Forty Under 40: Allen Brumett

For Allen Brumett, it all started in 2007 during a family vacation to Dauphin Island in Alabama.

A family friend brought homemade barbecue sauce to the gathering, and Brumett, by then a veteran restauraut manager looking to open his own place, had an epiphany.  

“I saw that bottle sitting there and it seemed like it had an aura around it,” he said.

About two years later, he opened Sassy’s. A Pine Bluff native equipped with a secret sauce from near Lake Village and financial backing out of Altheimer, Brumett introduced “LA” barbecue, or Lower Arkansas barbecue, to this corner of the state.

The first few years were touch-and-go, with this region’s sizeable contingent of Pine Bluff natives his core clientele.

But the Great Recession eased, the restaurant’s appeal broadened, and in 2012, Sassy’s landed the weekly radio show with Mike Anderson, head coach of the University of Arkansas men’s basketball team.

“That brought us to a whole new level,” Brumett said.

These days, Sassy’s rings up about $2 million a year in sales, and there are plans to open a second location in 2016.

 Brumett graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in information systems, but it was his seven-plus years at Grubs Bar and Grille in downtown Fayetteville that paved the way for his breakthrough at Sassy’s.

“It was supposed to be a short stop, but it turned into a career,” Brumett said.