The Smokehouse Grill: From Vision to Reality
If there’s one thing Brandon Herty Arnold and Joe Rouchon are sure about, it’s barbeque. The owners of the Smokehouse Grill have a combined 47 years of experience working within the restaurant industry. The vision for opening their own place began when the two worked together at another popular local restaurant. Joe was the general manager and Brandon was an administrator. They both had lifelong ambitions of opening their own business, and the idea for the restaurant came up organically in conversations between the two. Joe already had the look and menu worked out in his head for what would become the Smokehouse Grill. With his culinary background and experience successfully running a restaurant, combined with Brandon’s front-of-house and bookkeeping expertise, the Smokehouse Grill went from a dream to a reality. “Joe and I worked together at New Orleans Hamburger & Seafood Co. I was an administrator and he the GM. The restaurant came about kind of just organically in conver