Tragedy turned into opportunity

Mike Lewis conducts business built on tradition. His habits are based on the practices of providing a quality product, welcoming atmosphere, genuine service and a resiliency that has served him well, repeatedly turning adversity into opportunity.

Lewis, owner of Big Mike’s BBQ in Houma, admitted that those factors probably came into play for him to be awarded the Louisiana Economic Development and U.S. Small Business Administration small and emerging business development special recognition award for 2011 during May.

Big Mike’s BBQ was among a list of 20 Louisiana-based honorees, each recognized for their specific community contributions, longevity, increased business, employment levels, product innovation and response to adversity, within specific category designations.

“Not only do these small business award winners manage successful businesses, they’re responsible for helping our economy outperform the South and the U.S. throughout the recent recession and into the current recovery,” LED Secretary Stephen Moret said.

Lewis, who has family roots in Houma, spent childhood summers in Terrebonne Parish with his father, Harold Lewis, although he is actually a native of Tampa, Fla.

He would help out in his dad’s mechanic shop by cleaning tools and working on automobiles, but he knew that job was not the career path he wanted to follow.

“I always liked the food business,” Lewis said. “My first job [as a 16-year-old Floridian] was at a pizza place. When I was interviewed by the manager of the pizza shop asked me, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I said, with this kid voice, ‘I want to be like an entrepreneur.'” Lewis laughed and said that he then had to go home and look up the word entrepreneur in the dictionary to find out its definition. “I didn’t know what the word meant, but I knew I wanted to own my own business,” he said.

Lewis transitioned from the pizza business into casual dining, where he first gained experience in the kitchen before moving into management. He eventually became a corporate restaurant trainer.

The combined experiences taught him how to read market opportunities, know what products and employees generate repeat customers, and recognize prospects that often arise out of misfortune.

Almost a decade ago, Lewis and his wife, Judith, were visiting family in Houma when they wanted some barbecue. “There was only one place and that was on West Park [Avenue]. I said to myself, ‘This is the only place in town? This is a great place to do that type of business,'” Lewis said.

In 2007 the U.S. economy was in trouble. Within a matter of months the real estate market, which had been riding a historically safe long-term investment bubble, went bust. Companies cut jobs with sweeping numbers.

“Nobody knows that better than someone in Florida,” Lewis said. “I lost $100,000 value in my house in 60 days.”

Lewis, like many working people who thought it would never happen to them, had financially done all the right things up to that point, but still lost everything and had to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

“I was so frustrated,” he said. “I had no control over what was going on. I knew Houma was one of the smallest places I’d ever been, but it is the strongest place I’ve ever experienced. I told my wife, ‘You know what? Let’s do something different.’ I already loved Houma anyway. My family is from here. So we moved here and I knew what I wanted to do.”

At the time, Lewis was working with Piccadilly Cafeteria and was able to take a transfer with the company to Houma. The only stipulation was that he had to stay with that company for one year after his arrival.

“After the year I said, ‘We’re going to do this.’ So that’s what we did. I had just a small amount of money in savings, [and] my dad had to help me [pay] for my first food delivery.” Lewis said. “All I had to do was buy a barbecue pit. So we opened Big Mike’s BBQ.”

On March 18, 2008, Big Mike’s BBQ started business at the corner of Barrow and Bond streets. The new addition took over a spot that had been the location of Karl’s Cafe and featured fried chicken. It had also previously been a donut shop and a series of other diners during the decades.

“I got a lot of fried chicken customers the first three months,” Lewis said. “Some people would come in and say, ‘Give me the 16 piece. Oh, you’re a barbecue joint now? Naw, just give me the 16 piece chicken.’ The barbecue just sat in the window the first two weeks I was opened.

“After about a month it caught on,” he said.

Business rapidly picked up. Then, the morning of Sept. 1, 2008, Hurricane Gustav made landfall in Terrebonne Parish. Lewis and his family, like most of the population evacuated the area, and his dream of being an entrepreneur took a wash.

“Now, I’m back to zero,” Lewis said. “I lost product. I lost supplies. I had displaced employees. And I’m out of business for two weeks. There’s no checks coming in. I was worried. I had put money away for six months. If it had not been for that …”

Lewis’s entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and he cleaned up the water damage, got new windows, refilled his inventory, brought back his employees and overcame the storm. However, challenges were far from over.

Big Mike’s BBQ made a comeback just in time for another setback on Nov. 29, 2009.

“I get a phone call about 10 p.m. Sunday night from someone I know who works on the fire department,” Lewis said. “He goes, ‘Mike, you smokin’ meat tonight?’ I say yeah. He said, ‘Man, they are calling me telling me there is a fire down at your place.’

“I said, ‘No man, I’m just smoking brisket tonight.’ He said, ‘OK, let me call and find out what they are talking about.’ He calls me back and goes, ‘Mike, you’re smoking more than brisket down there tonight.'”

No official cause was determined for the blaze that destroyed Big Mike’s BBQ, the site where, local legend has it, was once a spot where Popeye’s founder Al Copeland started his career.

“I spent the next three days in bed,” Lewis said. “I didn’t want to do anything. On the third day I told my wife, ‘We’ve got to reopen Big Mike’s.'”

It was Judith who found the current home for Big Mike’s at the corner of La. Highway 24 and Prospect Boulevard.

“This is a gas station,” Lewis told his wife upon seeing the attached business. “This was a Subway sandwich shop,” he said of the 20-seat eatery. “It didn’t look like no barbecue joint.”

During December 2009, Lewis transformed the suburban restaurant into a barbecue joint.

“We opened up exactly 29 days after the fire,” Lewis said. “We’ve been here a year and a half.”

Having proven itself as a hot spot, Lewis will keep his current barbeque shop, but has already begun construction on a much larger, free standing restaurant back on Barrow Street, but approximately 10 city blocks south of his original location, near the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center.

“It will be a barbecue joint,” Lewis said as his voice intensified beyond its already enthusiastic level. “It’s going to be 2,400 square feet and seat about 70 people. It will be centered around blues and barbecue. We want to make it an environment where people want to come, hang out, catch a sports fight, have a beer at the end of the workday, just relax.”

Lewis declined to disclose the amount of money his business currently nets, the expense he will face with building a new place, or how much it costs to run the kind of operations he envisions.

He did reveal that his current restaurant sells approximately 1,000 pounds of brisket, his top selling item, every week. The pork, sausage, and barbecued chicken and turkey, along with all the traditional sides, are in popular demand, too.

“I will say this,” he said leaning forward and chuckling. “We do our part to support the tax base here.”

Lewis said he has no intention of taking his business to grand scales. “There will always be those restaurants that are so big they live solely on brand recognition,” he said. “We don’t have any golden arches. All we got is that pig on the window.” He explained that familiar logos do not make a business truly successful no matter how many customers have been served or dollars made.

“First and foremost, it has got to be the food,” Lewis said. “But what draws people back once they’ve eaten the food is the fact that they feel welcomed. They know the people behind the counter have a personal stake in what goes on in that restaurant.

“We want to create a Houma-known restaurant. We want to be that barbecue joint that everybody gravitates to in Houma.”

Lewis said that although he wants his employees and customers to experience a family friendly environment at both of his barbecue joints, he has no expectations of his children, 5-year-old Gabriella and 3-year-old Michael, someday taking over the business.

“I plan on letting them make their decisions,” Lewis said. “I want to raise them to be self-supportive. I hope I teach them how to do that.”

Lewis said his business philosophy matches his personal dedication to traditional values of common courtesy and a quality product.

“This is my second time here this week,” said customer Billy Hebert. “It’s the food and the service. It’s great.”

“Oh man, he has some of the best barbecue in the Tri-Parish area,” said Jerren Castle who operates a nearby barbershop and makes a habit of having lunch at Big Mike’s. “He is serving the town well. They needed him.”

“A lot of folks don’t realize that you do lead by example,” Lewis said. “You have to create a company culture that everyone believes in. If you don’t, I’m not saying it won’t work. What’s not going to work is your continued success.”

Lewis just turned 35. He said that since landing that first job at 16 he has grown to be a fighter and survivor in the restaurant industry. He also now knows what it means to be an entrepreneur and build a business tradition.