It's never too late to find your passion, and for career bartender Andy Walker, that passion has turned out to be smoking meats.
"For the first 20 years of my career, I stayed as far away from the kitchen as possible," Andy says. "Now, barbecue is a real passion for me. You'd be surprised what you're really good at."
Andy is one of the brothers and sons, behind Stanley Bar-B-Que, formerly Schweinehaus, in Overton Square.
He owns and runs the eatery with his brother, David, who is not new to the restaurant business nor to barbecue — he was on a barbecue-cooking team for Memphis in May for years, studied at the French Culinary Institute, and was an executive chef in New York before returning to Memphis to be with his family.
Andy and David opened Schweinehaus with their parents, Stanley and Martha, in 2014 once David returned to the Mid-South to be with his family while his father was being treated for congestive heart failure. Stanley passed away just after Christmas last year.
The brothers had already been adding more and more barbecue items to the menu in response to the demand they heard for it in the Overton Square area. They fully transitioned from a German beer hall to a barbecue restaurant in November, and officially changed the name to Stanley Bar-B-Que earlier this summer to not only match the name with the product but to also honor their dad.
Read the full article at The Memphis Flyer.