“This is what I wanted to do and what I needed to do. I love working for the people and making great sandwiches and feeding people.”
Businesses and non-profit organizations regularly open and move in Saskatoon. Today the StarPhoenix talks with Ronnie Carson, who opened Carson’s Q on Millar Avenue in April.
Carson smokes just about every item on his menu, including desserts. The restaurant offers take-out and delivery, but has no dine-in seating.
Popular on his menu are a ground beef brisket burger and mac and cheese, using recipes perfected over years of cooking. Carson’s Q is located behind Bun’s House Restaurant on Millar Avenue, in the same store space as Prairie Market and Skip a Beet.
Q: What made you decide to open Carson’s Q?
A: I owned Carson’s BBQ Smokehouse in Sutherland from 2018 to 2020. Before that, I was with Domino’s for 20 years. So, I’ve been in the food industry for quite a long time. I’m self-taught. Everything I’ve ever done I’ve learned on my own.
While I was working at Domino’s I kind of fell in love with barbecue and decided to leave and open up Carson’s BBQ Smokehouse. Just before COVID hit, I decided to close.
I had people for years kind of bugging me, wondering when I was going to open up again. I saw it as an opportunity that people still have an interest in the things I was doing. And then the opportunity came up with the space that we’re currently in. I decided to go all in and open back up. It’s under a different idea, though.
My last restaurant was a 100-seat sit-down restaurant, whereas this is just pickup and delivery. I also wanted to do it on my terms, do it in my hours and continue to do catering. I do a ton of catering.
Q: What sets you apart from other restaurants?
A: Number one, I’m doing barbecue, and not a lot of people are doing barbecue. Two, I just really stick to the basics. I like to have a very small menu. I do specials once a week. I like to do stuff that’s very scratch-made. And I make my buns from scratch.
I make my own meats. I smoke things for 18 hours. I put a lot of love and effort into what I’m doing.
Q: What’s on the menu?
A: We have a 100 per cent AAA Canadian ground beef brisket burger. It’s one of the many items that I’ve spent probably five to seven years trying to perfect. It’s smoked. It has my signature apple butter and Carson’s Gold Barbecue Sauces in it. It has coleslaw, crispy onions and it’s all in between a homemade bun that we created in house here and we make fresh every day.
Our beef dip is an 18-hour slow-smoked brisket in between another hoagie bun that we make here. It has horseradish mayo, crispy onions. That’s another very popular item.
We recently had a smoked turkey club that went over really, really well. It’s probably going to make it onto the full-time menu. It’s really big and hearty. We put about four or five ounces of fresh turkey breast that I smoke and slice thinly. There’s ham, bacon, lettuce, tomatoes and then I do a cranberry mayo sauce that goes on it.
We partnered up with Night Oven Bakery, using some of their sourdough bread for the club. We partner up with the other local businesses and try and promote and help them grow too.
Q: You serve mac and cheese?
A: I spent a lot of years eating mac and cheese and learning how to make the best mac and cheese. It’s really creamy, rich and tangy. You can get it plain or put smoked brisket on it, pulled pork or some crispy chicken on it, if you prefer. In the last few weeks we can barely keep it on the shelf.
Q: What sides do you serve?
A: We do that mac and cheese, we have a dill pickle slaw, a cornbread, and we do our pit beans, which are incredibly popular. That’s another thing that we have a lot of trouble keeping in stock a lot of days.
The pit beans have onions and peppers and smoked brisket inside of it. It also has some secret ingredients that I can’t talk about. I don’t want people to know what my secret is on them. It’s something that I spent a lot of years, just like my burger on, trying to perfect.
The dill pickle slaw is a different twist on coleslaw. With having the dill pickles in it, it gives it a really nice, tangy, but not overpowering taste. It’s something that I feel is very local to Saskatchewan because we have a local Ukrainian population in town and a lot of people love the dill pickle craze right now. It just seemed like a really good thing to put on my menu.
I also make my own cornbread here in house. It’s another recipe that I picked up over the years in my visits to other barbecue places. I’ve kind of tinkered and tweaked. It’s a sweet cornbread, so it’s not your traditional savoury cornbread.
Q: What desserts are on your menu?
A: I have a French-trained pastry chef that works with me. He’s been a good friend of mine for many years. He decided to come and join me when I opened.
We do all of our desserts here in house. We do two monthly specials and then we came up with a smoked Rice Krispie chocolate chip cookie that’s been going bananas here. We’ve been selling out almost every day of those cookies. And we have a smoked carrot cake with smoked candied walnuts on top with the cream cheese frosting.
All our desserts are smoked anywhere from an hour to four hours. We smoke them low and slow.
Q: You also offer catering services?
A: Yes. I say I do anywhere from five people to 500 people. We do weddings, business lunches, gatherings, birthday parties. You name it, we do it.
For catering, I do Texas-style barbecue. I do sliced brisket, pulled pork, chicken thighs, ribs. The sides are pretty much the same. I do dill pickle slaw, potato salad, garden salad, Caesar salad. I’ve catered burgers. I’ve done desserts for weddings.
We’ll do all the cooking at our restaurant. We have a giant commercial kitchen back here. We do all of our cooking in house and then we transport it and serve it.
Q: How did you decide on the name Carson’s Q?
A: I didn’t want to come back with Carson’s Barbecue Smokehouse again. I didn’t want people to think that I was going to be the exact same thing I was before. We called it Carson’s Q, a Barbecue Sandwich Shop. I wanted to differentiate between what I was before, to what I am now.
Q: What do you love most about owning Carson’s Q?
A: I love the people. If it wasn’t for the people, I wouldn’t be here. When I closed my first restaurant I was very firm on probably never opening another restaurant ever in my life again. After 22 years, I wanted to try something different. Once I had the opportunity to try something different, I kind of realized that this is what I wanted to do and what I needed to do.
I love working for the people and making great sandwiches and feeding people. It’s kind of weird to say, but when people come here and grab a sandwich and they sit on their tailgate and eat it, it makes me happy because they’re willing to sit in a parking lot and eat a sandwich in the middle of nowhere. It’s awesome.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Carson’s Q
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