About Johnnie Ball a.k.a “Big Daddy”
Johnnie Ball started working hard as a young boy in Clarksville, Oklahoma chopping corn and picking cotton. After high school, Johnnie joined the job corp in 1968 to learn how to operate heavy machinery. According to Johnnie, the first week he was in the job corp, they put him on K.P. He loved it so much, he decided to be a cook.
Johnnie moved to Chicago to cook and then moved to Omaha to follow a girl… and then he moved to Tulsa, then back to Omaha once again and then back to Tulsa. Each time Johnnie came back to Tulsa, he worked for Wonder Bread as a dough mixer.
Johnnie Ball or “Big Daddy” as he is known by his friends and customers, worked for 26 years at Wonder Bread and then retired to start cooking barbeque in the late 1980’s.
He stated on a KOKI TV Fox 23, “…If I can work this hard for them (Wonder Bread), I can work this hard for myself…”
Johnnie tried to sell just about everything he could so he could be in his own business. His daughter Akia said that he even sold Avon! Johnnie was an entreprenour in the making.
About Big Daddy’s All American BBQ
The first instance of Big Daddy’s BBQ opened near 46th St. North and Cincinnati Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma - out of a trailer. Big Daddy started selling Turkey Legs and soon after decided that Bar-B-Que was his thing. Business out of the trailer continued for 3 years until he had a confrontation with the city of Tulsa. Because of code enforcement, the city was going to “clean up” North Tulsa, and started with Big Daddy’s trailer operation. Big Daddy fought the city and won. This first location is now a full service Big Daddy’s restaurant located at 4560 North Lewis. 
Serving the freshest and tastiest BBQ in Tulsa, Big Daddy set out to build his second location near the corner of 11th St. and Garnett in Tulsa. This second location has now moved across the street from where it was before and is now on the east side of 11th and Garnett at 1125 S. Garnett with convenient drive through service.
Patrons from all over Tulsa and the surrounding areas couldn’t get enough of Big Daddy’s “smoke” and so the decision was made to open a third Big Daddy’s All American BBQ in Jenks, Oklahoma. The Jenks location was the first to feature waitress service. Big Daddy soon found out that his brand of barbeque became a favorite of his Jenks customers at the 399 E. Main St. location. Tanika Tomas, Big Daddy’s niece is the manager of the Jenks operation.
Soon after the opening of his third restaurant in Jenks, Big Daddy got requests from friends and customers in Broken Arrow Oklahoma to open a fourth restaurant and in October of 2005 - Big Daddy’s All American BBQ opened the fourth restaurant of it’s kind at 2001 W. Houston in Broken Arrow. Akia Wagoner - Big Daddy’s daughter, is the manager!
Big Daddy has served as a barbeque judge for several barbeque contests and has himself been awarded several times at the prestigious ‘Art of BBQ’ contest. Big Daddy has always believed that the true secret to excellent barbeque is to slow cook everything over a low heat.
About Big Daddy’s Barbeque Sauce
Available at all four Big Daddy’s All American BBQ locations is his highly sought after BBQ Sauce. The barbeque sauce recipe took 10 years to perfect and is available in Mild, Medium and Hot varieties. The recipe is a highly guarded secret though many have tried unsuccessfully to duplicate it.
KOKI Fox 23 Tulsa Video with reporter Jana Clark :: Big Daddy’s Barbeque’s A Big Hit.
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Credits:
1.] Video footage used by permission - KOKI Fox 23 Tulsa
2.] Photo images on this page courtesy of Tulsa World.
3.] Some information about the history of Johnnie Ball was compiled from the KOKI Fox 23 Tulsa news footage with additional information written by this site’s webmaster.
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