Looking for a cheesesteak fix? Barry's is expanding to Old Louisville

Maggie Menderski | Courier Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Barry's CheeseSteaks are as authentic as it gets The Preston Highway restaurant is serving up some good cheesesteaks.

Barry Washington’s pulpit is a grill.

For the past five years he’s been feeding the masses with Philly cheesesteaks instead of loaves and fishes.

And now the owner of Barry’s Cheesesteaks and More is bringing his recipes and his ministry to 1161 Second St. in Old Louisville.

The ordained minister and I sat outside the old GeeChee Bayou restaurant on Monday afternoon. He’d taken a break from his chicken, pepper, mushroom and even his veggie cheesesteaks at his restaurant at 7502 Preston Hwy., to show me around the business's second home that's slated to open in August.

We talked more about his foundation, though, than the brick-and-mortar itself.

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Washington had on a Pittsburgh Pirates hat and a button-down shirt that hid most of the scars from about two decades of heroin use and 41 stab wounds from a drug deal gone bad.

Before he was serving 750 sandwiches six days a week, he was preaching at Redeemed Christian Church in the West End looking for a way to create jobs for youths.

Before that he was illiterate, homeless and addicted to drugs.

Life hasn’t always been easy for the 55-year-old, but he’s been clean for more than two decades, and today he shows where he once had track marks as openly as he shows his faith.

From his short sleeves to the devotionals he posts on his restaurant tables, he embodies the idea of living for something more.

So much so, he tucked that “More” onto the end of his restaurant’s name.

He learned to cook from his mother, that old 1960’s television show The Galloping Gourmet and time spent working in strings of Philadelphia restaurants. Over the years he’s developed his own recipes, and they’ve served him well as he’s worked to serve others.

His business isn’t a charity, but he founded it with the idea of doing God’s work. He hires people with felonies on their record and homeless individuals when he can.

He’s not worried about their background, he told me, he just needs to know that they’re teachable. He has three employees in his kitchen on Preston Highway now that would have had a hard time finding a job anywhere else.

One of them works so hard he calls him “our machine.”

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But the outreach goes beyond his staff list. Washington holds community dinners every four months where he feeds as many as 500 people at no cost. He’s given away as many as 400 turkeys to in-need families for Thanksgiving and set another 265 students up with school supplies during these events.

He never really planned to expand, he told me.

Actually, he was ready to close down the Preston Highway spot. When it first started there were days the restaurant only made $45 in sales, and it took him more than three years to turn a profit.

That's not the case now.

Today that building isn’t made to serve the 750 sandwiches it does, and customers don’t always show the same kind of mercy his God does.

Sometimes the lines are so thick people wait an hour or so for a cheesesteak.

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Then he heard about the old GeeChee Bayou building.

A move to Old Louisville could ease the load on Preston Highway and put him right in the heart of his college following. It’s also an area well-positioned to serve the homeless or others who need a free meal.

When it opens in August, he’ll be able to serve as many as 500 sandwiches a day.

And eventually, he’d like to serve more.

He and his team can't be everywhere at once, so he's in early talks with franchise lawyers. Washington's building out a plan to sell the Barry's name, his recipes, business model and even its values.

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Upwards of 1,000 people from a variety of states interact with him every day through Facebook. They’re coming for his devotionals, even if they’re a few hundred miles away from his cheesesteaks.

His grill-based ministry is living up to its name, and that goes well beyond the new Old Louisville location.

Barry's is about to be quite a bit more.

City Living reporter Maggie Menderski covers retail, restaurants and development in downtown and its nearby urban neighborhoods. Reach Maggie at 502-582-7137 or mmenderski@courier-journal.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @MaggieMenderski. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/maggiem.