The Barbecue

In 1952, my mom and dad built a brick barbecue and accompanying patio in our backyard. It had work surfaces on either side with storage underneath behind iron doors. In the picture accompanying this post, the grill is being put to use before the doors were installed on the two storage areas. That’s me at age 7 chomping on a hot dog, brother Rick at two, and my dad in the apron and hat holding what was probably a Miami-brewed Regal beer. We were all in bow ties so this must have been Sunday after church. The grill was designed for charcoal and made out of iron. My parents laid the bricks and installed the hardware. A cement truck delivered the concrete for the patio.

That barbecue served as the focal point of our backyard entertainment for the next seven years before we moved to our new home. There were neighborhood parties, birthday parties, and celebrations that had steaks, hot dogs, and hamburgers as the main course. They planted two “Florida holly” trees, aka Brazilian Peppers, on either side that eventually provided shade from the west sun. One is barely visible on right of the 1952 image.

Those fond memories from my childhood were the inspiration for my own backyard shrine to the joys of cooking over an open fire. It was almost forty years ago (1986) that Sue and I built our own replica of that 50’s barbecue at our new home. We had the builder, who was still working on the last houses in our development, pour the patio foundation.

We then bought brick, stone, and mortar to build the Dallas Barbecue 2.0. I did the design, patterened after the original, and Sue and I did all the work ourselves. Oh to be that young again. This grill was bigger than the one my parents built and the verticle surfaces were covered in decorative stone. It had two porcelain tile work surfaces above storage areas with iron doors. The main cooktop was a four-burner stainless steel Lazy Man grill and It ran on natural gas piped in underground. In addition to the colorized 1952 image, the picture collection shows the 1985 grill under construction, Sue cooking her “dad’s potatoes” with “the mom’s" in the background, and an updated 2025 shot.

We have been using that barbecue for almost four decades now. It has stood up to hurricanes. The metal cooking grill portion rusted and needed replacement a couple of times until I finally found a stainless-steel rod version. The internal tubes that disperse the gas through the lava rock and ceramic stones have been replaced a couple of times. Beyond that limited maintenance, it is still working like a charm.

In the last few years, it has become home to families of Red-headed Agamas. Aside from looking more like Donald Trump than Carrot-top with their orange heads (not red), these guys need to be rousted before grilling. If I don’t scare them all out before firing up the burners, stragglers exit like little roadrunners once the temperature rises. I don’t like it much when they jump on my shirt and run down my leg in their escape.

A few years back I was able to get a portable cover to provide better heat control. I also topped the steel rod cook surface with a slotted grill-grate with raised rails for searing. Last week I did a roast pork tenderloin, searing the meat for thirty seconds on each of four sides before roast-grilling for the remainder under cover. Salmon steaks are perfect four-minute meals. Steaks are rare and juicy. On a couple of occasions, we used the grill to cook Maine lobsters in a large pot.

The grill has cooked its share of hot dogs and hamburgers over the years, but they were more for parties. We don’t “party” as much anymore as we are more into smaller gatherings. Yes, this new and improved barbecue makes life easier. It’s funny how inanimate objects bring back memories. I still wouldn’t mind going back in time to have my dad cook me another hot dog on the orignial charcoal grill.