Wyatt’s Country BBQ has stood resolute in Kirkwood for more than 40 years

As 84-year-old Oscar Wyatt stepped out of his van in the Sgt. Wyatt’s Country BBQ parking lot one autumn morning, ready to work in a denim apron and a U.S. Army cap perched on his head, he certainly didn’t look like a man in his eighth decade.

His Southern accent is rich and musical, his handshake strong. He arrives at the restaurant each morning before it opens between 5-6 a.m. to start cooking and stays until about noon. He and his eldest son, also named Oscar Wyatt, possess a warmth and hospitality that makes you want to order the whole menu, from a rack of pork ribs on down to the candied yams.

Walking up the wooden steps through the screen door and into the restaurant’s narrow front is like showing up on someone’s porch. The no-frills interior is papered with handwritten signs advertising prices and menu specials.

Wyatt has made a career in barbecue since the 1960s when he and his brother, Henry Wyatt, opened their first restaurant at 2500 Gordon Road (now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive) in Atlanta, taking over a space once occupied by fried chicken restaurant Wishbone Chicken.

At one point in time, the large Wyatt family was operating six restaurants all while participating in a traveling choir, the younger Oscar Wyatt recalled.

But as family members aged and the challenges of running multiple businesses persisted, the Wyatt restaurants closed one by one.

So how does a little building and its menu of country food remain steadfast on one corner of a changing neighborhood for four decades?

“By the grace of God and the good food,” the senior Wyatt said.

It’s the fresh food that keeps old-timers and new patrons returning. Vegetable sides are prepared every morning before the sun rises, he said. Ribs start smoking in the back corner before the doors open to the public. Wyatt’s wife, Addie Ruth, is bustling around the back of the restaurant making peach cobbler by 8 a.m., he said.

By 10 a.m., an hour before opening on Wednesday, smoke billows from the chimney in a cloud of savory scents that drift around the building’s perimeter. The restaurant still uses the same barbecue sauce recipe Oscar Wyatt and his brother created decades ago.

Wyatt grew up one of 12 siblings — seven girls and five boys. His parents were sharecroppers in Morgan County who died when he was a teenager. He’s been working around farms since he was 5 years old, he said, and his whole family learned to cook — everything from ribs to pig ears to turnips and collards.

Before he entered the restaurant business, Wyatt worked at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta as a door attendant. His brother, Henry Wyatt, had been a sergeant in the military. After Henry retired, the brothers began talking about going into business together.

Enough people liked him at the Hyatt Regency that when he asked a general manager if they had any equipment he could use, he was told to take what he needed for the restaurant.

Customers would say, “If we like your barbecue, we’ll be back,” Wyatt said. “That’s been since 1967.”

Eventually, they decided to open another restaurant in Covington and handed over the Candler Road outpost to their niece. She changed the name from Three Little Pigs to Hodges Bar-B Que, Wyatt said. His nephew also took over operations of the original Gordon Road location.

Around 1983, a friend offered to lease Wyatt the building at 1674 Memorial Drive SE. He moved Sgt. Wyatt’s Country BBQ to that corner where it’s stayed ever since.

By that point, they had been in business long enough that people knew to look for the Wyatt name.

Henry Wyatt died about 25 years ago, his brother said. Oscar Wyatt is the last survivor of the 12 siblings.

Wyatt’s oldest son of the same name grew up around the family restaurants but left to join the U.S. Air Force after high school. When he retired in 2002, he planned to take a brief vacation at home before returning to Kuwait City to work as a civilian contractor. But his father asked if he would help around the restaurant, and he’s stayed ever since.

“Family before everything,” the younger Wyatt said.

The East Atlanta and Kirkwood neighborhoods that surround the barbecue restaurant have changed drastically over the past 40 years, going from majority Black residents to majority white.

They still have patrons come from nearby, but many of the longtime regulars moved away, Wyatt the elder said. Younger people aren’t as interested in restaurants without a social media account or one that doesn’t serve alcohol, said the son.