G's Slow Smoked BBQ to make grand return in GCS

GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Gary Park has neither the time nor the interest to quibble with the “keyboard warriors.” Besides, he’s too busy working to rebuild G’s Slow Smoked BBQ – and the futures of his former employees.

It’s not easy taking the high road when a handful of people on social media try to tear you down, especially when done out of hate or ignorance. But he knows the facts. So do his friends and former employees. And that’s good enough.

In addition to getting one restaurant ready for opening and wrapping up the planning stages for a second store, Park has also been involved in several charitable events to raise money to help his employees who were displaced by a fire that destroyed his restaurant on Jan. 9.

Some have twisted that noble gesture into a greedy money grab, claiming Park has used the money to help finance the remodeling of a former Pizza Hut in Starke into one of his barbecue restaurants. Others said he’s taking money from Clay County and moving it to Bradford.

Park simply shook his head and sighed.

“I didn’t ask anybody to do a fundraiser. I was very humbled and appreciative,” he said. “And the monies raised in Clay County, nothing goes over to any other county. It’s all stayed in Clay County. What they don’t realize is it went into a transmission. I bought (a former employee) a transmission. Another of them was going to move to North Carolina. I gave her enough to stay here until I got open again to return to work. She’s one of my good workers. You know, so she’s struggling. They’re all struggling. None of that money went into any of the restaurants. It’s for the employees. They still got bills to pay, so it’s for them.”

Park said he and his investors bought Pizza Hut from the City of Starke because he wanted a quicker way to get his employees back to work. He tried to find locations along Blanding Boulevard, but none were available. He’s expanding the Starke building and hopes to have it operational soon.

At the same time, he’s moving forward with a second restaurant that will transform the restaurant scene in Green Cove Springs.

“We bought the four acres next to Saloon 17,” he said. “We are going to build a G’s there, too.”

The new restaurant on U.S. Highway 17 will be unlike any other.

“It’s a big project for Clay County,” he said. “It’s going to be two or three stories. The bottom two stories will be the barbecue, which will be 9,000 square feet. A nice cigar lounge will be up there if we do a third floor. We’ve already done the site plans. It’s moving along. It’s happening. We have partners, and it’s a $3-$4 million project.

“There, you heard it from the horse’s mouth.”

And not on Facebook.

“You know, if you just asked me, I would have told you what’s going on,” Park said.

Before the fire, Park said he wanted to open a second restaurant in Macclenny, but his bid on a building failed. Then came the fire.

“Everything kind of happened in reverse,” he said. “I wasn’t planning on going to Starke. The city owned the building. We made a bid and got it. It was unexpected for me. It may not be where I want to be right now, but I needed to get my employees back to work. That was really important to me.

“The big project is Green Cove. There’s a lot of good things happening.”

No matter what the keyboard warriors think.