Lost Restaurants of Memphis by Dowdy G. Wayne;

Author:Dowdy, G. Wayne;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2019-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

William Loeb collaborated with singer Pat Boone to franchise Loeb’s Tennessee Pit Bar-B-Q restaurants, like this one located at the corner of Summer Avenue and White Station Road. Courtesy of the Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Libraries.

Two months later, in June 1965, Loeb formed the LoBo Corporation with singer Pat Boone to franchise the barbeque shops across the nation. At the time, Loeb’s Tennessee Pit Bar-B-Q claimed to be “the South’s largest home-owned Bar-B-Q chain,” and, by early 1966, there were twenty-four shops in Memphis, two in Arkansas, eight in Mississippi and one in Alabama. Despite these successes, there was a major problem growing within the company—Loeb and his general manager, A.B. Coleman, could not get along. So, Loeb bought out the contracts of Coleman and Vice President Porter Moss to reorganize the company in January 1966. Moss, who would go on to own and operate several Showboat Barbecue restaurants, stated that Coleman and Loeb were “too busy trying to screw each other over” to concentrate on growing the business properly.

The former general manager then opened his own Coleman’s Bar-B-Q restaurants in the Memphis area. Like his former employer, Coleman’s grew quickly—by the early 1970s, there were ten Coleman’s Bar-B-Q restaurants in the Memphis area. William Loeb, however, soon had his revenge. He reported to the Internal Revenue Service that Coleman had used company funds for his personal income, which he did not report on his tax return. After being indicted on two counts of tax fraud, Coleman argued at his April 1972 trial that he was forced to take company funds because Loeb was cutting into his profit sharing by charging personal debt to the company. Coleman was found guilty of tax evasion and given a suspended sentence.

The feud and indictment drained both companies—Coleman’s soon went out of business, while Loeb’s continued to operate barbecue restaurants into the 1980s. There was another reason Loeb’s Tennessee Pit Bar-B-Q ultimately failed; in 1968, Loeb’s brother, Henry, became the mayor of Memphis. Just one month after Henry’s election, African American sanitation workers went on strike, which led to the murder of famed civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. During the strike, Loeb-owned businesses, including the barbecue shops, were targeted by vandals and boycotted by strike supporters. Even after the strike was finally settled following Dr. King’s death, many Memphians refused to buy anything with the name Loeb on it.

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