NWI Business Ins and Outs: Lucy's BBQ, Smugglers Coffee, Goodfellas Barbershop and Wessler Engineering open

Joseph S. Pete

Lucy's BBQ, a purveyor of authentic Texas-style barbecue, was displaced when Brewfest in Highland closed after a new owner took over the property earlier this summer.

But the Austin, Texas-inspired barbecue spot has found a new home at 241 N. Liberty St. in Lowell. It took over the former Mason Jar restaurant, opening earlier this week.

Owner Nick Kleutsch went down to Austin to be in a band. When it broke up, he decided to learn the craft of barbecue at some of Texas Monthly's most highly rated barbecue joints, including acclaimed Franklin’s BBQ, a James Beard Award-winning restaurant where people wait hours in line for a table and that Bon Appetit magazine named the best barbecue in the country.

Kleutsch spends 12 to 15 hours a day hand-feeding a 500-gallon all-wood offset smoker. Lucy's Barbecue serves brisket, brisket sandwiches, pulled pork, jalapeño cheddar sausages, buffalo chicken, pork spare rib slabs, pork spare ribs glazed with a housemade barbecue sauce made with craft beer and a half-pound smoked cheeseburger made from trim from the brisket.

Sides include mac and cheese, macaroni salad, pork and beans and brisket elote.

The new 4,100-square-foot restaurant in Lowell will seat 60 people in the dining room, 15 at the bar and another 120 outside.

"It's going to be a summer hangout spot," Kleutsch said. "It's nice. It was a turnkey operation that just needed some elbow grease. We're decorating it so it feels like we're in Texas but also my backyard, so it feels like I'm cooking for friends and family. As it's grown, we've gotten a lot of new faces, but I want the restaurant to have the hospitality of how I would treat people coming over to my house. I want it to feel like hanging out with friends and family."

Lucy's BBQ had operated out of a cramped hallway with no appliances when it was at Brewfest. Now it has a full commercial kitchen with an induction stove, oven frier, flattop grills and three times as much smoker capacity.

"We've tripled our cooking capacity," Kleutsch said. "We had been running out fairly quickly, especially of brisket. There was nothing we could do. With triple the capacity, hopefully, the menu stays available."

Lucy's BBQ cooks all its meat low and slow the night before and sells it until it runs out. It will be served in the authentic Texas fashion, in which people walk up to the counter and place their orders, later coming back to pick up their tray when it's ready. Servers will come around to check on them and bring them drinks from the full bar.

"We're going to keep the barbecue simple and traditional because it's Texas-style," Kleutsch said. The new location will also allow for "full-scale kitchen items."

"I'd like to serve authentic Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana items," he said. "I grew up in Hammond and was used to Mexican and Puerto Rican cuisines."

Kleutsch said he'd like to incorporate pastelitos, a Puerto Rican empanada, and jibaritos, a Puerto Rican sandwich that replaces bread with fried plantains.

"I went to 219 Day and looked around at what people were eating and then talked to my Puerto Rican friends," he said. "I got recipes from my friend's grandma and started serving pastelitos when we were still at Brewfest. It played pretty well. But it threw people that I was making Puerto Rican rice."

He's also looking at adding items like wings and brisket cheese fries.

The new space will be more family-friendly since Lucy's BBQ had been located in a craft beer bar.

"A lot of people tried to come in with children and we weren't able to do that," he said. "One parent would order while the other waited with the kid in the car and then they ate in their car. It didn't feel right to me but the law is the law. This is family-friendly, which is a huge thing and something I understand, having a newborn."

The plan is to have the restaurant open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday through Sunday initially unless it runs out of all its barbecue early.

"We'll be like a desert island and nowhere else in town is open to eat anymore at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m.," he said. "Life happens. Sometimes it's late and you still deserve to be able to eat somewhere late."

He expects it also will be a destination, as people traveled from the north side of Chicago, Wisconsin and Michigan to eat there in Highland after reading or hearing that it had an offset smoker and was the real deal, he said.

He hopes to eventually establish a second restaurant somewhere in north Lake County again.

"I grew up in Hammond and love that place," he said. "We were established up north and would like to return, especially since we spent our first year giving people in Hammond and Highland damn good barbecue."

The restaurant will have a similarly curated craft beer selection as Brewfest but won't have the self-pour machines, as they don't suit the space. The plan is to reinstall and again offer self-poured craft beer whenever it reopens a second location in north Lake County

There will still be craft beer on tap to wash down the barbecue.

"This is an authentic taste of Austin," he said. "This is authentic Texas barbecue like you might have seen on TV. Nobody else around here is doing this."

For more information, find the business on Facebook or Instagram.

Smugglers Coffee relocated to Dyer, where it plans to open a cafe.

The coffee roaster moved from Lowell to Madison Avenue and Sheffield Avenue in Dyer. It's now located near Dyer Construction Co.

"It's a good location and close to friends and Windmill Brewing," Smugglers Coffee owner Dave Fajman said. "The Dyer Community Market is the first market we ever did and it's our home market."

Smugglers Coffee had been in Lowell, where its lease was up. It has slightly less roasting space in its new location but it's a more central location for distribution.

"The Lowell location was huge. It was like a giant warehouse," Fajman said. "This has more traffic, which is good for having the public over.

The coffee roaster makes barrel-aged, single-origin, blends and flavored coffees. It sells bags of beans including Scally Cap Mafia, Smordor’s Calling, Dungeons & Disc Golf, Chocthulu, Antihero, Stop Decaffeinate & Listen, Tomb of Caffeination and A Brew Hope. They often feature comic book-like art that pays tribute to pop culture like The Clash, Dungeons and Dragons, H.P. Lovecraft, Star Wars, Marvel and Arthur C. Clarke.

Smugglers' coffee is distributed at local coffee shops including Grindhouse Cafe in Griffith and Whiting, Old Dog Coffee House in Lowell and 312 Cafe in Hebron.

It's looking to open a coffee shop of its own.

"Right now it's just a roasting space but hopefully, either later this year or early next year, we'll open a little cafe space," Fajman said. "It's more like a sober bar where we'll serve our coffee and cold brews. We'll have some of our friends like the craft soda maker Liquid Thoughts in Crown Point who we've done collaborations with. We'll have stuff like that to drink. We'll have a little bar set up and a bar-like atmosphere but no alcohol."

The craft coffee maker is known especially for its barrel-aged coffees. They are aged in craft beer or whiskey barrels.

"It's the natural extension of our barrel-aged program," he said. "It will give off the bar vibe. Also, I love watching sports and want to have some TVs showing the English Premier League and maybe whatever movies. We'll be pouring and drinking new roasts. It will be a fun atmosphere."

Fajman plans to have friends like the Roaming Wedge Mobile Cheese Shop over for pop-up events. Oven Maiden may offer croissants and bagels.

"It will be hyper-local," he said. "We'll have friends over to our space."

It's a very collaborative business.

"We've collaborated with Windmill on a stout and they've given us different barrels we've aged coffee in," he said. "We have a really strong barrel-aged coffee program. We've even collaborated on a coffee hot sauce with Soothsayers Hot Sauce. They did a hot sauce using our coffee. It was amazing. They knocked it out of the park.

The opening date for the cafe isn't set in stone yet, but it could be as soon as September. Until then it will continue to roast coffee beans and sell them online, as well as at local coffee shops. It also sells mugs, T-shirts and other merchandise.

"We just got settled in and working on the space," he said. "We're really excited to be in Dyer, We finally moved to a home location."

For more information, visit store.smugglerscoffee.com.

Goodfellas Barbershop plans to open in downtown Schererville. The family-owned barbershop will be located at 102. E. Joliet St.

"Our barbers have 8 to 10-plus years of experience with all types of hair textures and styles," said co-owner Sal Castro. "Our concept with this shop is to bring back the old-time, small-town feel of a barbershop with customer satisfaction as the number one priority. Our barbers are professional family men with a strong passion for what they do. They do have a large clientele base already but are looking to gain new clients as well."

A grand opening is slated for 5 p.m. Sept. 1.

Wessler Engineering relocated its Northwest Indiana office from Hobart to Merrillville.

The Indianapolis-based firm is now based at 379 E. 84th Drive in Merrillville. It specializes in water, wastewater and environmental services for municipalities and utilities.

"A lot of our clients are cities, towns, counties, regional sewer districts and those kinds of things," Vice President Mary Atkins said. "The company started in Indianapolis 50 years ago and expanded into Northwest Indiana."

The previous office was home to five employees. It outgrew it and had to find a larger space.

"We moved over toward the Merrillville area where we have 10 employees to service our clients across Northwest Indiana," she said. "We're centrally located at U.S. 30 and Interstate 65 in a professional office complex near Gamba Ristorante."

The larger space will allow for further growth, she said.

"We'll expand and continue to get more staff and attract more talent and continue to serve our growing business and continue to bring in new clients related to public works."

Business has been good.

"It's necessary as cities and towns grow and expand," she said. "They have to expand their water and wastewater service and we can design how to expand the service. It's also always changing the regulatory and environmental regulations. Communities have to adapt their wastewater systems and we help them adapt. Engineering water, stormwater and wastewater projects are our bread and butter. We're happy to be in Northwest Indiana, where we're embraced by the community."

For more information, call 219-238-6732, visit www.wesslerengineering.com or find the business on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Latitude Commercial, the Crown Point-based commercial real estate firm, signed a property management agreement for full-service management of the 4,020-square-foot retail property on U.S. 30 in Matteson. It's home to two bustling national retailers.

“It was great getting to tour the property ...with our new landlord-client. This client previously performed their own property management and the goal is to continue to improve upon what the owner has done in recent years," Assistant Property Manager Courtney Pishkur said.

If you would like your business to be included in a future column, email [email protected].

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