Beach Eatery Recovers From Devastating Fire: Big Daddy’s Back in Business

By Daniel Carson, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.

Jan. 5–PANAMA CITY BEACH — When a Fourth of July fire gutted Big Daddy’s Bar-B-Que & Soul Food last summer, its owners wondered when and where they would be able to rebuild the Panama City Beach hot spot. So, too, did loyal, forlorn customers from all over Bay County and as far away as Destin and Fort Walton Beach. Fortunately for them, it did not take long for Big Daddy’s to get back on its feet. Despite having no insurance after the blaze, Big Daddy’s owners Vickie and Sonny “Big Daddy” Moore wasted no time in finding a new place for the business and its tantalizing menu of barbecue dishes, fried chicken and recently added soul food delicacies. “It’s a lot more than we had there, but I’m loving every minute of it,” Moore said Thursday morning at the restaurant, as she took a break at breakfast time. The Moores opened the first Big Daddy’s in 2004. The fire that destroyed it started in the restaurant’s smoke pit and spread throughout the structure, damaging 90 percent of the building in a matter of hours. With help from a benefit fund set up at Coastal Community Bank, Big Daddy’s reopened in September a few miles west of its original Back Beach Road location at the former site of Louie’s Pink Shell, a seafood restaurant. It was something Vickie Moore said she did not expect to happen “in a million years,” and certainly not at such an accelerated pace. She is quick to thank her customers and the bank for assistance during a difficult period. At its old location, Big Daddy’s had a small patio with porch screens for outdoor seating, but it was essentially a shack, as Moore described the restaurant the day after the fire. Now, a revamped Big Daddy’s has a full dining room with seating for 49 people as well as a wait staff of three. One of the restaurant’s waitresses, Christy Deese, used to be one of Big Daddy’s loyal customers that Moore raves about. She said she always got to-go orders from the old store and is partial to Big Daddy’s ribs. Deese said she felt really bad for the Moores when she heard about the July fire. On a trip to Lake Powell one Sunday before the restaurant’s reopening, Deese said she saw that Big Daddy’s had moved to its new location, about two miles west of State 79. After a quick U-turn, Deese pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot and picked up an application, she said. “They are very good people to work for,” Deese said. Framed photos of famed musicians, politicians and sports figures cover the walls on all sides of the new restaurant. Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy’s portraits look down at patrons from above the cash register, while James Brown and Dale Earnhardt share space in Big Daddy’s northwest corner. Additions to the menu include collard greens and other vegetable selections, Moore said, and the restaurant started serving breakfast three weeks ago. Private parties, catering and company picnics are all services still offered at Big Daddy’s. Even with a different location, new staff and more menu items, Moore said Big Daddy’s retains the good food and warm atmosphere that attracted people in the first place. “I consider it the same family restaurant we had before,” Moore said. One big change at Big Daddy’s is the restaurant is now insured, Moore said. It also has a different type of barbecue pit that Moore called safer than the previous one. She said the word is getting around about Big Daddy’s relocation. A lot of new customers have discovered Big Daddy’s, and Moore said the restaurant’s regular Snowbird customers quickly figured out the store had moved and reopened.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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