Georgia History & Culture through  BBQ

Lovies BBQ in Atlanta and Georgia lost an 'Old School' Pit Master last week with the death of Harold Marshall. He died on November 9, 2018 after a long career cooking barbecue in Atlanta. Harold started out working in the kitchen of the Varsity before changing to barbecue restaurants, spending many years at the Hickory House Barbecue Restaurants. 

I first met Harold more than twenty years ago while he was tending the open hearth pit at Bobbie and Junes on 14th Street in Atlanta. I stopped by for some barbecue to take home for dinner, and this large man behind the counter told me the pork wasn’t ready yet. He encouraged me to wait for it, so I took a stool at the counter and we started talking. I learned a lot about how he slow-cooked pork barbecue over wood coals. 

An hour or so later, he took the meat off the fire, waited for it to cool a bit, and pulled some for me to take home. I enjoyed both the smell of the open hearth and the conversation with Harold, and the barbecue was worth waiting for.

Six years ago, my son, Nate “Lovie” Newman, was getting ready to open a barbecue place in the Buckhead area of Atlanta. One of the first people hired to help him was Todd Black, a member of the family that had owned the Hickory Houses. One day before Lovies BBQ opened, Todd brought Harold Marshall to introduce to Nate. While Nate had lots of practice cooking barbecue for friends and family in the back yard, as well as, catering and tailgating, he had never run a restaurant kitchen. Harold’s Old School approach to cooking meat over wood smoke fit perfectly with Nate’s vision for Lovies to use an authentic method of making barbecue. Harold would never use a meat thermometer to tell when the meat was done. 

Harold became an anchor in the Lovies' kitchen, and soon after going to work, he and I renewed our friendship from long ago. He forged bonds with three generations of my family from grandmother and father (my wife and I) to son to grandson. Harold’s legacy was to share his love of cooking barbecue with the staff at Lovies. His humor and Old School approach to smoking meat will be missed. 

---Harvey Newman