Blake's at Southern Milling
By Ellie Simmons
Photos by Scott Taylor
It wasn’t very long ago, back in 2016, when Blake Stoker started selling Texas-style Barbeque out of a trailer in the small town of Dresden, Tennessee. Through a lot of hard work and dedication, he has managed to transform his small business into a well known dining establishment that is respected by many of the top barbeque chefs from all around the United States, which is quite the feat for a 26-year-old with no formal culinary training.
“It was a long journey and it took a lot of hours, but everything I’ve ever done, I’ve gone 112%,” says Blake.
Blake discovered how much he enjoyed cooking for his friends and roommates while attending college at Mississippi State University.
“I had gotten a Big Green Egg grill, which also serves as a smoker as well,” explains Blake. “Me and a buddy lived in a house on campus, so I started cooking every night. I cooked for my fraternity brothers all the time. We would have breakfast night and I would cook for 100 guys. When I was playing football back in high school, I never really had time allotted to doing a whole lot of other stuff. This was the first time in my life that I had time to do anything like that, so I got into grilling more and more.”
Noticing the interest that he had taken up with cooking and grilling, Blake’s father gifted him a book that ended up changing everything for him. It was The Franklin Book by Aaron Franklin of Franklin Barbeque in Austin, Texas, which is one of the most famous Texas-style Barbeque restaurants in the world. Blake still has that exact book, which he received in 2015, on display in his restaurant today.
“I read it front to back,” recalls Blake. “I grew up eating barbeque, but no more than the average person. I didn’t come from a restaurant background at all, especially not a barbeque background. So when I discovered it, I was like, ‘Oh, this is something different that I’ve never had before.’ I think that was the first book I had ever read and really gotten excited about, without being assigned to read it or anything.”
Once Blake discovered his love for Texas-style barbeque, he decided to take a trip to Texas in the summer of 2016, so that he could visit some of the famous restaurants that he had been reading about in Aaron Franklin’s book, including Franklin Barbeque, of course, and “an old school place” as Blake described it, called Louie Mueller. Blake says he was standing in line, waiting to get into Franklin’s Barbeque at about 9:30 in the morning when he decided he wanted to open a barbeque place of his own.
“I decided I wanted to open a barbeque truck focused on Texas-style…and I had only ever had one meal of true Texas-style barbeque, which was the day before at Louie Mueller, and it had blown my mind,” says Blake. “After my trip when I came back, I literally just dove straight into it…looking for concession trailers and trying to figure out how to build a smoker like what they used out there.”
By May of 2016, Blake managed to get his Barbeque Trailer up and running for the summer in his hometown of Dresden, Tennessee, and it proved to be a hit! When fall rolled around, Blake took a vacation from the barbeque truck so that he could return to school in Starkville, Mississippi, but he returned to his Dresden the following summer to pick back up where he had left off, and Blake’s Barbeque Truck continued to be a great success.
“I had employees, and I wasn’t doing it all by myself, but I was definitely cooking it and serving it all by myself,” says Blake. “It proved to me that even though it was hard work, I loved it and I wanted to continue to do it. I felt like it was my calling. So, I had started rambling around in my head about wanting to open a restaurant, but I knew that Dresden wasn’t the place because of the size. I started looking for a place in Martin, and I got a hold of this building. It was 100 years old exactly when we got it, and it didn’t look anything like the way it does now. It was a three year process to get it transformed.”
The two story building that Blake purchased to house his restaurant was originally built in 1918. Although it was previously the home of Southern Milling Co. for several decades prior, starting in 1977, it had been vacant for a number of years before Blake purchased it and gave it new life. The renovations perfectly balance modern design with a cozy, welcoming atmosphere, while still leaving just enough of the building’s original interior elements to beautifully display the building's rich history. Many of the exposed wooden beams inside of the restaurant are original to the building. Blake also ensured that the old gigantic sign that had been painted onto the brick wall that reads “FERTILIZER” was left untouched as well.
Blake moved the barbeque truck from Dresden to Martin between 2019-2022 so that he could be closer in proximity to the new building during construction. He said that during the time that the trailer was in Martin, his food continued growing in popularity.
Construction was finally completed in May of this year. On the day that Blake’s at Southern Milling opened, there were lines of people wrapped around the building and cars lined up all the way down the highway to get into the parking lot. Suddenly, Blake’s Barbeque had grown from a 6 person operation, to a 60 person operation, serving anywhere from 600-700 people every day. Blake says he wouldn’t be able to make the restaurant such a success without his employees, who he considers to be like family.
“I have good management staff that takes care of a lot of things for me. I do feel like my people trust me,” says Blake. “It can’t all be fun, but if we’re going to be here working as hard as we do, my goal is to always make it as fun as it can be. I know I can’t be everyone’s best friend all of the time, but I am here to be a friend to my people first and foremost, right or wrong.”
Blake’s at Southern Milling is located at 109 South Lindell Street in Martin, Tennessee. As of Saturday, September 24th, Blake’s will begin serving brunch on Saturdays at 10:00am and adding a few new options to the menu that will only be served during brunch hour. The restaurant is open on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11am-3pm and 4pm-8:30pm; and on Fridays and Saturdays (excluding brunch hour) from 11am-3pm and 4pm-9:30pm. Blake’s currently does not accept reservations or take out orders over the phone. However, take out orders can be placed either in person or online at www.ToastTab.com/BlakesAtSouthernMilling/v3/. For more information and updates about Blake’s at Southern Milling, or to check out the full menu, you can visit their website at www.BlakesAtSouthernMilling.com or www.Facebook.com/BlakesAtSouthernMilling.