A beacon of hope remains for the community in Hurricane Helene-ravaged Swannanoa
Before Hurricane Helene, Beacon Village was a beautiful, historic section of Swannanoa, an unincorporated community of about 5,000 people sitting 10 miles east of Asheville.
Named for the Beacon Manufacturing Company, which built the world’s largest textile factory there in 1936, the mill town boasted employee housing, a drugstore and a theater.
Since 1998, Steve and Jody Dunning have owned Okie Dokies Smokehouse, a barbecue restaurant that started at the snack shop at the nearby Black Mountain Golf Course and moved in 2007 to a location on U.S. Highway 70 between Beacon Village and the Swannanoa River. They’ve seen a lot of change to the area in the last 25 years, most significantly the mill’s closure in 2002.
But they never imagined they would see the level of devastation that Hurricane Helene brought to Beacon Village. All but 11 of the neighborhood’s historic bungalows were washed away, and multiple restaurants — including Okie Dokies — suffered catastrophic damage. Some of them, like the popular casual restaurant Loott House, have closed for good.
But most of the community’s residents and business owners, including the Dunnings, are determined to rebuild together.
“People are just strongly rooted in Swannanoa,” he said.“I’m seeing this really strong sense of community.”
Before the storm: a neighborhood vibe
Okie Dokies Smokehouse started as a catering business with a food truck, and the Dunnings bought their current two-story building with no plans to have a brick-and-mortar restaurant until the café renting the upper level went out of business.
With hardwood floors and a standard barbecue menu, “it’s just kind of a homey, you know, down to earth kind of place,” Dunning said.
The clientele is usually “a real mixed bag”: truck drivers and tourists looking for a hearty meal, day laborers and executives, and families grabbing a meal before football games or school events.
It was the families, in fact, who inspired one of the restaurant’s best-selling, signature dishes: Chicken Littles, hand-cut and hand-breaded fried bits of boneless chicken breast.
“We would have families come in, and the parents would eat barbecue, but they bring in, like, McDonald’s or something for their kids,” Dunning recalled. Chicken Littles not only solved that problem but also became second only to the pulled pork in terms of popularity. (The ribs are third.)
On the restaurant’s Facebook page, customers wax poetic about the food.
“I moved to (Tennessee) a few years ago and I still miss your ribs every…single…day,” wrote Steven Bivens.
Heather Modlin commented, “My husband and I stopped on our way to Asheville 6-7 years ago, and had lunch with you all. I STILL brag about how amazing the food was to this day.” Another Heather wrote she travels from Ohio for the hush puppies.
After the storm: total devastation
Even though Okie Dokies sits on the opposite side of U.S. 70 from the Swannanoa River, the bottom floor of its two-story building flooded completely — 8 feet of water in total.
“The water was up to the ceiling,” Dunning recalled.
Once the water receded, over a foot of mud covered all the damaged equipment. It took a couple of weeks just to dig everything out, followed by stripping the drywall and insulation.
“It’s completely open down there now,” he said.
Best case scenario, Dunning anticipates opening up again in five or six months. “But we still have a building,” he added, noting that restaurants like Zella’s Deli, which backed up onto the river, had entire walls pulled down and away by the flood.
Trucking along to help others
Even as the Dunnings and their staff work hard to rebuild the restaurant, their priority is returning to their roots and purchasing a food trailer to replace the one destroyed by the water and mud. While they initially planned on getting a food truck, they soon realized that a trailer, which costs less, is a more achievable goal.
The goal, however, isn’t to get back to business. As Dunning wrote on the restaurant’s Facebook page on Oct. 3, “The other day someone asked if we could donate some supplies to another business that was cooking food for the community. I said, ‘I’m sorry but we’ve lost everything.’ It breaks my heart to think we can’t be there for them right now.”
“What we’re trying to be prepared for is when those services stop,” Dunning said. Their GoFundMe exceeded its $25,000 goal, raising nearly $32,000.
In the meantime, the Dunnings are trying to take care of their remaining staff.
“We’re just trying to maintain our own little bit of community amongst this,” Dunning said.
While four staff members have relocated after losing their homes, Okie Dokies’s pit boss, José Jaimes, has stayed despite losing his home and his car, showing up from the beginning to help clean out and rebuild the restaurant. He’s currently living with his nephew in a mobile home in Swannanoa.
An anonymous donor from Knoxville, Tennessee, also provided Jaimes with a Mini Cooper, which the Dunnings picked up for him while also paying off the taxes, registration and title transfer. “We consider Jose to be family and are trying to do all we can for him,” Dunning communicated via email.
Just recently, the Dunnings received their permit to rebuild. All of Okie Dokie’s electric work on the lower level, two HVAC systems and the walk-in cooler need replacing, as well as 80% of the cooking equipment, from ovens to utensils. They have sent the smoker to Texas for refurbishment.
Current cost estimates for all expenses are $250,000. Dunning hopes to be open again in the spring.
As for the trailer, they’re hoping to be ready for the first of the year, if for no other reason than to bring a bit of food and joy to the people of Swannanoa.
“We’re very much tethered to that community,” Dunning said.
And if customer Jim Lorts’ comment on Facebook is anything to go by, the community is equally tied to Okie Dokies Smokehouse: “Sure miss your cooking.”
This story was originally published December 10, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
