9 Million Owner Brings Drunky's Two Shoe to Fremont

In less than a week, word of another barbecue joint coming to town.

Owner Nate Rezac, who also owns 9 Million in Unmarked Bills, is hoping his catchy-named new barbecue joint in Fremont catches on with the general eating public, helping to turn Seattle into a legit barbecue destination. Easy task it is not, but Rezac thinks it's high time for this city to get smoking in a non-420 kind of way:

I really do. We're straight forward, we're not using any new techniques or anything; we're not pulling any tricks out. I feel like it's very, very classic style. We pull in full rounds of green alder and split them ourselves. That's kind of our nod to the Northwest. But really, it's about a slow cooking process. We cook our meats from 6 to 16 hours and I'm just excited to show everyone what we can do.

Drunky's Two Shoe BBQ is expected to open in just a couple of short months, with an aesthetic Rezac calls extremely rustic.

I've used all reclaimed wood entirely: ceiling, walls, there's an antler chandelier, a boar head that's been turned into a lamp hanging on the wall...just lots of antiques.

When Drunky's first opens, it'll only be 800-square feet, but a bar will be added in the near future. "The bar is under construction. We're going to open Drunky's as kind of a small little barbecue joint," says Rezac.

Hours have not been locked down, either. "I'm going back and forth between just starting with lunch and then launching dinner in the bar down the road, which is kind of where I'm leaning right now."

Heading up the kitchen will be Brendan Fitzgerald, who was the chef at the Armadillo Barbecue for about 20 years. Says Rezac:

I grew up working at Armadillo Barbecue when it was in Woodinville (it's since relocated to Duvall). I really loved their style. In my opinion, when you go to barbecue joints around Seattle right now, most of them have their smokers way back in the kitchens somewhere. So, we're going to have a 6 1/2-foot tall by 8-foot wide steel smoker that's right in the center of the restaurant. It won't have a rotisserie, it's old school. We will be opening that smoker ever so often and rotating the meat, checking the meat in front of everybody so they can really see the process.

And that goofy name.

Years ago, me and my brother were talking about how that would be a cool name for a bar. We basically drew this caricature of a horse with a gold tooth that's really funny and named him Drunky. But then I thought also, since we're going to be opening up in the beginning without a bar, we could establish Drunky as a name, not necessarily a drunk.

Look for an opening date and progress pics on Drunky's Facebook page.

· Drunky's Two Shoe BBQ [Facebook]
· All First Word Coverage [~ESEA~]