Eatdrink Waterloo & Wellington #1 June/July 2018

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14 | June/July 2018 — Premiere Issue Restaurants Barbecue and Blues The Lancaster Smokehouse in Kitchener eatdrink.ca |@eatdrinkmag By ANDREW COPPOLINO A 12-seat restaurant in an unassuming strip plaza in north Waterloo, started in 2009 led to the development of one of Southwestern Ontario’s premier barbecue and blues venues. The Lancaster Smokehouse in Kitchener’s Bridgeport neighbourhood was the brainchild of barbecue aficionado Chris Corrigan, founder and CEO of The Lancaster Co. Group of Companies. Corrigan left the world of office equipment behind him to test his mettle in the smoky, carbonized pit-master realm of competition barbecue in the 2000s. It turned out he was pretty darn good and won some gold. That success inspired Corrigan and his wife Cathy to put their hearts and souls — and smokers — into a bricks-and-mortar business, and Waterloo’s Hog Tails Bar-B-Que was born. They sold Hog Tails in 2015 (it has since closed), but only after having expanded operations and taken over The Lancaster Public House, a dog-eared Kitchener tavern that was once an 1840s railroad hotel. Before the Smokehouse opened in the fall of 2011, they knew the new venture needed a lot of work. “It was a huge challenge. We knew that Putting a local spin on traditional southern cooking techniques and using quality ingredients from nearby farms has propelled The Lancaster Smokehouse into the culinary stratosphere. The Lanc was an iconic landmark as one of the oldest, if not the oldest, continuously operating taverns in Waterloo Region, but the building was very tired. We knew there were going to be a lot of infrastructure challenges and when we needed to do one aspect of reconstruction, something else had to be done first,” Chris Corrigan says. The investments of time and money, and the perseverance, paid off. Eight years later The Lancaster Smokehouse, “The Lanc” in homage to its public-house history, is going strong, and has maintained much of the original infrastructure it had 100 years ago. With the creaky wooden floor and the pervasive and appetite-arousing smoky aromas, Corrigan says the busy restaurant is virtually always at capacity. He acknowledges that the business came on board at the very peak of the southern The Lancaster Smokehouse delivers! Their fullyequipped food truck can be booked for catering backyard parties or corporate events.
Eatdrink: The Local Food & Drink Magazine barbecue trend, but it has been the solid management with his daughter and co-owner Caitie Agostinho, and corporate chef and co-owner Tim Borys, along with consistently good food that has allowed them to grow and prosper. “We caught the wave, there’s no doubt,” he says of barbecue’s popularity. “It has subsided somewhat though it is still a very popular style of cuisine. I’m also glad to say that we were able to take the ingredients and traditions of Waterloo County fare and draw on them in ways that complement the southern barbecue scene.” Despite the market having shifted toward other styles of food and dining, The Lancaster Smokehouse keeps southern barbecue in high demand by keeping things simple, honest and plentiful, Corrigan says. It’s a full-service casual restaurant featuring southern barbecue dishes that are made from scratch in-house, with the best local ingredients they can get their hands on, and using traditional southern methods. And Corrigan knows from the U.S. south and low country: he travels there regularly searching for inspiration and new ideas and flavours, as well as hitting every nook-and-cranny of a venue that is cranking out the blues. “We continue to explore new foodways through our travel and research in the southern U.S. but at the same time, my heritage keeps our so-called Waterloo County roots close to how we want to develop our cooking style,” he says. That means the injection of an occasional Mennonite country cooking approach to the Smokehouse menu. “We are known in the community for barbecue, but there is a tremendous commonality between the two styles of food. I believe that people are trending away from fine dining but do not want the processed food available in either fast food or fast casual. We can fill that void and want to continue to educate our customers about our goals.” He’s cautious, though, and ensures that the menu doesn’t veer too far from the southern sweet spot of pulled pork, chicken, ribs, brisket and jambalaya. “If we diverged, we’d see some customer push-back.” The menu is classic southern U.S. fare, from pork rinds, fried green tomatoes, and gumbo to an intensely hot Nashville- Premiere Issue — June/July 2018 | 15 The Lanc's reputation was built on authentic southern barbecue with sides like cheesey grits and cornbread but the large menu also includes entrées such as fried chicken and jambalaya.
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Eatdrink Waterloo & Wellington #1 June/July 2018

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