Brand-New Winlock BBQ Joint Offers Free Meals to Medical, Police, Emergency Workers

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Winlock’s newest restaurant is showing its gratitude to those on the frontlines of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Boss Hogg’s BBQ and Catering is offering free meals to all medical, police and emergency workers.

“Firefighters, police officers, EMTs, (doctors) ... if a nurse comes in in scrubs, (their) meal is free,” owner Amy Smith said. “If they are ordering for their family, we knock one meal off. We are truly thankful for those that protect and serve.”

It’s Smith’s way of paying it back to a community that has shown a tidal wave of support for fledgling barbecue business. The restaurant opened on March 20, just five days after Gov. Jay Inslee announced statewide shutdowns of all in-house dining at bars and restaurants. At the time, she didn’t know what to expect.

Luckily, Smith had planned to only do takeout orders before she opened, so she was already set up to handle the restrictions. And the community came out in full force as she completely sold out of food that first day. Boss Hogg’s already has over 1,700 followers on Facebook and boasts a perfect five-star rating with 14 reviews as of Thursday.

“I think we’re doing really well,” Smith said. “We’re doing better than I expected to, by far.”

Part of that is due to being one of the only takeout restaurants open in Winlock. Sahara Pizza has been their only competition the past two weeks and Guadalajara Family Mexican Restaurant just opened for takeout on Tuesday, March 31.

“So I don’t know if we’re doing well because of that, or if a lot of people are holed up at home and we’re going to do better after this,” Smith said. “It’s just hard to gauge. We don’t really know where we’re at.”

The restaurant was born as a tribute to her father who would barbecue brisket every Fourth of July when Smith was growing up. She never had a taste for it at the time. After he died, she decided to carry on that tradition so she bought a Traeger grill and made her first brisket on the Fourth of July. She was hooked.

“It was very, very good,” Smith said. “I totally topped him on brisket. I’m sure he’d be proud of me.”

It gave her a passion for trying new foods on the Traeger. She then upgraded to a big pull-behind smoker trailer that uses wood smoke. After perfecting her recipes, she opened Boss Hogg’s BBQ and Catering.

The southern-style barbecue joint has drawn regular customers as far away as Yacolt, a 132-mile, two-and-a-half hour round-trip drive, who yearn for some of that Texas-style barbecue flavors.

“They said they can’t find barbecue that tastes like Texas’ like ours does,” Smith said. “A lot of the barbecue places up here are pretty mild. We put quite a bit of kick in our food. There’s some spice to it.”

Her most popular items are the ribs, brisket, cajun meatloaf and pulled pork and pulled chicken tacos. Those tacos have made Tuesdays her best-selling days, so far. Probably due to the affordability, she said, as the taco meal, which is two flour tortilla tacos served with nachos, goes for $8. Two standalone tacos go for $5.

She has been having trouble finding food supplies, however. 

Before she opened the restaurant, she would buy her groceries at the local stores in Winlock. Everything is being bought out now with the coronavirus scare, so she’s switched to a Portland food supplier to get hard-to-find items like noodles and certain meats.

The food supplier lost so many clients recently that it won’t deliver to restaurants any longer. It does have a pop-up shop in Longview once a week and Smith has been driving down there 40-minutes round trip every Wednesday to pick up supplies. Sometimes, if they don’t have everything she’s looking for, she’ll head all the way to Portland, 150-miles round trip, to get what she needs.

“Finding food has been the hardest,” Smith said. “It’s been rough.”

Another item she’s been having trouble getting her hands on that was normally easy to find before the coronavirus outbreak is hand soap.

“I had a really hard time, once we were approved, getting hand soap,” Smith said. “We’re trying to be clean and sanitary and we’re going through a ton of soap in doing so, and that stuff is so hard to find right now.”

Soap has been flying off the shelves across the nation but, luckily, she was able to to refill her large bottle at the IGA in Winlock.

Boss Hogg’s BBQ and Catering is open Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., or until it sells out. It does not offer home delivery, but if Smith gets multiple large orders from the same area, such as Chehalis, she’ll meet everyone at one location and drop the food off.

And Smith is trying to show as much support for fellow restaurants in the area, as well. On days she’s not serving her own food, she’s purchasing meals from other takeouts.

“We all need to work together during this time,” Smith said. “I have partnered with a couple that we take turns shopping and meeting the delivery trucks for food. It’s what we need to do to get through this.”

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Reporter Eric Trent can be reached at etrent@chronline.com. Visit chronline.com/business for more coverage of local businesses.