Greenwood Volunteer Fire Co. chicken barbecue returns

By Glenn Rolfe
Posted 4/17/21

GREENWOOD — There’s no need for Google or space-age mapping technology to pinpoint Greenwood during summer and portions of spring and fall.

The nose and eyes will work just …

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Greenwood Volunteer Fire Co. chicken barbecue returns

Posted

GREENWOOD — There’s no need for Google or space-age mapping technology to pinpoint Greenwood during summer and portions of spring and fall.

The nose and eyes will work just fine.

That light white smoke and distinct aromatic smell lead directly to the Greenwood Volunteer Fire Company – home of some of the most popular chicken barbecue on the Delmarva Peninsula.

“That’s right. And we’ve got plenty of both!” chirps longtime Greenwood Volunteer Fire Company member Larry Cannon, a chicken barbecue veteran for decades.

“We smelled it!” beamed Krystyna Corkell Friday morning as she and husband Brad Corkell enjoyed chicken platters from inside their Fresh Cuts Lawn Care pickup truck prior to heading off to a job site.

The Greenwood-area couple are no rookies to Greenwood’s BBQ. They’ve been frequent patrons over the past seven years.

Friday, they were among the early-bird patrons for the kickoff of the fire company’s 2021 chicken barbecue season.

“There were only a few people ahead of us,” said Mr. Corkell.

“That’s why I’m here,” said Bobby Steele of Greenwood, another mid-morning patron.

GVFC’s 2021 barbecue season and will run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through the last week of September.

Traditionally, the opening is dependent on Easter. “We normally open the Friday after Easter Sunday. But Easter came early this year,” said Mr. Cannon. “We’ll run through the last weekend of September. At one time they used to run through October.”

Again, this year, $8 gets you a platter that consists of a chicken half or two leg quarters, bag of chips, dinner roll and pickles.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions and precautions, there is no sale of soda or beverage and no on-premise, picnic-style dining.

It’s basically take-home/grab and go, as it was in 2020.

“Things are a lot different. The soda machine, we don’t have that anymore. We used to have picnic tables. You could sit there and eat. No more sitting there an eating,” Mr. Cannon said. “Last year and this year until the state says when and if we can start eating (on site) again, then we can put tables back out.”

Locally, regionally and perhaps nationally, Greenwood Station 78 is famous for its tasty BBQ, basted with a special sweet sauce. It’s prepared in racks, cooked under roof in the BBQ pit on the fire company grounds in the island sandwiched between northbound and southbound US 13.

Popularity extends well beyond Greenwood, Sussex County and Delaware.

“You’ll see cars from everywhere! Cars are here from all over the country. I’ve seen Texas, Tennessee cars,” said Mr. Cannon. “A mess of people plan their vacation just to come through here when we’re open. This is true.”

Of course there is friendly bragging rights with other seasonal chicken barbecues, including the Kiwanis from neighboring Bridgeville.

“They claim the best … but,” says Mr. Cannon with a smile

Mr. Corkell cast his vote for Greenwood’s chicken as the best. “Locally, yes!” he said.

While proceeds from Saturday and Sunday benefit the Greenwood Volunteer Fire Company, helping volunteer hands on Fridays are provided by other community organizations and non-profit groups as a fundraising source.

“It’s good money, if you can just get the help to work,” Mr. Cannon said. “We farm it out to organizations on Fridays. Every Friday it is an organization. We can’t get enough help over here to run it all.”

Sussex County Habitat for Humanity had that role for the season kickoff.

On BBQ days, the fire company provides supervision. “We’ll call it head cooks. We make the decision on how much to cook, and make sure it’s done. There’s a fire member that’s a head cook and a cashier. We have to supply that,” Mr. Cannon said.

For April 16 opener, Mr. Cannon arrived before sunrise to fire up the pits.

“I was here at 5:15 a.m. and got the charcoal going and we put chicken on at 6 o’clock,” Mr. Cannon said. “A mess of chicken goes through here. We’ll probably do at least 1,000 dinners a day. One year opening day I sent 1,200 dinners through here. That line went from where you order out there, across the east end, out into the parking lot.”

Chicken is supplied by a company in Camden, formerly Witt Brothers. It is not always local chicken.

“We tell them how many cases we want, and they call around and get what they can get and where they can get it,” said Mr. Cannon. “This chicken here is actually coming out of Georgia. The chicken halves are from Georgia. The leg quarters are Perdue. We usually have Mountaire; we have them also. As long as they can get chicken here, that’s all were concerned about.”

The cooking process involves periodic temperature checks.

“Uncle Sam says the chicken must be at least 165 degrees,” said volunteer Terry Gakeler. ‘But the fire company says 180 …”

“That’s to be safe,” said Mr. Cannon. “Once in a great while we’ll have one come back and somebody will say it’s not done. But everybody’s opinion of ‘not done’ is different. I’ve had them come back here before, they’d break it open and say it’s not done … and we’d eat it!”

History, Mr. Cannon says, will show Greenwood’s chicken barbecue started in 1959. “Up on the hilltop at the light. The Lions and Kiwanis started it,” Mr. Cannon said.

The GVFC took over in the 1990s. “It moved here to this spot here in 2000,” said Mr. Cannon.

Greenwood’s chicken barbecue even earned a spread in one of the nation’s largest daily newspapers.

“I have an article out of the Washington Post. My father - he’s been gone for 16 years - but they took a picture of him and did a page story about the Greenwood barbecue. They got a picture of him, saucing it.”

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