Shane has built a heck of a franchise business around hard work, family support and out-of-this-world food. He believes in giving people more than they paid for and treating them all like family. Coincidentally, he got both of those things (secret sauce, sense of family and community) from the same source: his grandfather, Big Dad.

Born in 1922, Dewey “Big Dad” Brown was an all-American boy: he played football for Clemson and later, professionally, for the LA Rangers; he served in the military as a physical trainer for the Air Force recruits during WWII; worked his tail off; and found a nice girl with whom to settle down.

Later, Big Dad and his bride, Peggy, returned to Georgia to start a family - the Avondale Estates area of Decatur, GA, to be precise, where Big Dad was the City Manager and Chief of Police. He had a simple credo: you only get a good reputation once – so you better make the most of it.

He passed that philosophy on to Shane, who spent summers with Big Dad and moved in for good at the age of 14. Shane had the opportunity (privilege, he would say) to see how a man could use his influence to help others – without taking anything in return. Shane also saw the respect given to Big Dad based on his good reputation (that’s former Georgia Governor and U. S. Senator, the Honorable Zell Miller alongside Big Dad in the picture below).





Well, that’s just incidental to this story. They spent a lot of time together, fishing, traveling and cooking. Big Dad passed on the secret sauce just as he did a sense of integrity and his old fly reel.

Today, Big Dad and Peggy still live in Avondale Estates. According to Peggy they’ve been married for 60 years. According to Big Dad, they’ve been married not nearly long enough.

Every family has a “secret sauce” that gets handed down from one generation to the next – sometimes tangible (like your Aunt’s special pudding cake) and sometimes intangible (like your Father’s way of telling a story). Spending time together over really good BBQ is one way to discover your family’s secret sauce.