Barbecue restaurant to open in village

Dining options in the Village of Belgium are slated to expand around the Fourth of July.

Ed Tucker and James McMahon plan to open a barbecue restaurant called Big Ed’s Smoke Pit on Main Street.

Fare will include basic barbecue staples — ribs, rib tips, chicken wings and possibly brisket — complete with traditional side dishes and other menu items that will rotate through the menu, McMahon said.

“We’ve got to figure out what people in the area are looking for,” he said.

Belgium isn’t the only target market, however. McMahon said they hope to draw people traveling to Door County who want to stop off for a bite.

All orders will be take out, he said, since the restaurant won’t have seating.

They plan to be open on weekends only and offer catering services.

They may sell out of food early, as other barbecue restaurants sometimes do, McMahon said.

“It’s not going to be a traditional place you might see that will definitely be open for certain hours,” he said.

The owners are leasing a small space at 746 Main St., just west of the railroad tracks, where McMahon and other members of the rock band The Form used to rehearse. One of the band’s members lives in Belgium.

McMahon has been in the restaurant business for more than 20 years. He is the owner and general manager of The Bay restaurant in Whitefish Bay, where Tucker works in the kitchen.

McMahon had recently asked his staff if anyone wanted to work on special projects and Tucker expressed interest.

McMahon holds an economics degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There, he worked in some of the big university kitchens and filled large orders of items such as soup and lasagna and learned the catering business.

McMahon later worked his way up at Buffalo Wild Wings from the kitchen to being in charge of nine restaurants between Madison and Milwaukee.

McMahon lives in the Riverwest neighborhood in Milwaukee and said he has ties to the Fredonia, Random Lake, Kohler and Sheboygan Falls areas.

Tucker lives in Milwaukee and will handle the bulk of the catering business.

Opening for mid-week events is possible as time goes on, but McMahon said they want to start small.

“We want to get this off the ground this summer and feel really good about it,” he said.

The Belgium Plan Commission last month approved a 4x6-foot sign for the restaurant.