It’s entirely possible that you’ve seen the Hill family, owners of Hill’s Backyard BBQ, in a recent drive around town. After retiring from a career in engineering, Lawrence Hill has taken his family and their long tradition of cooking from the kitchen of their home to the streets of Los Angeles courtesy of their mobile barbecue facility. They’ve recently opened up a storefront as part of their family-owned-and-operated business, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still book them for a party. Staff reporter Conor Dougherty spoke with Lawrence Hill about the family business and its new permanent retail location next to the El ReyTheatre.
“My wife used to supply cakes and pies and things like that for our church. One of the girls at the church had a big catering party for Mattel toys (where she worked). She asked us if we’d be interested. We took it on and that’s how we started out.
“I was an electronics engineer and I retired with the anticipation of going off into the sun. My daughter was a district manager at the Yellow Pages and she walked away from her job. Likewise, the rest of the family decided that this was something that we all really wanted and we were willing to make the initial sacrifice for. Everybody quit their jobs and took this on as a full-time thing.
“After that first catering job, we contacted Smart and Final, and we’ve been setting up at all the Smart and Finals throughout the Los Angeles basin for almost a year. What this allowed us to do was promote ourselves but also sell our product. A lot of business people go to Smart and Final. We’d give them our brochures and our cards and also a sample of our product. And that just blew the door wide open.
“We’ve done (catering jobs) for Disney, Anaheim Golf Club, lots of others. But Smart and Final has always been our biggest customer. We’ve also done a multitude of private parties.
“Everything is made from scratch. Our barbecue sauce is a private recipe that my wife’s mother received from her mother. Our No. 1 seller is tri-tip. There’s also a big demand for our monkey bread. Monkey bread is a type of bread that’s made in layers. They call it monkey bread because you pull it apart like a monkey would, and that’s how you eat it. It’s a cross between bread and cake, and people just die for it.
“Keep in mind this is a family affair. Everybody is employed, from me down to the smallest grandchild. We don’t start the day off without a family prayer, and that’s how we started our business.
“About two months ago we opened our new diner located at 5515 Wilshire Blvd., connected to the El Rey Theatre. We anticipate our grand opening at the latter part of this month.”
