Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 24, 1990 TAG: 9003231937
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LISA BELKIN THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: ARLINGTON, TEXAS LENGTH: Medium
Frankly, he does not think the puns are very funny.
"To us this is important," said Carroll, the owner of the Spring Creek Bar-B-Que restaurant, who says a former employee stole his sauce recipe and is using it at a new restaurant across town. "In the barbecue business the sauce is the key."
Last week Carroll filed suit in Tarrant County District Court against the former employee, Londell Fisher, who had been the manager of Spring Creek for three years and was one of only three people who knew the recipe for the secret sauce.
When he took the job originally, Fisher signed an agreement not to use that recipe "for his individual benefit" during or after his employment.
The document also said he would not open a competing restaurant for three years after leaving.
Fisher's new restaurant, Stagecoach Bar-B-Que, opened in December. "I was shocked and disappointed," Carroll said. "I treated him like family."
Fisher replied: "Spring Creek did not invent barbecue!"
The two restaurants do look similar. The cafeteria-type line starts to the right of each entrance. Customers pass a cutting board and order meat. Then they help themselves to a choice of two sauces, one for chicken and one for everything else. Next come the side orders, the biscuits, the sodas and the cashier.
The dining areas are similar, too. Both are lined with booths and are decorated with a lot of wood. The cushions on the booths are quilted and striped at both restaurants. The tablecloths are green with thin white lines forming a checkerboard. Waitresses carry woven baskets full of fresh rolls and walk from table to table offering free seconds.
"I created it; that's my deal," Carroll said of the roll service. "No one else anywhere did that before me."
The menus are very much alike. Each offers a dinner special with a choice of ribs, beef, ham, sausage or chicken; each offers side orders of corn, beans, potato salad and coleslaw. Each also offers something called a "twosome" - a sandwich and a stuffed baked potato.
And, without judging the merits of the lawsuit, it must be said that the sauces at both restaurants taste almost the same. Both are deep red with flecks of spices. They share a slightly sweet flavor, not the overpoweringly spicy taste of some barbecue restaurants.
Carroll said he and his partner "perfected" their sauce in 1978 after years of experimenting.
"I've been working that sauce for years and there's no question," he said. "It's my signature. I'd know it anywhere."
An employee at Fisher's restaurant said his boss was "off handling that lawsuit," adding, "I'm not allowed to talk about it."
But in a recent interview with The Associated Press, Fisher said that although the sauces were "similar," he did not duplicate the Spring Creek recipe. His version, he said, "is a little spicier."
As to his pledge not to compete, he said he had signed it under duress. "I had a family to take care of." he said. "It was either sign it or be fired."
While the owners were arguing, customers at both restaurants were smacking their lips at a recent lunch hour. There were a lot of jokes of the kind that make Carroll wince.
"You mean he caught his manager hitting the sauce? Get it?" said Bob Reamer, a computer repairman, finishing an order of ribs at Stage Coach.
There was some support for Carroll. "It makes sense to me," said Martin Denton, who works at a nearby automobile dealership. "If somebody takes a thing that's yours, you should do something about it."
But there was also support for Fisher. "It's whiny to say someone is stealing your business," said Al Conroy, after his third roll at Spring Creek. "If you're good, no one will steal your business. McDonald's and Wendy's both sell burgers. These places both sell barbecue."
Perhaps the majority opinion was summed up by Alan Welks, an insurance broker. "There's only two types of barbecue - good barbecue and bad barbecue," he said. "I can't tell if one is a little different than the other."
"If I knew about spices," he said, with a smirk, "I could open a business of my own. Then my life would be gravy."
by CNB