John's BBQ Continues Family Tradition

First the Couch branch of the family, then the Johns and Wagners, tempted patrons' taste buds with their own brand of shredded barbeque and hot slaw. The down home fixin's served up from the rustic barbeque joint located on Glenwood Avenue has been catering to the appetites of dedicated carnivores since the 1940's. Based on the steady influx of customers, the family will be in the barbeque business for some time to come.

"It's the barbeque pork," offered Tara Linville of Rocky Face, who has frequented Johns' Barbeque for as long as she can remember. "That meat is mouth watering delicious. Sometimes I'll get a craving for it during the day at work, and then drive through and pick up a sack of it to take home to my family for dinner."

"I like the red sauce that goes on the barbeque," Ashley Thurman, Linville's teenage daughter added. "We're big barbeque lovers, our family, and I haven't tasted anything like the sauce at Johns' anywhere else. Not too sweet, but just sweet enough. Very tasty!"

Mike Sailor of Dalton attributes Johns' success to the hot slaw customers can get on top of their barbeque. "I've ordered it no less than a hundred times. You can't go to Johns' without getting a pork sandwich with hot slaw."

The recipe for Johns' hot slaw has been handed down since the 1940's, according to Tody Johns, who co-owns Johns' Barbeque along with her daughter and son-in-law, Jill and David Wagner. "It came from my father-in-law's aunt, Mrs. Couch, who had Couch's Barbeque in Ooltewah, Tennessee."

In the 1960's Tody Johns' in-laws, James and Lillian "Kat" Johns, bought Couch's Barbeque and operated it for ten years, before selling the establishment back to the Couch family and moving to Dalton, to be close to family.

"We all came to Dalton," Tody Johns recalled, "and we opened a restaurant on Cedar Ridge Road, which only had three tables and a bar with stools. Back then all we served was barbeque and burgers. No fries, only chips and bottle Cokes from a cooler. A barbeque sandwich cost thirty-five cents, and a Coke was six cents."