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Johnny B’s Secret Ingredient

by Luke Sharrett
John "Johnny B" Perkins checks out cuts of hog in the meat locker behind Hubble Meat Market in Lancaster. Johnny B made the trip to Hubble to market his barbecue sauce and pick up a slab of baby back ribs to mesquite smoke that evening.

Hickory smoke escapes through the cracks in John Perkins’ prized Weber barbecue grill. Two racks of baby back ribs sizzle under the grill’s metal dome. John,”Johnny B” to his friends, breathes in the lingering smell with a grin across his big face. “It’s like I’m at ease,” Johnny B says. “I relax doing this. It’s a labor of love.” Indeed, whenever Johnny B isn’t chatting with his mailman or serving homemade johnnycakes at the bean luncheon in his church’s basement, he’s experimenting grill-side with a slab of ribs or pulled pork in his back yard in Somerset.

Johnny B and his wife Nellie grill nearly every day. Recently the Perkins drove three hours to Morehead State University to feed NBA basketball players from Kentucky following an exhibition game. “The best part of barbecue is when I see the joy on their faces,” says Johnny B. “I like to see people eat and I like to see people enjoy it.”

Johnny B and Nellie used to own a barbecue restaurant. Now they market Johnny B’s barbecue sauce. The sauce, which they used to produce in their kitchen, is now manufactured in Louisville. Keeping up with the part-time sauce venture is nearly a full-time job for Johnny B. Every week he drives his red pickup truck around Somerset and Pulaski County to check on the stock of his sweet and spicy sauce variants in local restaurants and family-owned grocery stores.

Instead of trying to place his sauce in large grocery chains, Perkins is investing in small Somerset businesses owned by people he knows. “I have to do it the way I do it,” Johnny B says, “because I’m putting a little bit of myself into it.”

John "Johnny B" Perkins shares a laugh with latecomers to Davis Chapel AME Church's quarterly bean luncheon in Somerset. Johnny B brought homemade johnnycakes to share with friends and parishioners.
John "Johnny B" Perkins shares a laugh with a butcher in the meat aisle at the Kroger grocery store in Somerset. Johnny B goes to the Kroger so often that he knows all the employees.
Johnny B's industrial barbecue grill sits in his backyard in Somerset. The doesn't see nearly as much use since Johnny B sold his barbecue restaurant.
John "Johnny B" Perkins is a barbecue connoisseur, but he prides himself on his homemade johnnycakes. He took some johnnycakes to his Dave's Chapel AME Church's quarterly bean luncheon in Somerset.
Johnny B lights charcoal briquettes in his Weber grill while preparing to cook hickory-smoked baby back ribs for dinner. "It's like I'm at ease," Johnny B says. "I relax doing this. It's a labor of love."
Johnny B is reflected in glass covering a folded flag given to him forf his decades of service to the U.S. Postal Service in Pulaski County. Johnny B also served in the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam.