What began in 1980 as one restaurant in North Florida’s Bold New City in the South has since grown to more than a dozen restaurants throughout the Sunshine State plus one that migrated beyond Florida’s borders to Pennsylvania. 40 years after we first opened our doors on University Boulevard in the heart of Jacksonville, that original restaurant and many of our homegrown recipes have stood the test of time. Launched by co-founders, Woody Mills and Yolanda Mills-Mawman, our classic Southern BBQ chain was first established with a collection of dog-eared recipes from Woody’s mom, Grace – who initially helped run the back of the house with Woody while Yolanda greeted customers and managed a team of servers at the front of the house.
Today, Woody and Yolanda can still be found greeting patrons at one of two company locations – the Original Woody’s Bar-B-Q at 1638 University Boulevard and Woody’s Bar-B-Q of Ponte Vedra at 226 Solana Road. If they’re not in the restaurants, they’re at our Corporate Headquarters in Jacksonville. Woody serves as CEO while Yolanda serves as President and Chief Operations Officer. Other Woody’s Bar-B-Q locations in Florida all represent franchises, including:
- Cocoa
- Fernandina
- Green Cove Springs
- Holly Hill
- Jacksonville @ Powers Avenue
- Lake Wales
- Macclenny
- Melbourne
- Orange City
- Palatka
- Palm Coast / Flagler
- Pembroke Pines
- Sebastian
- Winter Haven
Additional locations are planned for Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Orange Park. Our one northern franchise location is situated in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania.
To celebrate 40 years of serving up perfectly prepared slow-smoked meats, comfort food sides and decadent desserts, Woody’s Bar-B-Q will play host to a number of limited time offers and special events at participating restaurants throughout the year. What kicked off with the return of a popular Burnt Ends promotion featuring the most flavorful part of our Texas Beef Brisket sold in sandwich and dinner form will soon give way to a limited time offer salad promotion in March and April featuring the debut of a Grilled Shrimp Spinach Salad, a Chopped Brisket Spinach Salad and a Lemon-Garlic Shrimp Caesar. Other limited time offers in rotation for our 40th anniversary include the Rib Roundup – showcasing Woody’s Big Three: Babyback ribs, Spareribs and Memphis-Style ribs. There will be a special Kids Meal promotional price – all served on a flying disk – during the summer months, the premier of a Shrimp & Grits and Salmon & Grits promotion during August and September, and a big birthday celebration in October… so stay tuned!
“They say time flies when you’re having fun and that has certainly been the case for Woody’s Bar-B-Q,” said CEO Woody Mills. “We are incredibly honored to have served as a Jacksonville landmark for the last 40 years as we spread our wings and found a great reception in other cities throughout Florida. When people move from Florida, they will often write to us to let us know how much they miss our food – which is why we now sell our Carolina Pulled Pork, Sloppy Woody and Smokin’ Spare Ribs online in vacuum-sealed packaging that are flash frozen and packaged with dry ice for safe shipping to anywhere in the contiguous United States. We also sell our sauces online so our old fans can still get a taste of home wherever they might be. On behalf of myself, Yolanda and the rest of the staff at our corporate office, I’d like to say thank you to all of our wonderful patrons. We can hardly wait to see what the next 40 years has in store for Woody’s Bar-B-Q.”
To learn more about Woody’s Bar-B-Q – including a list of locations, menu, catering and franchise opportunities, please visit www.woodys.com.
KB 1/14/2020
