Since it was first opened as the 16th franchise of Dairy Queen in the 1950s and later as the Dairy Kreme, owner Jarrod Ellis said J’s Corner has been the local hangout.
“We hear over and over again that when people’s families visit from out of town, they bring them here,” said Ellis.
Fortunately, both visitors and locals can now take the flavor of J’s barbecue home with them. Ellis released his sweet and tangy bottled sauce this week after ten years of perfecting the recipe.
He and a friend created the recipe and have tweaked it over the years, he said.
“North Carolina sauce is vinegary, and South Carolina sauce mustard-based,” explained Ellis. “This is East Tennessee sauce — it’s more molasses-based, sweet at first, then it has a little bit of heat. You don’t taste that away from here.”
J’s Corner isn’t the only restaurant in town with such savory sauce it is seeing success independently. Creekers BBQ also bottles its sauce.
“I think it’s neat that a town this small offers two bottled sauces,” said Ellis.
Sauce at J’s is sold in 16 ounce bottles for $4.09 with a uniquely local image on the bottle. A cartoonist friend of Ellis’s sketched a pig riding a bike, denoting the proximity of barbecue to the Tweetsie Trail. Appalachian Printing in Elizabethton is designing and printing the labels.
Guests at catered events or dining in will receive sauce made in house. Ellis said the bottled sauce is produced and bottled in bulk with the same recipe at Bobbees Bottling in Louisburg, N.C.
He said he does not plan to market the sauce nationally, but hopes to see success distributing it locally. He expects response for confirmation on distributing contracts during the next month, but said those interested may get a bottle of the first batch right from J’s Corner.