The Shed BBQ
Once there was a guy that spent most of his out-of-class time at Ole Miss scouting out, jumping in, and rummaging through dumpsters and street side garbage piles. The highlight of his week was the “night before trash day.” After graduation, he wanted to move back to the Coast. One sobering morning, he surveyed all he had collected over the years. It was everywhere, it was insane: warped used two by fours, old tin roofing, bent nails, ugly windows, mountains of pure, unadulterated junk!
Not knowing what to do with it and not willing to part with a single plastic bucket or warped record, he built a trailer out of the larger parts and loaded the rest on top of this homemade junk hauler and moved back to Ocean Springs.
One evening while dumpster diving on the Coast, the guy, Brad Orrison, knee deep in hardwood flooring had an epiphany: “I’m gonna’ build myself a take out barbeque joint with all this junk!” Brad (24) and his sister Brooke (19) hammered and nailed. They practiced cooking, smoking, and timing meat to perfection. A few weeks after opening, Brother Brett (22) just graduating from Full Sail University in Recording Arts and being the sound engineer for the House of Blues in New Orleans, breezed in with all his knowledge and contacts to set up one of the finest Blues venues in the South. Now, The Shed had all the elements it needed to become a true BBQ & Blues Joint.
The Shed is truly a family affair: With Brad at the helm with the ideas, Brooke making sure that those ideas make money, Brett on the sound, Mom telling everybody about it through marketing, their G-Maw manning her beer bar (she doesn’t even drink beer) and Daddy O making sure they don’t do anything stupid. Oh, and when Daddy O tried his best to retire, the kids came up with something for him to do…. make BBQ sauce for all The Sheds!! So now Daddy O is the “Saucerer”at The Shed Saucery! They are pumping out ShedSpred, mac sauce, bean sauce, slaw sauce and bottling The Shed’s specialty sauces for retail sales. The Saucery is also offering to produce sauce for folks who want their sauce made out of the exact ingredients they want and in small quantities. They will provide production, bottling, labeling and packaging.
Back to the story: After endless attempts, Brad perfected his SECRET SHED RUB. Then he began the search for the perfect sauce. As sent from Heaven, a man called Poppa came on the scene. Poppa had spent the past twenty years making his sauce for his friends, his friend’s friends, and now THE SHED was blessed to have him on board. The day Brad’s baby backs got rubbed with the rub then slapped with the sauce “The Shed” was born and the Thunder Rolled! The rest is history.
BUT WAIT !!!! There’s even more to the story: It’s the customers, affectionately known as “ShedHeds.” After eating at The Shed, folks started volunteering to help. They would bring in more junk to spruce up the place, built additions on the building so they would have a place to sit and offered to do anything they could do to help Brad and Brooke put out more BBQ to keep up with the crowds. So, over the years, the little 300 square foot take out has morphed into 9,570 sq. feet including the office and stage. It seats 120 inside and an additional 450 outside.
The Shed’s not a fancy restaurant. As a matter of fact, it’s not a restaurant at all…. it’s a full fledged JOINT…. The Shed is an Experience, a Destination to enjoy! ShedHeds bring their families, sit around the bonfires, hug their kids, and eat the best darn BBQ on the bayou. (Of course… it’s the only BBQ on the Bayou). On Friday and Saturday nights, the sounds of live Blues radiate from the stage bringing with it the essence of old school, down-home southern, tacky charm.