John Rivers got his start working in healthcare, but early in his travels the native of Jacksonville, Fla., found himself in Dallas for work, where he says he met the two loves of his life: His wife Monica and brisket.
An obsession with all sorts of different styles of barbecue emerged from that, and as he continued to travel across the country, he would try food from different smokehouses, meeting with a wide variety of pitmasters and learning from them.
He learned about pulled pork in Alabama, ribs in North Carolina, chicken in Georgia, and tri-tip in California. Eventually he started selling them out of his garage, where he was running a ministry to help kids raise money for cancer research.
The barbecue grew in popularity, leading Rivers to open his first restaurant, 4 Rivers Smokehouse — named for him, his wife, and their two children — in Winter Park, Fla., in 2009.
Now there are 17 locations across the state, from Tallahassee to Coral Springs, offering all of those proteins, plus sausage, burnt ends, and specials, as well as made-from-scratch sides, including brisket-heavy mac ’n’ cheese, fried okra, coleslaw, baked beans, assorted salads, seasonal sides such as local corn and a tomato-cucumber salad and more. More than 80% of the produce he uses now comes from in-state. There are also desserts from Rivers’ own baking commissary.
Vegans, such as his wife, can have burnt ends made with Beyond Meat that Rivers smokes three times.
Rivers’ beloved brisket is the best seller.
The restaurateur isn’t a believer in going overboard with a bunch of sauces. For the most part, except for seasonal fruit sauces that he says he makes for fun, he just has three of them: a hot sauce, a mustard-based sauce that his mother insisted he have since that’s the norm in Jacksonville, and his own signature sauce that he spent four years developing.
He tried making all the different regional barbecue sauces, from Kansas City molasses-based ones to vinegary ones from the Carolinas, but couldn’t find a way to make his own sauce distinctive.
“Then I looked in my spice cabinet, and I said, ‘There's got to be something in here that's unique,’” he said. “Sure enough, I found one spice that I’d never used before, and I turned it around and it said, ‘good on beef, chicken, and pork.’ So I put that in there and then I put some butter and some honey to smooth it out and give it that natural sweetness, and it really created a unique flavor.”
That ingredient was thyme.
The sauce also has typical ingredients such as ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, onion powder, etc., and Rivers says it’s now available in 200-300 retail grocers.
He also has a catering commissary with six smokers — three inside and three outside — that supplement the two smokers at each of the restaurants, which run all day long smoking not only meats but also tomatoes for a smoked tomato vinaigrette, stuffed jalapeño peppers, potatoes, and other items.
Beer and wine are available, but they’re not big sellers. One location, in Daytona, Fla., has a full bar, but most customers enjoy fountain drinks or specialty old-school soda-pop that Rivers and his team scout out and keep in a grab-and-go fridge.
The average check is around $16-$17.
Apart from 4 Rivers Smokehouse, Rivers has some standalone restaurants, including The Coop, a Southern comfort food restaurant that opened in Orlando in 2014, and The Cantina, a Mexican concept that he developed for Walt Disney World about five years ago, as well as a burger-and-hot-dog concept at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex.
There’s also a retail division of 4 Rivers, with products including sauces and meats in Costco and Publix. This fall, Rivers said, his products will also be available in Walmart. He ships nationwide, too.
Under construction near downtown Orlando is Rivers’ latest project: Four Roots Farm, a 40-acre, $65 million project to educate children about farming practices and nutrition, as well as farmers about regenerative agriculture and other advanced techniques. It will have a guest house and a restaurant, and Rivers said he’s hoping to have students on the campus this fall.
New 4 Rivers Smokehouses are opening, too. The 18th is opening later in June in Lakeland, Fla., with several other locations in the works.
Now Rivers is considering expanding out of state.
“I really like the Midwest,” he said. “We've got a lot of Midwesterners that come down [Interstate] 75 into Florida, and so there's some great familiarity with our brand, and some of the markets up there really line up nicely with our core customers.”
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Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]