BY HANNAH GOLDFINGER
HGOLDFINGER@OPELIKAOBSERVER.COM
AUBURN —
Ownership of well-known Auburn restaurant, Byron’s Smokehouse, is changing hands.
After more than 30 years, Glen Gulledge, owner of Byron’s, is passing off his business to Kevin Tudhope.
Kevin has been friends with Gulledge for many years — both of them having grown up in Auburn.
It was around May when Gulledge let Kevin know that there were people interested in buying Byron’s.
“They were looking at the possibility of possibly selling it, so during that conversation, it just kind of evolved to us talking about whether I would be willing to do something like that,” Kevin said.
Kevin is no stranger to the business world. He and his wife, Julie, own local UPS stores, a mortgage company and a local Baumhower’s franchise.
“He knew I’d been coming in there since I was a young child and I knew Mr. Byron and I knew [Glen] and we just felt like it would be a good fit,” he said. “We didn’t intend to change anything, we just wanted to keep Byron’s doing what it was doing. And that’s what he and his family wanted, was somebody that was going to preserve the brand and the style of the place, and the service and everything about what makes Byron’s great. He felt like that’s how we ran our companies and we would keep that legacy going.”
Byron’s is not a chain, unlike Baumhower’s. However, that’s how Kevin said he does business too — relationally. Even in the franchises.
“How we did it at Baumhower’s will transition very well to how we’re going to continue running Byron’s,” he said.
Kevin’s family runs the businesses together. He said his brother Brian Tudhope — also a staple around Auburn — is moving back to the area to help run Byron’s.
Brian will serve as a co-general manager at Byron’s. Two of Kevin’s sons work in the mortgage company. Two work in the UPS stores.
“When I say involved, they’re basically the head manager reporting to me in all these businesses,” Kevin said. “So I have somebody who A, I trust, and B, is a family member.”
Kevin has always had one foot in the business world. He is an Auburn University graduate. For the last 12 years, he’s done work in mortgage and banking. But during those 12 years, Kevin also opened his first business.
The first was a UPS franchise in 2014 or 2015, he said. Soon after, they opened their second UPS franchise. Baumhower’s came next. Then a mortgage company, and now they are working on their third UPS franchise.
“It’s just kind of evolved over the last 10 or 12 years into, you know, a big, family-run business,” Kevin said. “… We feel like this new chapter is going to be a better and improved chapter in this book we’re writing about our family business.”
That family connection is important to Kevin, he said.
“When you get older, and now we have grandkids, you realize that you start losing more and more time with your family the older you get,” Kevin said. “And this is a way for us to keep that in place and spend a lot more time with the family that we love and giving back to a community that we all grew up in. My parents are from here, my wife’s parents are from here, my kids all grew up here. So it’s special now to see my grandkids.
“My wife is basically retired from the family business and she keeps our four grandkids … so that my kids can help run these companies … and you probably will see [the grandkids] in 10 or 12 years working in the restaurant, or in the UPS store or in some of the family-run businesses as soon as they’re old enough to work.”
Kevin does have some plans for Byron’s. Namely, the restaurant will now be open on Sundays and for lunches. Lunch will begin on Tuesday, Aug. 8, and the restaurant will open on Sundays beginning Aug. 13. The hours will be 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.
“Byron’s is a well-oiled machine and it has been chugging along for 34 years,” he said.
Kevin also said he hopes customers can still feel like they see familiar faces when they come into Byron’s.
