Smokey Bones: 12 Little-Known Facts About The BBQ Chain

There's a lot to love about good, old-fashioned barbecue. Huge hunks of fresh meat are rubbed with special seasonings, slowly smoked over wood, cooked to perfection, and basted in tasty barbecue sauce. The end result is a complex, mouth-watering punch of flavors: The sweet richness of the barbecue sauce mixes with the saltiness of the seasoning rub along with earthy notes of wood-fueled smoke to create a truly satisfying balance of taste and texture. And barbecue is something that Smokey Bones knows a thing or two about, as it is one of the country's largest restaurant chains that specializes in this decadent and beloved Southern-based cuisine (via Restaurant Business).

Smokey Bones was founded in 1999 and now boasts nearly 70 locations across the United States (via CBI Insights). Known for its modern yet slightly rustic aesthetic and wide range of delicious meat offerings, Smokey Bones has become a respected presence on the barbecue scene that's often considered superior to other chains (via Restaurant Clicks). That said, die-hard fans and newcomers alike may have some lingering questions about this successful barbecue restaurant. What's the inspiration behind the restaurant? What is the smoking process like for some of its dishes? We answer these questions and more in our quest to bring you up to speed with one of America's fastest-rising chains on the barbecue scene. Here are 12 little-known facts about Smokey Bones.

When you think of Orlando, you probably envision crowded theme parks, big roller coasters, and other tourist traps surrounded by alligator-infested bodies of water. But the reality is that there's so much more to O-town than fabricated castles and ancient reptiles. The truth is that Orlando has become one of the most respected foodie cities in America (via Orlando Business Journal). And one of the most seasoned restaurant chains on the scene is Smokey Bones, having opened its very first location in The City Beautiful way back in 1999 (via Darden).

According to Darden, that first Smokey Bones location was so successful that only two years later in 2001, the company decided to expand across the country. These days, Florida boasts the largest amount of Smokey Bones locations, with 12 restaurants scattered across the state as of April 2021 (via Rentech Digital). So the next time you plan a trip to Orlando, consider skipping the chaos of its amusement parks and spend some time eating around the city instead. If you're a fan of Smokey Bones, there's a good chance you'll run into one of its locations.

Drive-thrus make picking up grub on the go a breeze, but they're mostly limited to the ultra quick-service world of fast food restaurants. Casual sit-down restaurants with a more elevated menu like Smokey Bones tend to avoid drive-thrus, but the company recently decided to break the mold, recognizing that drive-thrus can help the restaurant fill the needs of more customers (via FSR Magazine).

Smokey Bones rolled out its first drive-thru in 2022 at one of its current locations in Bowling Green, Kentucky, with two different menus to pick from. The express menu will offer a selection of the restaurant's fastest food available and should be ready for customers within about five minutes after placing an order. For dishes that require more preparation in the kitchen, drive-thru customers will choose from "made fresh for you" items and then wait in parking spaces for orders to be delivered curbside. According to the FSR Magazine interview with CEO James O'Reilly, one of the first tasks is hiring workers with drive-thru experience and training workers to smoothly run the operation on new equipment. If all goes well, the plan is to add as many drive-thrus as possible to more Smokey Bones locations (via Restaurant Business).

It's always nice to see successful companies give back to the community. After all, if we want to build a better world, that starts with supporting the people who need it the most — and Smokey Bones has stepped up to the plate to lend a helping hand (via FSR Magazine). In an effort to showcase the company's values and make a difference in people's lives, Smokey Bones teamed up with Skrewball, a peanut butter whiskey company, and Children of Restaurant Employees (CORE), a nonprofit that helps food-service employees with children navigate tragedies like natural disasters, injuries, and deaths in the family.

Here's the deal: for every Skrewball cocktail ordered at Smokey Bones, the company hands over one dollar to support CORE's mission. What's in this cocktail, you ask? It sounds like a more decadent version of a white Russian with a few tweaks: peanut butter-flavored whiskey, Kahlua, and half-and-half. As far as we're concerned, it's hard to imagine a more delicious way to support a good cause.

At this point, you're probably wondering how this whole Smokey Bones operation began in the first place. As it turns out, Darden Restaurants invented a backstory to give Smokey Bones an air of rugged authenticity (via The Fried Green Tomato Swindle and Other Southern Culinary Adventures). The story goes something like this: Back in the late 1960s, a young ironworker named Duke tapped into some good old-fashioned American ingenuity and decided to build himself a smoker from an old section of the Rocky Mountain pipeline (via Eastwood Town Center). Legend has it that Duke's smoker made some of the best barbecue that anyone had ever eaten. Was there some magic in that old makeshift smoker? Did Duke have a few tricks up sleeve? It's difficult to track down more specifics about the lore behind Smokey Bones' mysterious and talented founder Duke — and there's a good reason for that. 

It appears the story of Duke the ironworker was cleverly fabricated for marketing purposes by Darden Restaurants. We have to admit that the story doesn't seem totally outside the realm of possibility. It would make perfect sense for the launch of the restaurant to be inspired by a successful barbecue fanatic. In all honesty, the story of the ironworker has us wanting to try our hands at building a customized smoker, too — though we'd probably opt for something a little less sketchy and rustic than an old abandoned pipeline.

Anyone who's worked in restaurants knows that it's hard work. Whether you're cooking in the kitchen or running dishes out to diners, the atmosphere is often fairly stressful, tiring, and fast-paced. The last thing restaurant workers want to deal with is not receiving all of the money that they've rightfully earned through their labor. So you can imagine how infuriated servers were when they claimed in 2017 that they were being paid under minimum wage (via Class Action).

On top of that, servers claimed that the company did not allow workers to keep all of their tips and required them to perform non-tipped work in addition to working off the clock. According to Waiter Pay, a South Carolina federal court found that some of the policies at a few of the company's locations potentially violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Every restaurant has its ups and downs, but it seems like this accusation has since been rectified. According to Law 360, a settlement was reached with workers in 2019 for $2.7 million.

Known for its rich, sweet flavor profile, Crown Royal markets itself like the king of booze bottles. With notes of maple syrup, caramel, and vanilla, Crown Royal leaves no doubt that it would make for a good match when whipping up a special batch of barbecue sauce (via The Whiskey Jug). So it made perfect sense for Smokey Bones to team up with the Canadian whisky producer and create a new barbecue glaze for its grilled ribs (via FSR Magazine).

One thing that made these limited-time ribs special was its presentation. After the ribs were glazed and grilled with Crown Royal barbecue sauce, they were topped with crispy onions and positioned in a crown-like rack for customers that made the dish look like a meat-based royal head adornment. A crown made of rib meat might sound kind of weird, but we're pretty sure there were tons of die-hard carnivores who loved it while it lasted. At the very least, you have to give Smokey Bones some credit for being inventive.