Macona BBQ to offer an unusual dining experience in Collingswood

Tammy Paolino | The Courier-Post

Editor's note: After this story was published, the owners had an unexpected delay and hope to open their doors later this week. Visit the restaurant's Facebook page for updates.

COLLINGSWOOD – The little boy in the cartoon mural has a look of glee on his face, as he chases a pig, both of them powered by jet packs.

Nearby, his dog, Chico, rides a chicken as he helps herd more pigs. And here come his dad, dressed in his chef’s toque, wielding a hatchet.

It’s a colorful frenzy on the wall above newly installed wooden dining tables inside the new Macona BBQ. The mural that dominates one wall of this BYOB opening Wednesday on Haddon Avenue is the work of Philadelphia muralist Chuck Styles.

Owners Cory and Natalie Reuss and their son Mason, 5, will open the doors of their new restaurant just a few blocks from their Collingswood home.

That mural accentuates several things about this new eatery, opening in the space formerly occupied by Sweet Freedom Bakery.

Macona BBQ – which gets its name from a combo of the owners’ first names – is a family affair. Most of the renovations here have been done by the Reusses, who want nothing more than for guests to feel at home.

It also illustrates the couple’s trajectory from Austin, Texas, where they met, to Washington, D.C., to Collingswood.

And, even though those owners plan to offer seitan, veggies and other options for vegetarians, this place is decidedly all about meat.

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That’s also obvious from the black-and-white sign and the restaurant’s second mural, which feature a less cartoonish, not-long-for-this-world pig and another hatchet.

Macona BBQ's brisket, pulled pork, short ribs and other fare will be perfected in a giant backyard smoker that will cook all meals that come out of this small restaurant. When the Reusses took over the space, the former bakery kitchen had no cooking equipment except for two large ovens. The new owners did not install a grill or hood, instead opting to adapt the barbecue traditions they came to enjoy while living in Texas.

“We weren’t even planning to open a restaurant,’’ says Cory.

“We always talked about it,’’ agrees Natalie, “and thought about it and joked about it. We just feel like this place is a good place to try it.’’

“The only reason we thought about doing it is, we walked by the space and Mason’s school is a few blocks away …’’ Cory adds. After “some wine and some heavy brainstorming,’’ he says, they landed on hauling in a big smoker out back, with overhead party lights and café seating for “a funky indoor/outdoor spot.’’

If the decision to go all in on their own place was a bit spontaneous, the experience they bring to the endeavor is solid.

“I’ve opened plenty of restaurants,’’ says Cory, who is a Johnson & Wales trained chef who most recently served as executive chef of The Doubletree by Hilton on Broad Street in Philadelphia, a job that had the couple relocating from D.C. “But opening up your own brings up all kinds of new things.’’

His wife also brings a background in food and beverage service to the project, everything from bartending and waitressing for 14 years to restaurant management. Upon moving to South Jersey, she was café supervisor of The Turning Point in Moorestown.

Macona BBQ is the latest addition to a stretch of Haddon Avenue prime for new businesses. Bliss Coffee Roasters is right next door, and Centanni, Stella's Pizza, Oasis Mexican Grill and Arctic Freeze Creamery are not far away. Amber Grain Bakery and Dragon House Restaurant are up the street.

Natalie says owners of Bliss Coffee Roasters, which opened in May, have been particularly welcoming, and she hopes the two businesses will be able to support each other. “She’s been really helpful,’’ she says of owner Debbie Blissick. “Whenever I have an issue, I go get a coffee and we talk and I feel better after.’’

The couple also points to local business owner and craftsman Tom Marchetty, who created communal and bistro tables for the space, and electrician Darin Price as being “a ton of help in answering all our questions’’ about setting up shop in the borough.

Macona BBQ’s menu will evolve and change with the seasons and the chef’s inspiration. Expect not just traditional barbecue dishes such as pork with collards and cornbread, but also Korean-style ribs, Mexican-style sweet corn doused with lime juice and chili powder, a mix of fresh greens, and, at least once a week, a housemade burger.

“The thing I’m most excited about are the revolving weekly specials, doing something really different,'' says the chef. "We’ve had requests to offer seiten or tempeh, and we will play around with that and get feedback from customers on what they are really liking.’’

“One week it will be North Carolina pulled pork, but the next it will be something new,’’ Cory says.

Different items, such as smaller portion sandwiches, will be offered for lunch.

As for sides, “we’re going to be doing two different kinds of slaw, cornbread, potato salad and different kinds of greens in the smoker’’ Cory says, depending on what he finds when he makes his weekly visit to the Collingswood Farmers Market.

Seeing Macona BBQ as an extension of their home, they also plan to cook using bounty from their garden. “We grow kale and squash, zucchini and six kinds of heirloom tomatoes and a ton of strawberries that we yielded, four different kinds of peppers, watermelon. … Our whole backyard is garden,’’ Cory says.

So, with all this tempting fare, what is young Mason’s favorite on the menu?

“A Garbage Pail cookie – we have everything in it from kettle chips to chocolate chips to nuts and pretzels,’’ Cory explains. “That was my thing. It took three weeks to perfect that cookie. Mason was excited to try it as was I.''

"He thinks a little celebrity now because we posted a picture of him enjoying it on Facebook,’’ adds his mom.

There also will be fresh lemonade and several different kinds of iced tea, as well as soft drinks.

Seating for 22 guests indoors is at several small tables and a large, high-top communal table. An additional 24 people can be accommodated at outdoor picnic tables in good weather, although access to that area is still being worked out with neighbors and zoning officials.

For now, the Reusses are as excited as Mason looks in that mural to welcome their first guests, and take their place in the borough’s thriving restaurant scene.

Natalie looks around the restaurant, at the word Collingswood writ large on the opposite wall.

“We feel really lucky to be a part of the food scene in Collingswood,’’ she says. “We feel fortunate that this is the community that we wound up being in, and it’s so talked about and written about. We look forward to bringing people something new.

“We wanted it to feel like, this is our house and you just kind of came over to dinner, warm and welcoming.’’

Tammy Paolino: (856) 486-2477 or tpaolino@gannett.com or @CP_TammyPaolino

If you go

Macona BBQ is at 577 Haddon Ave., Collingswood. Hours are lunch and dinner daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Visit www.facebook.com/cory.reuss.3

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