Fifty years ago, John Reaves wasn’t running a restaurant. He was running a roofing and construction business, and smoking turkeys and hams in his backyard as thank-you gifts for clients. The gifts got so popular he ran out of room and started storing the extras in his mother-in-law’s bathtub. A friend eventually told him he needed to just open a restaurant. In 1976, he did.
Smokey John’s Bar-B-Que and Home Cooking is still standing at 1820 W. Mockingbird Lane, and this year the family is marking half a century in business. On August 29, the restaurant is opening its parking lot and dining room for a free block party, capping a Customer Appreciation Week that runs August 24 through 29. Frost Bank is presenting the event, with support from the Mark Cuban Heroes Center and the Dallas Stars Foundation.
Reaves built the business alongside his wife, Gloria, who everyone called Mama Reaves, and his cousin Douglas Spraglin, who went by Rent. Gloria ran the front of house and the books. Rent ran the pit, reportedly comfortable enough with the fire to pull meat straight off it with his bare hands. Both have since passed, and the block party’s centerpiece is a newly commissioned portrait honoring what the family calls the Pillars of Smokey John’s: John, Gloria, Rent, and a fourth name, Ruth Hauntz, who helped shape the restaurant in its early years.
Sons Brent and Juan Reaves run the business now, having taken it over from their father years ago. The restaurant has survived what a lot of family barbecue joints don’t: a fire in 2017 that destroyed the Mockingbird Lane location entirely, forcing a full rebuild before reopening. Brent and Juan have talked openly about how close the business came to not making it back at all, a detail that makes the 50-year mark less like an inevitability and more like something the family actually had to fight for twice.
The menu has stayed close to its roots the whole way through: hickory-smoked brisket and pork ribs, fried catfish, and a rotation of sides built on family recipes, including a candied sweet potato dish that traces back to Brent’s grandmother. The banana pudding gets mentioned by regulars as often as anything smoked in the pit.
Ten percent of sales from the block party day will go to Helping Hands Open Hearts, which supports seniors with food and everyday necessities, and to the Rock Teen Youth Foundation. It’s a continuation of something John Reaves was doing decades before the restaurant existed, back when the gifts were free and the only real problem was finding room to store them.
