“I could see the flames from my bedroom window.” Bryan Furman talks about Wednesday’s fire at B’s Cracklin’ BBQ

The Furman family is gathered in their office.  Everyone is safe. There is power, but the room in the old house is warmed largely by space heaters. Bryan sits slouched in a chair.  Hat on backwards, hands in the pocket of his signature hoodie. It has been a long night-turned-morning.

Outside the window and roughly 10 feet away, B’s Cracklin’ BBQ’s Atlanta location lies in ruins.  The roof is caved in.  Ashes sit where walls once did. There is water everywhere. The icicles hanging from the hand rail leading up to what was the front door remind you that temperatures are in the low 30s.

“It’s not my first rodeo.” Bryan says.  As if he can brush off what has happened overnight.  His business is gone.

“Our main concern are the employees.” Bryan’s wife Nikki says.  There are 35 employees who find themselves without a job this morning.

Nikki was the first to see what was happening, just after 2am Wednesday morning. She got a call from their security company. Door number 13 wasn’t secure. It’s a back door that, she says, pops open sometimes. “So I looked at the security cameras through my phone and saw smoke.”  She told Bryan, who jumped out of bed and looked out of their bedroom window 2 blocks away from the building.

“I could see flames coming up over the building next to us.” Bryan says.

Bryan rushed over to find a fire contained to the BBQ ‘Pit’ in the back of the building.  The structure itself wasn’t on  fire. Just the pit area. Bryan grabbed an extinguisher and tried as best he could to contain the flames to the pit area.

“I know how old that roof was.” he says of the main building. “If the flames spread it was going to go.”

When the fire department arrived a few minutes later, Bryan says he was told the fire hydrant closest to the burning building didn’t work.  Precious minutes were lost locating and connecting to the next closest hydrant.

He thought they’d arrived in plenty of time to confine the fire.  He stayed for a few minutes while the firemen battled.  Shortly thereafter, he went back home for a few minutes.

“When I looked back, the roof was on fire.”

After roughly 4 hours, the fire was extinguished. A novice view from the sidewalk doesn’t see anything that can be salvaged.  B’s Cracklin’ BBQ has been destroyed by fire for the 2nd time in 4 years.

History repeating itself? Or the sickest joke ever told?

In 2015, just as B’s Cracklin’ BBQ’s original location in Savannah was gaining national attention following features in Garden and Gun Magazine as well as Southern Living Magazine, it too burned to the ground in Savannah’s Coffee Bluff neighborhood.  It re-opened a short time later in a strip shopping center on White Bluff Road.

This time around the stakes are a little higher. You see, B’s Cracklin’ BBQ is in the middle of a major national breakthrough.   You can find B’s Cracklin’ at State Farm Arena during Atlanta Hawk’s games and concerts. The NBA has whispered to him about expanding into other arenas.

Atlanta’s exposure during Super Bowl week earned Bryan and his team a spot on CBS Saturday Morning during Super Bowl Weekend. The next day, Martha Stewart and her party of 9 enjoyed lunch at B’s Cracklin’ before moving on to the game.  The Furman’s plate is quite full right now.

Not enough good cheer?  Try this on for size.

Last Wednesday, Bryan Furman was announced as a nominee for a James Beard Award. The highest culinary honor in America.

One Wednesday later, he and Nikki are looking out at ashes.

“Business has been amazing since the Beard nomination.” Bryan says. “Savannah’s numbers are way up and here we had a line out down the sidewalk all weekend long.”

Yes, the BBQ is that good.

The circumstances, on the other hand, not so good. Still, it’s easy to feel the confidence the Furmans are feeling through the shock.  There had been some talk about trying to buy the building they were in, but that hadn’t happened.

Structures can be rebuilt. BBQ can be made in any parking lot in America. The line of portable smokers outside prove that. The most important thing right now is that everyone is safe and finding a way to support their employees during a crisis. Answers? There are none right now. Just ideas. Some may stick. Some may not.

“I need to stay here to cook for the Hawks” Bryan says. “I’m probably going to send two pit men to Savannah and drive it back if I have to.” Parking lot pop ups here in Atlanta are also a possibility, but that requires permitting and time to sort out details.

The BBQ community will rally for Bryan and Nikki. They did before. They will again. “The neighborhood around us has taken it really hard.” Nikki says. “They’ve been walking over here all morning.”

“I didn’t cry until one of the neighbors came over and started crying.” Bryan says.

There’s that confidence again.  He knows B’s Cracklin’ BBQ will be back. There is lots of unfinished business.

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