecue Belt,” the term for mostly Southern States where barbecue cooking — in all its many forms and flavors — is almost an art form.
Sean’s family is a fixture in SLO, having owned and operated several restaurants while he was growing up. Food service is in his blood.
“I was the ‘Chili Dog Boy’ at the old Cigar Factory on Higuera Street,” Sean said. The family also once owned “This Old House,” a rustic steakhouse on Foothill Boulevard. “My family had that place back in the day,” he said.
The couple while working in restaurants in San Diego.
Savory Smoke is located next door to Legend’s Tavern at 897 Main St., in a space that’s long been one restaurant or another. It used to be a popular Chinese food joint, followed by Sabetta’s, a sandwich and pizza shop that was in business for over 20 years.
Savory Smoke is the second new eatery to give it a go in the location, since Sabetta’s closed a few years ago.
The new place will work with Legend’s offering food via a pass-through window, just as Sabetta’s did. The pass-through window allows revelers in Legend’s to get something to eat with their cocktails and not have to leave the popular watering hole. They plan to stay open later — until 10 p.m. — to catch some of the tavern’s hungry crowd.
The location was attractive for several reasons, including the ready kitchen and large exhaust hood that was installed for the previous barbecue-smokehouse restaurant that preceded them. Because they smoke their meats, a state-of-the-art exhaust hood is a requirement under the health codes.
“It was the availability,” Stephanie says, “the location, and we love Morro Bay.”
Sean said growing up in SLO he spent a lot of time in Morro Bay surfing, “when I was supposed to be in class.”
Both have had successful careers in the restaurant business working for others. Stephanie was in the corporate world working for chains like Outback and TGI Fridays, and others.
Sean recalled his time working at the zany chain, “Dick’s Last Resort,” a place where customer service comes with a scowl and a dose of sarcasm. Sean said the last Dick’s Last Resort still in operation is at the Excalibur Casino in Las Vegas.
Stephanie said their barbecue is different than what folks around here might be used to. The Central Coast is known for “Santa Maria-style” fare (i.e. tri tip, beans, salad and garlic bread), but she cooks “Memphis-style.”
“Being from Memphis, I feel Memphis barbecue is the best in the world,” she said.
Memphis-style is smoked not grilled over charcoal or wood. They learned about barbecue in San Diego when both worked for Chef Melvin “Boots” Johnson, who was a season winner on the TV show, “Chopped.”
Where she’s from, barbecuing isn’t just for family gatherings.
“Here,” Stephanie said, “barbecuing is a private affair. Back home, that’s a ‘cookout.’ Barbecue is what you eat.”
Sean added, “People come in expecting the Santa Maria-style. Ours is barbecue with that Memphis twist.”
The Savory Smoke opened just before Labor Day Weekend with little fanfare or publicity outside a post on the Internet gossip site, Next Door.
“The community has been really awesome,” Sean said. “The community backed us better than we could have hoped for. I know this is a big tourist town, but we wanted something the locals could call their own.”
Being in the Downtown and not the tourist area on the Embarcadero, means they will have to rely more heavily on local residents, though recent additions to the Downtown’s restaurant line up — including Morro Deli (three doors down from Savory Smoke); Scout Coffee and Scotty’s Irish Pub (both at Monterey and Morro Bay Boulevard), have added to Downtown’s appeal.
But Morro Bay also recently lost another eatery when Top Dog Coffee closed its door over a dispute with the landlord over unpaid garbage bills. So while the restaurant Gods given, they’ve taken away too.
Downtown Morro Bay hasn’t seen a new building go up in over a decade, and the recent revitalization has been through remodels and repurposing of old structures, some of which date back to the 1940s.
The Hales like what they see. “We’re glad to be a part of it,” Stephanie said. “I don’t consider my neighbors as my competition.”
Savory Smoke is closed on Tuesdays, but open Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Fridays-Saturdays 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. They are looking into joining a food delivery service like DoorDash, but havn’t yet done so.
All of their orders, which include homemade potato chips, are packaged in to-go boxes, so folks can either sit inside or on a sidewalk table to eat, or carry their meals home.
Their son and his girlfriend plus another fellow who cooks part time, are their only employees, but Sean hopes the business will do well enough that they can hire more people.
See the website, at: savorysmoke.com for a menu and more information.
