Big Bill Hogan, right, makes his Belt-Bustin' Barbeque in the parking lot of the Galilee Lutheran Church on Rice Street in St. Paul, along with his best friend and companion of sixteen years Michael Frison, not charging for the food but taking donations, as part of his ministry to the hungry and the needy, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

Ribs and rib-tips are heated up on the smoker as Big Bill Hogan makes his Belt-Bustin' Barbeque in the parking lot at Galilee Lutheran Church on Rice Street in St. Paul. on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

Big Bill Hogan keeps Cyntura Mantilla, left, and Astraea Scarborough entertained as he makes his Belt-Bustin' Barbeque in the parking lot of the Galilee Lutheran Church on Rice Street in St. Paul. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

Big Bill Hogan, who loves to talk, waxes poetic as he makes his Belt-Bustin' Barbeque in the parking lot of the Galilee Lutheran Church on Rice Street in St. Paul as he cooks for the needy on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

Customer John Lynch of Roseville makes a donation and takes change out of the donations box, as Big Bill Hogan makes his Belt-Bustin' Barbeque in the parking lot of the Galilee Lutheran Church on Rice Street in St. Paul. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)



Big Bill Hogan tends to his barbeque in the parking lot of the Galilee Lutheran Church on Rice Street in St. Paul on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

"I'd rather have Jesus than silver and gold," says Big Bill Hogan, explaining why the only silver and gold are on his feet, as he makes his Belt-Bustin' Barbeque in the parking lot of the Galilee Lutheran Church on Rice Street in St. Paul on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

Rib-tips await customers cooked by Big Bill Hogan in the parking lot of the Galilee Lutheran Church on Rice Street in St. Paul on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

Bill Hogan — better known along St. Paul’s Rice Street as Big Bill, of Big Bill’s Belt Bustin’ Barbecue — doesn’t play around when it comes to brisket.

The beef sits on his grill for 10 hours, sizzling toward a better state of being. His attitude toward barbecue could just as well be a metaphor for Hogan’s career as a restaurant chef or his outlook on people, including himself.

When he wasn’t shuttling in and out of Twin Cities restaurants, Hogan, 47, used to prepare all manner of beef and chicken and baked beans and coleslaw on the sidewalk outside his Roseville home. The goal was just to give it away to passersby.

Public assistance goes only so far for poor folks, he said, and there’s plenty of people in the busy Rice Street corridor who need help making ends meet. Toward the end of the month, many are left choosing between a hearty meal and rent or a utility payment.

“What happens is the last couple days of the month people are really desperate,” he said.

Hogan incorporated a nonprofit and dubbed his homegrown street mission work “Help for the Hood,” and it earned him a following.

After a couple of years of watching his sidewalk salvation grow, Galilee Lutheran Church on Rice Street asked him if he’d like to store his meat in their freezer and grill from their parking lot. Hogan accepted the offer, and soon became the church’s youth minister.

“People who work with kids and in the community said to him, ‘You don’t have to do that on the sidewalk anymore,’ ” said Galilee Lutheran Pastor Dana Nelson, who considers herself one of “Big Bill’s” biggest fans.

About two years ago, Hogan left the restaurant industry entirely to devote himself to what he calls his true calling: giving Big Bill’s Belt Bustin’ Barbecue away to anyone who needs it, no questions asked.

When he’s set up outside Galilee, which is often, hungry fans pull into the church parking lot or walk up off the sidewalk. A tip jar collects donations. At least half a dozen teens from the youth center take turns volunteering and bring home a percentage of the tips.

Like the big flavor of his ribs and his big frame, his penchant for talking big keeps fans riveted.

“I’ve worked at just about every restaurant in the Twin Cities,” said Hogan, “but this is my calling.”

His location varies from churches to hospitals — anyone who’ll have him, really — but Hogan likes to stay close to Rice Street, a diverse and sometimes weathered community he recognizes as his own.

On Wednesday, as Hogan and two teen helpers flipped slabs of ribs, two women drove over from the Lamplighter Lounge, an exotic dance bar just across the border in St. Paul.

He doesn’t judge.

“We don’t need to know,” Hogan said. “We just give.”

Instead, Hogan, who had seen them at his booth before, greets the ladies like long-lost family. His 14-year-old son Khamoni Hogan helped serve up lunch, alongside fellow recruit Ler Say, 14, of Roseville.

“These kids out here, they learn how to deal with people on the fringes of society,” Hogan said.

Those people, he points out, are a lot like him.

To keep his two younger brothers fed, Hogan began experimenting in the kitchen around age 13, just another poor kid growing up in Chicago. A lack of literacy, he said, held him back.

It wasn’t until he was 21, when he finally learned to read, “that I became a beast” in the kitchen, he said. “I knew what two table spoons were. I knew what a cup and a quart were.”

He’s been cooking in “beast mode” ever since.

On Wednesday, a little boy named Mario, probably no older than 8 or 9, wandered over for lunch and stuck around, playing on the church lawn.

“The poor will always be here,” said Hogan, quoting the Bible.

Hogan keeps grilling outdoors from April into October, if he can find financial sponsors. Cub Foods has sold him meat at discount. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America grants him about $3,000 per year as part of its domestic anti-hunger ministry. Churches invite him and his van to their parking lots.

Hogan said he plans to keep going as long as he can this year, despite some setbacks. Funding, he points out, probably won’t take him into October. And some of Galilee’s church elders want his giant slabs of raw beef out of the church freezer.

Like the sidewalk spot he once occupied, Hogan has outgrown Galilee’s parking lot and won’t be back there once the last of the meat is gone, probably by Labor Day. After that, “Help for the Hood” may go on early hiatus.

Until then, he’s got steak tips for everyone.