Poole’s Bar-B-Q closes after 33 years of family ownership
The herd of wooden pigs that helped made Poole’s Bar-B-Q famous remains on the hill, but the last plate of pork has been served at the popular East Ellijay restaurant.
At least for now.
Poole’s celebrated its last day of business with a packed house of customers — many of them swapping stories and grabbing last souvenirs along with smoked pork, brisket and chicken — Saturday, Nov. 26.
Darvin Poole, who’s run the family business started by his parents, Oscar and Edna Poole, for almost 15 years, said the restaurant is up for sale.
“We’ve been very fortunate. God has blessed us and we’ve loved being here,” he said.
Oscar passed away in 2020, while Edna, 90, hasn’t been as involved in the restaurant the past few years, although she did remain its official taste tester.
Darvin said the time had come to retire, and he and wife, Melanie, want to spend more time with their kids and grandkids who live out of state.
“I’ve got grandkids in Alabama and a daughter who lives in Philadelphia, Pa. It’s been hard to take off and go whenever we need to,” he said. “A lot of our customers are sad, and we’re sad as well, but we’re also glad to get a chance to travel a little more and not have the restraints of a business.”
This will actually be the second retirement for Darvin, who taught math and coached high school sports in Oxford, Ala., before moving here in 2008 to run the family business.
Before then, he’d made the almost 150-mile drive from Alabama to help his folks run the restaurant on weekends.
“Dad wasn’t going to go to his 50th high school reunion,” Darvin recalled. “I said, ‘Well, if I come and work, would that free you up to go?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ A couple of weeks later, he called and asked if I wanted to start working one weekend a month. I figured it would be a chance to spend time with him and my mom, and eat some barbecue.
“Then it went to two weekends a month. I’d leave Alabama early Saturday morning, get there and work all day, spend the night at mom and dad’s, work the next day and go home that evening.”
‘It just worked’
The quirky barbecue joint with such promotional fixtures as the “Pig Moby-il” (Oscar’s swine-shaped station wagon) and the “Cano-Pig” (a canopy lined with 1,300 of Pooles’ signature wooden pigs) sprang up in East Ellijay almost by chance.
Oscar, a traveling circuit preacher, and Edna first moved to Gilmer County in the ‘70s, Darvin said.
“We moved around a lot and lived everywhere. I went to eight different schools,” he added. “Here, dad had a circuit of four churches. Gate’s Chapel and Nine Mile, I think, were the second and fourth Sundays. The first and third Sundays were Cochran and Cartecay. The last year or so, he also picked up Oak Hill. He would do two (churches) each Sunday, which was fun.”
The Pooles moved back to Florida in 1975 after Darvin graduated from Gilmer High School, then started college.
After returning here in the late 1980s, they started selling their pit-smoked barbecue pork out of a mobile trailer near Blue Ridge. “It was one of those real pit barbecue trailers with the pit on the end of the trailer,” said Darvin.
Someone else started leasing the barbecue trailer, so the Pooles went back to Florida where Oscar was looking to start a church, Darvin explained.
The new ownership didn’t last long, and they were back in the barbecue business about a year later. In 1989, they set up shop on Craig Street just a few feet from where the restaurant stands today.
“I can remember when Oscar first opened up in (that) small vending trailer,” said Ronnie Prater, a customer and friend of the Pooles. “He built a makeshift dining area onto it, and it was nothing fancy. He kept on growing until it became what it is today.”
A bigger restaurant that became known as the “Taj-Ma-Hog” opened in 1996. Easily visible from Highway 515, the roadside barbecue joint’s bright yellow and red color scheme was among the attributes that helped draw curious passersby off the four-lane, Darvin remembered.
“Dad knew yellow was a great color and it would be really visible from the road. That’s why he chose it,” he added. “It made the place easier to see, and that was a smart marketing tool.”
Another of Oscar’s smart marketing tools, The Pig Hill of Fame, quickly became synonymous with the restaurant. In fact, many customers still refer to the place as some variation of “Pig Hill.”
“The number one reason folks stopped here to eat was because they saw the pigs on the hill. They’d turn around and come back, saying ‘we’ve got to check it out,”’ said Darvin. “That got them here the first time, but the food was what got them to come back.”
There were three prerequisites for customers who wanted to add their own brightly-painted plywood pig with a name or a message on it to the herd — an honest face, good intentions and $5.
“Dad made all the signs for (things like) Open and Closed and Pick Up Your Food Here out of plywood. He made everything in the shape of a pig,” Darvin remembered. “One day, he said, ‘I’m going to put names on them and put them on the hill, and everybody’s going to want one!’ We laughed and thought that was pretty funny. Thousands of pigs later, you can see we were all wrong, and dad was right!”
Known to most as “Col. Poole,” Oscar was the colonel, while Edna was the general, at the Taj-Ma-Hog. “Mom was in charge of the food quality, and dad was in charge of the marketing. It just worked,” said Darvin.
“Dad was actually a Kentucky colonel. If you are one, you can nominate somebody else to be one,” he added. Dad went to school and taught school in Kentucky. My older brother and I were born there. Dad knew a lot of people there, one of whom was a Kentucky colonel. They nominated him, so he became one.”
Many still remember how Oscar and Edna made their customers feel welcome, often visiting the dining area to see how the food was being received. Darvin said he continued to do that during his ownership, and, if the food wasn’t up to par, he wanted to know.
“Dad always taught me to treat everybody how you want to be treated. He was a people person, and I am too,” he said. “We wanted to make sure the quality of the food was good and give people a chance to let us know.”
Politics and pork
Poole’s was also well known for hosting politicians and political events through the years.
Oscar and Darvin welcomed an array of conservative politicians including governors, congressional representatives, senators and presidential candidates to campaign and speak at the restaurant.
“Pat Buchanan was probably the first major one. He brought forth more attention when he came. Gov. Kemp has been here, and Gov. Deal was here a handful of times. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isaakson have been here, too. We tried to get George Bush to come, but we never got him here,” said Darvin.
“It was kind of funny. Here’s dad, from a little town and owns a little ol’ restaurant, but he’d put his yellow suit and hat on and people would run to meet and get their picture with him. A lot of politicians felt like it was very important to be friends with dad.”
Darvin remembered when Joe McCutchen (the Ellijay businessman and political pundit who arranged for some of the politicians to speak at Poole’s) appeared on a Fox News show and mentioned the restaurant.
“We answered phone call after phone call for the next hour after he mentioned us. The next few days, people from around Atlanta were coming up here to eat after they saw Joe on (on TV),” he said.
George Winn, a friend, customer and frequent attendee at the restaurant’s political events, said Gilmer County has lost not only “a local landmark,” but one that’s internationally known.
“Poole’s is known throughout the world as the barbecue place to eat in North Georgia. It’s been 33 years of great food, fun and fellowship,” said Winn.
Able to make it through
Poole’s was able to withstand the COVID-19 pandemic by first offering only takeout orders, then limited indoor dining. Several customers who’d been regulars before the pandemic started returning for sit-down meals over the past year, Darvin noted.
“We were able to make it through (the pandemic), but the first three months were really tough and slow. Then it slowly started building back up. It probably took a whole year before we got back to cranking at almost normal,” said Darvin. “We were open four days a week before COVID. (After that), we cut out Thursday and cut our hours back a little bit.”
Darvin said there’s already been some interest in the restaurant from potential buyers. Whether the Poole’s name stays is up to the next owner, if there is one.
“We’ve had quite a few inquiries and a few that have stepped through the hurdles to show they’re really interested,” he said.
The same goes for the pigs on the hill.
“If they keep the name, the pigs will probably stay. If they want the restaurant or just the land, that will be totally up to them,” said Darvin.