Smoking Out A Great Meal

When you ask someone in the Massapequa area where to score some zesty ribs or a plate of succulent pulled pork, several suggestions may be sent your way. However, you can rest assured that Smokin’ Al’s will pretty much always be one of them.

Situated at the busy intersection of Merrick Road and Park Boulevard in Massapequa Park, Smokin’ Al’s instantly catches your eye; its rich brick construction adorned with trademark paintings of cartoon pigs certainly makes it a hard location to miss. But when it comes to authentic southern-style cooking, owner Al Horowitz of Commack says that his years of experience in all things spicy and sweet make his eatery a hard place to pass up if you’re hungering for some good barbecue and the opportunity to get your hands nice and sticky.

“I grew up in the restaurant business. I left it for many years and moved down south, where I was in the garment industry,” said Horowitz. “But I missed the restaurant business very much and my mind was always on going to dinner and we went to a lot of barbecue restaurants while I was down there.”

It was while dining at these restaurants that a great realization occurred to Horowitz; that, based on his experience, many people above the Mason-Dixon line had no idea what real down-home southern barbecue actually was.

“Most people just think that throwing your meat on a backyard barbecue is how you do it, but that’s just grilling,” he said. “When I was down south, I learned the slow method of barbecuing, and that’s slow cooking meat for four to six hours. In fact, our brisket is cooked for 12 or 13 hours under low temperature. That’s how you get tender meat.”

For years, Horowitz dreamed of moving back north and starting up a barbecue business of his own. He finally found the nerve to change professions after several instances of being prodded by a friend or family member. The catalyst? Each and every time Horowitz’s friends tasted some of his cooking, they wanted more.

“People were always telling me I should open my own restaurant, but I would just tell them that they were crazy,” said Horowitz. “But after a while, I really started enjoying watching people enjoy my food, so I started looking into opening a place of my own. I moved back north and in November of 2003, I opened my first Smokin’ Al’s in Bayshore.”

While the Bayshore location enjoyed a great deal of success, Horowitz said that he eventually closed it in favor of opening a larger location that could handle an expanded kitchen and dining area; that new location was right in the middle of Massapequa Park, which opened its doors in 2008.

“Response so far has been terrific,” he said. “We’re always very busy from the time that we open to the time that we close, and I thank God for that, as the restaurant business can be very tough. It can be hard to get people to come out, especially these days with the economy being what it is,” said Horowitz of business flow.

Among the especially lip-smacking dishes available at his restaurant, Horowitz cites his baby back ribs as a big local favorite among patrons, along with his pulled pork. Even less extravagant items on the menu, such as the hand-made hamburgers, earn constant praise from diners.

“We use only fresh, quality ingredients and all of our dishes are huge portions,” said Horowitz. “In addition to using the slow cooking method for our meats, you have to start with a quality product for a good foundation—everything from our seasonings to our meats—in order to make a great meal.”

If anything, Horowitz said that he is a man who lavishes attention upon the details of anything he does. That was especially true when it came to the distinctive warehouse-style and visual design of his Massapequa Park restaurant. From the rough and uneven brick work to the stylish paintings adorning the walls, both inside and out, the restaurant is a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach.

“My heart and soul is in this place. The building my Bayshore location was in had been built in 1908, and I wanted to replicate that look and feel here in Massapequa Park,” said Horowitz. “When they were doing the bricks on the walls, I told them not to make it perfect, and whenever I saw that it looked too clean, I would make them change it. Everything here from the lighting to the music to the paintings add to the atmosphere,” he added, also sharing that the oil paintings that grace the restaurant walls were thought of by Horowitz and commissioned by a local artist to depict a 1930s Jazz club kind of feel.

For the moment, Massapequa Park is Horowitz’s sole location, but plans are on the back burner to eventually open up another Smokin’ Al’s in Suffolk County, citing the demand for his unique brand of cooking since he closed the other set of doors in Bayshore.

Running a restaurant may seem like it’s all glitz and glamour, but Horowitz noted that it takes a lot of backbreaking work to make a successful impact on the dining scene just about anywhere, especially on Long Island.

“It’s a 24-7 job; you work when everybody else works, and you work when everybody else doesn’t,” said Horowitz. “That being said, you have to love it, which I do. When people tell me that they want to go into the restaurant business, I tell them to make sure that it’s really something they want to do, and that they’re ready to commit to it 100 percent. I do that each and every day that I’m here.”
Find out more about Smokin’ Al’s at www.smokinals.com.