N.J. Harris Barbecue, 1930s

Nathan Johnson (N.J.) Harris stands outside his Bar-B-Q restaurant

The spirit of adventure brought Chandler’s earliest known African-American entrepreneur to the city around 1920. For many years, Harris worked as Dr. Chandler’s chauffeur. Upon Harris’ retirement, Dr. Chandler gave Harris four parcels of land just southeast of town in the area that became Southside. In 1932, N.J. Harris salvaged the town’s decommissioned 100,000-gallon water tank and converted it into Harris Bar-B-Q, located on Saragosa Street. The café was open from 5 o’clock in the morning, when Harris fired up the barbecue pit, until midnight, and was a gathering place for locals.

“…He always had a lot of customers. They came from all over. They came down to his little round building … When I was teaching at Winn School, I saw cars come in there, big cars filled with people from San Marcos Hotel,” former Mayor Coy Payne states.

The counter sat eight people at a time. N.J. sold hamburgers, barbecued beef and barbecued pork for 50 cents, bottles of soda for 5 cents, and customers could buy a loaf of Holsum bread for 10 cents if local stores were already closed. In later years, his daughter Alberta added potato salad to the menu.

N.J. Harris was a renaissance man. He not only ran a business and cooked; he was a photographer, silversmith, fisherman, hunter, and furniture-maker. On June 12, 1957, Harris passed away. The family kept ownership of the land and ran the café until the 1980s.