Today we’d like to introduce you to Doug Holiday.
Doug, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I have always been in the restaurant industry. I started in Colorado Springs in 1975 at Giuseppe’s old depot restaurant when I was 13. That is where I fell in love with the concept of a restaurant, it is pretty much the only business where you advertise, make and sell the product in one building, you get immediate feedback it is rewarding seeing folks happy.
I continued working in high school and college (at the University of Kansas) I managed a restaurant at night at KU. When I graduated I moved to Omaha to open a restaurant then moved to Des Moines and eventually moved to Dallas to work for Chilis new restaurant concepts. I eventually transferred over to Chilis and moved around the country a bit KC, Detroit and Chicago. I left there to work for a company in KC called the Black-eyed Pea and learned a lot about the culinary side of restaurants.
I then opened the first On the Border in Missouri and learned many things about training and development there. From OTB I joined the team at Hereford House a local chain in KC, and kept learning as much as I could. after opening the store in Lawrence, I decided to open my own concept, Biggs. It was a slow start and built the business one guest at a time, eventually (in eight years) opened another concept, Burgers by Biggs.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not always, in 2013 I was diagnosed with stage 4 Non Hodgkins Lymphoma, and tooks 600 hours of Chemotherapy. It was a hard struggle for myself and my family. In 2014 I opened another restaurant downtown (Biggs on Mass) there was a fire and it was really hard on the other restaurants, I had to close it. During the pandemic I got skin cancer (melanoma) it was easier to get rid of than Lymphoma and currently I am fighting stage 4 prostate cancer.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Biggs Barbecue ?
I work very hard maintaining the high standards of our restaurants, try to hire the best people and consistently putting the only the best food on the table. Our smoked meats are very popular and the burgers are first class.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
Playing with our animals, I have always loved animals we have two dogs and a cat. We had a cat and dog growing up.
Pricing:
- as reasonable as possible.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.biggsribs.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BiggsBBQ/
