Dr. Rolf’s Barbeque Spring Lake location opens inside former Old Boys’ Brewhouse
SPRING LAKE, Mich. (WOOD) — Dr. Rolf’s Barbeque is celebrating the grand opening of its new Spring Lake location.
It opened a new restaurant Tuesday at 971 W Savidge St. off of US-31, the former Old Boys’ Brewhouse spot. Owner Judy Hissom said things went well overall and she hopes to have everything ironed out by the weekend.
Dr. Rolf’s first opened in downtown Muskegon five years ago, named after Hissom’s husband, Dr. Rolf Hissom. He had practiced medicine in Muskegon for 32 years, she said, but he was always making food for people. She said her husband, who is originally from West Virginia, got really good at his recipes, especially barbecue.
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“I tell people that his passions have always been his family, his work as a physician and cooking and feeding people,” she said with a laugh.
When their youngest graduated from high school and one of her other sons moved back to Michigan, they talked about opening a restaurant using his recipes.
“Once we got the menu written, we’re like, ‘That looks that looks pretty good. I’d go there to eat,'” she said.
None of them had restaurant experience, but she said doing it with family and surrounding themselves with good workers was the key to success.
“Great employees who have come alongside me and just really taught me what I didn’t know. And what we didn’t know, we learned together,” she said. “It’s just been a really great experience of learning and growing.”
About three years ago, Dr. Rolf’s expanded into the Grand Armory in downtown Grand Haven. It didn’t have a full kitchen, so they made everything in Muskegon and then took it to Grand Haven.
But as it kept getting busier, it became clear they needed a new location.
“As that volume grew and as we had to make more food in Muskegon to move it to Grand Haven, it became pretty evident that we needed our own location in the tri-cities,” Hissom said.
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As they started looking for a new spot, they found out the former Old Boys’ property was available in Hissom’s hometown, where she and her husband raised five kids.
“This is a beautiful building,” she said. “It sits right here on the channel as you leave Spring Lake and head out towards Lake Michigan or up the Grand River.”
The fact that it was already set up as a restaurant was a big appeal, she said. Both the Muskegon location and their other restaurant, The Early Owl, had to be completely redone to make it into a restaurant.
“This one was already a restaurant, that was huge for me,” she said. “I felt like I was 80% through the whole thing when we walked into the building.”
The Spring Lake location will have the same menu and pricing customers are used to. It’s about three times bigger than the Muskegon spot, she said, and it has full bar. While the original location only has 10 beers on tap, a small selection of wines and canned cocktails, Dr. Rolf’s will be able to add items like specialty cocktails to the Spring Lake spot.
The Old Boys’ brewery equipment is also still on location, Hissom said, so they’d like to eventually start brewing.
“Eventually we plan on doing some brewing. We did not open with the brewery operational just because we wanted to get open fairly quickly,” she said. “We knew it would be best for us to stick in our lane, and that’s barbecue, and just do what we do really well and get that going this summer.”
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She said she’ll look into getting the brewery up and operational in late fall or early winter.
Hissom said she’s grateful for the barbecue joint’s loyal customers, adding that some regulars stopped by at the Spring Lake location during grand opening week.
“We’ve had so much positive encouragement to get this location going,” she said. “Just our loyal customers and those people that have just been so supportive of us in both the Muskegon location and our endeavors to get this one running.”
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