Barbecue restaurants to fire up
Fans of flame-grilled flavour are in for a feast as two new barbecueinspired restaurants get ready to fire up in Palmerston North.
The two restaurants will open at the end of September and have been a long time coming for their owners.
Godfrey’s BBQ and Grill, on Featherston St, is a project for two friends from opposite sides of the world. It will serve up a medley of regional recipes collected from nearly two decades of searching across the United States.
Little Savanna Bar and Grill, on the corner of Princess St and Broadway Ave, is the realisation of a lifelong dream for a South African and Kiwi husband-andwife team. It will focus on the South African barbecuing tradition.
Godfrey’s general manager David Adsett is excited and nervous to be opening a restaurant he’s been working towards for 17 years, with the backing of his American friends Clifford and Kimberly Adams.
Adsett met the Adamses five months after moving to America from Levin. He and Clifford Adams quickly became friends over the backyard barbecue.
His job took him all over the US, where hunting for new recipes became a passion.
He collected and tested the best regional barbecue styles – from Texan beef cooking methods to St Louis-style ribs.
‘‘If I found a good one I’d invite the Adamses and a few people around for a big barbecue... If they liked it I kept it.’’
The pair got a reputation with the neighbours as top-notch barbecuers and were soon regularly catering for big neighbourhood events.
Pretty soon Adsett found himself a partner in a thriving catering business, working his weekends and days off at the grill. They wanted to open a restaurant, but Adsett had to move back to New Zealand.
But they didn’t want to let the dream die, so they decided to launch Godfrey’s BBQ and Grill in Palmerston North.
Margie and Andy Holmes’ new bar and grill, Little Savanna, has been a dream since they met 30 years ago.
Margie Holmes met her husband when he was on OE in South Africa and ended up moving home to New Zealand with him.
‘‘We’re very patriotic about our own countries, but we’ve come to love each other’s as well. We’ve always wanted a place that would bring our two cultures together,’’ she said.
‘‘We both love Kiwi cuisine, but there’s lots of things I miss about South African food.’’