You have probably spotted the red truck and blackened cookers oddly stashed on the side of the road in Hastings. Sometimes cars are in front, other times the place is quiet, seemingly abandoned.
Maybe you stop. And maybe you don’t. You’re hurrying back from The County Line with fresh vegetables and maybe you see it too late to take the Morrison Rd. turn off. Otherwise, you might join the other cars on the grass and see what all the fuss is about. After all, what can be going on in this little gully bordering SR 207?
The fuss is a family-owned BBQ joint housed in a red food truck. Its name is Sweet & Smokey’s BBQ.
Big Brother Ray works the pit off to the side behind the smoke and aromas. Inside the truck are Sisters Janice and Barbara, taking customer orders, preparing and serving the meals. Out front, sister Angela supervises the operations and the grounds. Only brother Chris is missing this Easter Saturday, off possibly preparing Easter Sunday’s sermon.
Ray Coleman’s Kitchen Tour 
Angela Coleman 
Behind the Window is Janice Taking Orders
Sweet & Smokey’s BBQ is a 5-year gamble on a 2 day-a-week food truck restaurant deep in north Florida farm country that is about to expand and upgrade. And maybe, just maybe, dip brother Ray’s formerly “cold feet” into opening up a third weekday. You see, this is Ray’s second attempt in running his own restaurant – the first one, a full time business, got snuffed out in the 2008 financial crisis. This second effort is part-time, only Fridays and Saturdays, and it’s been working out pretty well.
Coleman brought 14-years of Courtyard Marriott experience to Sweet and Smokey’s, along with another three years from the Checkers franchise. His sweet sauce – the business one, not the one that comes with his ribs – seems to be following the S. Truett Cathy business recipe. Cathy is the founder of Chick Filet, whose popular restaurants deliver chicken and customer service with a sometimes-off-putting but highly successful religious zeal toward customer service. Coleman read Cathy’s books and has adapted the formula for himself. And when he is not cooking ribs in a swirl of smoke and aromas, this big affable man is out amid the picnic tables greeting new customers, and chatting with the old regulars.
The Ribs
“Anybody can cook BBQ”, he said. But he wants his customers to “feel they’re at home and that’s what we strive for. I want customers to feel that when they come, this is my place.”
His siblings have picked it up too, either naturally or through his training. Sister Barbara serves up a big warm smile along with each meal coming through the window of the old red food truck.
Coleman says a core component of his customer base are city folks just out for a drive in the country. Some, down from Jacksonville, others just passing by and intrigued by the parked cars and smoke from the cookers.
Asked about opening additional days of the week, he concedes he is warming to the idea.
What about Sundays?
“We’ll add Thursday and extend to the beginning of the week, but not Sundays. My brother is a pastor. And besides, you can’t get Chick Filet on Sundays”, he says affably but adamantly.
Customers who have taken time to rate the place on Google, do so highly with a combined 4.8 out of 5, heaping praise on both the food and the family staff. For the record, the Pot-o-Potty on site is spotlessly clean, and there is a hand washing station with antiseptic soap.
When you get up to the order window and scan the menu, you will notice the family calls its food “Natural and Spiritual”. Equally true of these brothers and sisters.
