ROCHELLE — Hicks BBQ, a local food concession and catering business, recently announced it has purchased the building at 315 Cherry Ave. and the lot west of it. 

No, the building will not be a restaurant. It will be a centralized location for the owners, Jeremy and Erica Hicks, to continue and grow their catering and food truck business. Some carry out and events may be in the cards in the future for Hicks BBQ at the location. 

“The new building will help considerably,” Jeremy said. “We have stuff stored in four different places right now. We do a lot of catering. This will centralize us. We do more catering than anything. But we don’t want a restaurant. People ask us that a lot.”

Hicks said he and his wife have been looking to get into a building for a couple of years. They considered building something in Hillcrest, but wanted to be in the downtown area. The couple have been using the kitchen at Headon’s Fine Meats in Creston for their catering and wanted to have something in the middle. 

Hicks BBQ is planning an overhaul of the building including paving the lot for a place to park its two food trucks. The inside of the building will be gutted, cleaned and repainted. A new roof will be added and windows and doors will be replaced. 

“We’re going to revamp the whole place,” Jeremy said. “It won’t look anything like it does now. We want to be local and downtown. People have to find our trailers wherever they are now. I’d like to have it open by the beginning of summer. We’ll do it as soon as we can.”

Jeremy said the building purchase came from a desire to reinvest in his home area and have a place where customers can find Hicks BBQ easily. Rochelle has been good to he and Erica, as residents have constantly found them and waited in line wherever they’ve been set up in the past. 

“Rochelle treats us great,” Jeremy said. “No matter where we are. They go out of their way to show support.”

Jeremy and Erica started in competition barbeque in 2007 or 2008. They started doing it out of their driveway and cooked for family and graduation parties. The hobby kept escalating. The catering aspect grew and they got into food concessions at the Cypress House farmer’s markets in 2014. 

“We sold out in like no time during the first one we did and we caught the bug and bought a food truck and didn’t look back,” Jeremy said. 

In 2019, Jeremy worked the Hicks BBQ business full-time. The couple had a big year planned after that. And then the COVID-19 pandemic happened and Jeremy went back to his construction job. Erica runs the business primarily now and left her own job to take it on. 

Hicks BBQ offers full-service catering and has done large events in the past. For that and both food trucks, Jeremy said the business has stuck to barbeque, but the menu has grown. All cuts of barbecue and “pretty much anything cooked on a fire” are offered. The couple has even done some steak frys and crawfish boils recently. 

“We don’t reheat anything,” Hicks said. “It’s fresh. Our rubs, sauces and sides are ours. Nothing is store bought. We stay up all night cooking. It’s truly a labor of love. It’s really rewarding when people come out to support us and book us.”

Jeremy said his love of cooking and the growth of Hicks BBQ have changed his outlook on his career.

“I really do enjoy it,” Jeremy said. “It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done, times two. All I ever wanted to do when I was a kid was run heavy equipment like my dad. It was all I ever did. And then cooking came along. I was afraid I wouldn’t enjoy it if I was doing it for a living.”