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| ALABAMA |
Rudolph McCollum
The Sparerib
1226 Bankhead HWY
Winfield, AL 35594
(205) 487-4148
“I learned [about chopped barbecue] from a teacher colleague. He said he cooked in the Navy, and one day we were at lunch and he was talking about cooking Boston butts and he said, ‘No matter how much salt you put on the Boston butt, it’s only going in maybe a quarter of an inch.’ So beyond that, you don’t have any seasoning in it. But when you chop it altogether, then you do have some seasoning.” – Rudolph McCollum
Rudolph McCollum spent thirty-two years as a schoolteacher in Fayette, Alabama. Upon retiring, Rudolph had a chance encounter with a businessman in Winfield, who was interested in opening a barbecue restaurant. All he needed was someone to make the barbecue. Growing up, Rudolph learned to barbecue from an uncle. He found he had a knack for it. So he went into business with his sister and his girlfriend and opened The Sparerib in 1997. Their first storefront was part of the local skating rink. After a few months, though, Rudolph was ready for a new—and better—location. He found a place on Highway 78, built a smokehouse, and got to work. Today, Rudolph and his sister, Mary Spears, operate the place. He does the meat; she does the sides. They’re only open on weekends, but that just keeps their customers hungry for more.
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of Rudolph McCollum talking about how he got into the barbecue business.
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What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited
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Subject: Rudolph McCollum
Date: September 29, 2006
Location: The Sparerib – Winfield, AL
Interviewer: Amy Evans
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Amy Evans: This is Amy Evans for the Southern Foodways
Alliance on Friday, September 29th 2006 in Winfield, Alabama, at Sparerib
Barbecue. And I’m with Mr. Rudolph McCollum. Mr. McCollum, could
you please say your name and your birth date for the record, if you don’t
mind?
Rudolph McCollum: Okay, I’m Rudolph McCollum—birth date January
25th 1944.
And
we’re on Highway 78 East in Winfield and your facility here—it
used to be a gas station, is that what you said yesterday?
Yes.
Okay. But you had another location up on the hill before. Can you talk
about that?
Yeah. When I started, there was this fellow that had the Skate Palace.
His name is Odie Hallmark, and he had tried to separate his teenagers
from his smaller kids by building another [roller] skating area. And that
didn’t work, so he decided to—he wanted to use that space
for something, so he had this idea that he would sell barbecue. And he
had another person in mind to do the cooking. And I just happened to meet
him in JC Penney’s [clothing store] in Jasper [Alabama], and he
was telling me about his idea. And somewhere in the conversation I told
him that I could cook, and he kind of said, “Uh-uh.” And but
he had this other person in mind; this person had been in the catering
business for a long time, and he didn’t want to, you know, start
a business. He wanted to continue to cater, so he turned Odie Hallmark
down. And sometime later, Odie called me and asked me, would I be interested
in doing it? And I said, “Yeah.” And so he said, “Well
let’s try it.” And then he asked me, he said, “Well
what do you want the name to be?” And I—I thought a minute
and I said, “The Sparerib.” And he said, “The Sparerib?”
I said, “Yeah.” So we decided on The Sparerib. And he said,
“How do you want to split the profit?” And I said, “Let’s
go fifty-fifty,” so that’s what we did. And I started—we
started in January 1960—no, 1997—January 1997. And after about
three months he—he got tired of it, and he told me I could have
it, if I wanted it, so I told him I would take it. And my sister and my
girlfriend, Annell Hall—my sister is Mary Spears, and my girlfriend
was Annell Hall. So they decided that they would be my partners in the
business. So we—this was probably about April that we started working
together in The Sparerib. And we stayed there until December of ’97.
And then this place was empty, and my two partners said, “Let’s
go down here and look at this place.” Well I resisted the change,
you know. I didn’t want to come. I said, “I like where I am,”
you know. But eventually, they got me to come down here and look at the
place, and while I was looking, I saw the traffic passing. And see, this
was [Highway] 78 then, and all of the traffic from the west came right
by here. So I saw the traffic, and I decided—I said they for once,
they got a good idea. So then we began to work on getting this place.
And we—during 
the—well
we weren't open at all in December and—but by January the 5th we
had this place up and ready to go. And January the 5th was our first day
here in 1998. And we’ve been here ever since.
Well can I back up a little bit and ask first if you were born in Winfield?
I was born in Fayette County, which is the next county over. Actually,
I live about seven minutes from here in Fayette County, and this is Marion
County here.
And then you told me yesterday that you were retired from school teaching,
is that right?
Yeah, I taught school for thirty-two years. I was a coach and well, I
taught social studies, I taught science, PE [physical education], but
I coached everything, I think, but golf. I coached football, basketball,
softball, baseball—.
At a school here in Winfield?
No, that was in Fayette…And I went to high school in Fayette, but
that was before integration. And I went to West Highland High School in
Fayette. And then when I came out of college—I went to Alabama A&M.
And when I came out of there, my first job was in Lamar County, the next
county over, and I worked there three years. And then I moved to Fayette,
which was kind of like home. And then I went to Fayette County High School,
and I remained there for twenty-nine years.
So when you retired and then you got into the business with opening
The Sparerib at the Skate Palace, when along that timeline did you get
interested in barbecue?
Well I’ve always been interested in it. What happened was my mother
[Josie Mae McCollum] learned how to cook barbecue from my uncle [Ollie
McCollum], who lived in Detroit. But every summer he would come home,
and while he was here he would cook some barbecue. Well my mother learned
how to cook from him and well, I loved the stuff, so I wanted barbecue
regular. And she didn’t want to cook it regular, so I said, “I’ll
do it myself.” So I started cooking it as a teenager and been cooking
it ever since. And I thought I really knew something about cooking, but
I’ve learned a great deal—well more than I ever knew, after
getting into this business.
What kind of stuff did you have to learn after being in the business?
Well I didn’t really know anything, like one thing for example is
when I cooked ribs at home, when I would get them done, I would baste
them after they were done; I’d put barbecue sauce on them and then
cook them some more—cook the barbecue sauce in. Well I was going
to do that when I got into business, but I found out a lot of people didn’t
want that; they wanted—they wanted to put the barbecue sauce on
themselves. And then I didn’t know anything about what the temperature
of what cooked meats should be, or I just kind of thought I knew when
it was done and—but once I got into business, the Health Department,
you know, helped me to know what temperatures of different foods are—what
they need to be.
When your mother was barbecuing, was she doing ribs?
Yeah, she did ribs. That’s basically all she did. Well she did pork
chops sometimes and chicken. But she never cooked the Boston butts.
Did y’all have a pit or a smoker behind your house when you were
coming up?
Well we had a pit, a small pit that was down on the ground, you know.
They built it up so far and then they’d put the fire on the ground,
and then they had the cooking grill, you know, over the fire, and she
cooked that way.
And was your mom around to see you open The Sparerib?
No, my mom passed away in [nineteen] ’94.
What do you think she would think about you being in the barbecue business?
I really don’t know what she would think. [Smiles] She’d probably
be surprised in a way, but she knew I liked to cook. I don’t think
she ever would have thought I would have got in the business, and I don’t
think I ever thought about getting into the business, either, until the
opportunity came, you know.
And are you glad you did it?
Oh yeah, I love it. I like cooking and I like meeting people and talking
to people and learning, you know. I still learn. Almost every time I’m
over here I learn something, you know.
Well and when I was in here working with your sister [Mary Spears],
while you were finishing your ribs, we were talking about other barbecue
in Alabama and she said—was saying about how you’ve gone other
places, and you like other places’ sauce and you learn from other
people and other ribs that you like. She mentioned Archibald’s in
Northport [Alabama] and some other places. Can you talk about how you
kind of learned from going around and having other people’s barbecue?
Well I haven’t learned very much by going around to different barbecue
places. Like I said, the main thing because I like barbecuing, so I went
to these places to eat barbecue, you know. And some I liked. Archibald’s
was my favorite. I really think that’s the best barbecue that I
ever had. I think I’m the second best.
Can you say why you like Archibald’s so much, and then how yours
is different at all?
Well his is cooked right. It’s cooked over hickory wood. It’s
cooked right. It’s not too done and it’s—it is done,
and it’s just got a good taste. It’s got a better taste than
any I’ve ever had anywhere. And mine is different because I can't
cook with wood. What I do is I cook with charcoal, but I use chips for
the flavor. And I use different kinds of chips…I didn’t know
you could cook with anything except hickory—or maybe oak. My mother
used some oak. But I didn’t know you could cook with, you know,
all kinds of fruitwoods and I know that what the different kinds of woods
does like the hardwoods—your hickory and the oak and the pecan—they
give your meat a heavier smoke taste. And then your fruitwoods 
gives
it a lighter smoke taste, and so I just—I use whatever, you know,
I have handy. And I—sometimes I mix it. And so I’ve tried
a lot of different things. And I think, you know, mixing it, you find
what you like and you stick with that, you know. And what my theory about
barbecue is—and I learned that from somebody else—is you cook
it, you make you a hot fire and you cook it. And actually I learned that
while we were at the Skate Palace. A man came in and he said that his
wife had brought a barbecue sandwich home, and she gave him a bite and
so she took her sandwich back and told him said, “Go get your own.”
Right, he came to the Skate Palace, and he ordered two barbecue sandwiches
and he stood there and ate those two barbecue sandwiches. And while he
was eating he said, “You know, a lot of people say there are secrets
to, you know, cooking barbecue and,” he said, “me,”
he said, “I just build me a hot fire and cook the hell out of it.”
So I took that to heart, and that’s what I do. You know, like Al
Roker on the Today Show, he says he cooks his ribs twelve hours or something
like that. Well I cook mine, and it takes me about an hour-and-a-half—between
an hour-and-a-half and two hours to cook mine and I make sure that they
are done. I’d rather them be a little bit over-done than not be
done, so I—that’s my—that’s my goal is to get
them done—make sure they’re done.
Well when I walked up this morning you were saying it was one of those
days, you just didn’t get your fire right. Can you talk about what
influences that and how you can manage it?
Well, it’s me. Sometimes I put too much charcoal, and sometimes
I don’t put enough. And if you put too much, then your fire is too
hot; and if you don’t put enough, of course, it gets too low before
you’re finished cooking. And what happened this morning is I didn’t
put enough, and before I finished my ribs, I had to put some more fire
in there. And I guess I’m just not good at estimating. I guesstimate
and sometimes I—most of the time I get it right, but sometimes I
get it too hot, and sometimes I don’t get it hot enough.
---
Well y’all are just open on Friday and Saturday and—but
then I was by here yesterday, which was Thursday, and you were cooking.
So what kind of schedule do you keep and days that you come in?
Okay, usually on Thursday I come in and usually I just season my ribs,
and while I’m seasoning them, I cook my Boston butts—that’s
the usual scenario. Yesterday I had decided well, I had enough Boston
butts already cooked, so yesterday I decided I would cook some ribs and
kind of get ahead, and so that way I didn’t have to cook as many
today…Usually I come in on Thursday and cook the Boston butts and
season the ribs, and then the next day—on Friday I come and all
I got to do is start cooking ribs. And I also cook chicken after I finish
the ribs.
Can you share a little bit how you season the ribs without giving too
much away?
Well, to be honest with you, all I use is salt. When I first started,
I used salt and season-all but I—and it was just my choice. Nobody
said anything, but I just decided I’m going to just use salt, and
so that’s what I do…And I think they’re just great with
just salt. I think some—I think some places you get ribs, they’ve
tried to do too much with them, you know, and I think they really don’t
need that.
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What do you do to your chicken and your Boston butts when you’re
cooking those?
Well I don’t cook them over the direct fire; they’re not directly
over the fire. I cook them on each end of the grill with my fire in the
middle. And with the ribs I cook them directly over the fire. So that
grease dropping down it will blaze up.
Do you season the chicken and the butts differently?
Yeah, my sister seasons the chicken and she still uses the season-all.
The butts I just—I just use salt, again.
Can you talk about when we were in the kitchen earlier we were talking
about how you chop the 
butts,
instead of you doing the pulled pork and all that? Can you talk about
how that evolved—that story you were telling earlier?
Yeah, when I went into this business with Odie Hallmark, I had planned
to slice the pork. But after I cooked the first butts, before I could
say slice, Odie had chopped the Boston butt. And after he chopped that
first one, I liked the idea. Because what you do when you chop it, you
get a mixture of your inside meat and your outside meat, and so you get
a seasoning all through your chopped meat. Whereas, you know—and
I learned this from a teacher colleague; he said he cooked in the Navy,
and one day we were at lunch and he was talking about cooking Boston butts
and he said, “No matter how much salt you put on the Boston butt,
it’s only going in maybe a quarter of an inch.” So beyond
that, you don’t have any seasoning in it, but when you chop it altogether,
then you do have some seasoning.
And your customers tended to like that, too, you were saying?
I’ve met people in—well, I know specifically, I met a man
in Tuscaloosa, and I don’t know how we were talking—got to
talking about barbecue, but I told him that I ran a barbecue place in
Winfield, Alabama, and I told him where it was. And he said, “Oh,”
he said, “you’re the one that chops it in those little squares.”
And I said, “Yeah.” He said, “I’ve been by there
and,” he said, “I like it.” So that has happened more
than once, you know, people—a lady came by here and she was saying
that she was getting some pork and some of her family had told her to
go by that place where they chop it in the little cubes, so they like
it in the little cubes.
And it’s become your barbecue calling card. People know it’s
you. That’s great. Can we talk a little bit about the sides that
y’all serve that your sister seems mostly in charge of, but the
things that she makes?
Yeah, she does baked beans, potato salad, and coleslaw; we have three
sides. And she handles that; I don’t know how she does it. She does
the peeling of the potatoes and the chopping of the cabbage and—and
all of that. I don’t—and the seasoning of the beans. And our
beans are not sweet like most baked beans are. They are—well, they’re
simply not sweet; they have a different taste.
And some folks that were—I was talking to yesterday, some folks
in Winfield didn’t even realize y’all were down here. And
the folks who came in today were all white folks, if we can talk about
that for a second. So are y’all servicing—at the Skate Palace,
was you your clientele different and then it changed when you came on
the Highway?
No, it’s basically the same. And I’m glad you asked that question
because ninety, ninety-five-percent of our customers are white. I don’t
know what the reason for that is but that’s—that’s reality.
Is there a large black community here in Winfield?
Well there is a large black community in my hometown [of Fayette], which
is about seven minutes away, and they come to Winfield. I see them passing.
But they don’t stop; I think everybody has high blood pressure or
high cholesterol—something like that.
Would you have an idea of your customer base if—what ratio of
local customers and what ratio of people who are just passing and see
you as they’re driving down?
I would say ninety-five-percent are local. And we, you know, we do get
some people passing by. And you mentioned an interesting thing about some
of the people that you already talked to that they didn’t know about
this place. We have been here—this is going on nine years and that’s—you
know, I ran into that—last—last week, I went in the bank,
and I went to one teller, and while she was, you know, helping me, another
one of the tellers came down and—and told me, she said, “Those
were the best ribs I’ve ever had in my mouth.” And I asked
her, I said, “Was that the first time that you had my ribs?”
And she said it was. Of course, and that happens a lot, you know; we have
people that come in almost every week—we have somebody new that
comes in, and they say, “I’ve been passing here and passing
here, and I decided today that I’m going to stop.”
Well and y’all are pretty hard to miss out here. I mean when
I passed by yesterday, you’re out here on the side of the road and
nothing is around you, smoke is coming out of that smokehouse, and you
can smell it a mile away.
Yeah, I can't figure it out. You know, I see people I know passing, you
know, and I’ve—there have been people that I know that’s
come in and, you know, and I’ve seen them pass but they ask me—they
say, “How long have you been here? I 
didn’t
know you were here.” And I get the idea that if they knew who I
was, you know, maybe they would stop, but evidently they don’t recognize
me from the road.
---
Well what’s your favorite thing about having The Sparerib?
My favorite thing is meeting people and talking to people and the compliments,
you know. The compliments that we get are as—well, they’re
worth money to me. You know, I could try to have a bad day, but somebody
will come in and tell me how good my food is well I’m high the rest
of the day. Especially when they compare you to some of the well-known
establishments. Like we have people that tell us that our stuff is better
than Dreamland and, you know, some of the other places. We have had people
that come from—that say they have been everywhere, you know—truck
drivers—and they said they have never had any better.
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Well how long do you think you’ll be doing this?
I don’t know about that. Every once in a while I’ll have,
you know, a notion to retire again, and then I say, “No, I’m
enjoying it too much.” So I don’t know.
---
Is there anything that I haven’t asked you about barbecue and
your business here that you want to add or talk about?
Well it’s been a good experience, you know. And things happen that
I wouldn’t have missed, you know, for anything. We had a lady and
her fiancé to come in here one day, and what they told us was that
when they passed here, there was a train stopped [on the railroad tracks
just below the restaurant]. And so she told him, she said, “Look,
there’s a train stopped at this barbecue place and,” she said,
“we’re going to go back, because if it’s good enough
for a train to stop, we want some of the barbecue.” And we had a
lady came in from Memphis and ate, and as I was passing by she said, “They
think in Memphis that they’re the only ones that can cook barbecue.”
She said, “They’re wrong.” [Laughs]
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