CONWAY — When 57-year-old Don Smith was a kid, he swore he’d never be in the restaurant business. Working alongside his dad since second grade, he saw the blood, sweat and tears that go into making a restaurant successful, and thought it wasn’t for him.
But luckily for central Arkansas, Smith has barbecue in his blood. His dad started up the first franchise chain burger operation in the state back in the 1960s. From there, he ran The Shack downtown and eventually all its locations before going on to found Jo-Jo’s, now in Sherwood and in different hands.
Meanwhile the younger Smith went from washing dishes at his dad’s places — “every time I’d come out, he’d say I messed something up, and I’d be back in the kitchen washing dishes” — to a 20-year military career. It wasn’t until his wife’s father got sick that he moved back to Arkansas from Alaska and his dad once again wanted to start up something new. So together they founded Smitty’s in Conway in 1995. Five years later, it was time to sell, retire and invest in stocks. Within a month, though, the market took a downturn and by 2003, Smith was at it again, founding Smokehouse in Conway — this time with his son Britt — in a building at College and Donaghey avenues that had housed a couple of restaurants after being a grocery and drug store for many years.
“I got lucky in that my father had done 90 percent of all the research, and he taught me,” Smith said. “I was fortunate in that way.”
And Smokehouse is built on that foundation. Here the meat is well trimmed and slow cooked on hickory — always. Pork will go 12 to 14 hours, brisket another couple beyond that. Ribs are around five hours and chickens roughly three. The longer-cooking meats get loaded in around 8 p.m. and start coming off the next morning.
“There’s drawbacks to that,” Smith said. “We try to run out of food every night. Of course, by the time you realize there’s not enough, it’s too late to do anything about it.”
Then again, running out just shows the quality of the work of pitmasters Don and Britt Smith and long-time employee and workaholic Mikey Gray, who started with the family as a teenager and now nearly 30 years later is “one of the best meat guys in the state,” Smith said.
The smoke flavor permeating the meat leaves no doubt about that. The sauces, said Smith, began with The Shack’s spicy recipe and have variations here and there. The slightly sweet hot sauce takes it up a notch; the habanero-based “No Survivors” is flavorful but painful. The “Off the Scale” sauce, made with the bhut jolokia “ghost pepper,” is unbearable for most — so much so that Smith will tell you straight up: “Don’t try it.”
The key to success, said Smith, is having good folks around you. Of course, having family around helps share the load. Even his dad is still involved at 78, Smith said.
“Oh he still comes up here correcting me, all the time telling me what I’m doing wrong.”