Beloved Flatbush Avenue Barbecue Preps Reopening After Massive Blaze

PROSPECT HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN – Nearly two years after a fire tore through the heralded Morgan’s Barbecue, the restaurant has announced plans to reopen.

"It's been a year and a half long battle," owner Mathew Glazier told Brooklyn Patch, "you work so hard to open, and then when you do — it's even more work."

The beloved barbecue joint on Flatbush Avenue and St. Mark's Place is slated to reopen once city permits come through, Glazier said.

Those permits are among many battles Morgan's faced after the fire that include months-long waits for insurance assessors, pandemic-related supply chain issues, and other delays.

The smokehouse has been restored almost entirely to its former glory with a good amount of the culinary team, including executive chef Cenobio Canalizo, returning to Morgan's, Glazier said.

Retaining staff over a 17-month closure wasn't cheap, but Glazier is certain the results will be worth it.

"That institutional knowledge," he said, "you can't retrain that."

Glazier even kept the old smoker, which required a painstaking restoration.

Morgan's will have a new floor and a replacement for the tin ceiling lost to water damage from the devastating mid-day blaze.

"That 100-year-old patina? You can't get that from a new ceiling," Glazier said, "but I hope I'm around long enough to see some of it."

Before the fire, Morgan's was doing well with their pandemic-era delivery service, Glazier said.

Acknowledging the role delivery now plays in the food industry, he and his architects took down some interior walls and redesigned his kitchen to help get food out the door seamlessly.

The menu will also get new additions, such as the popular Philadelphia smoked brisket "cheesesteak," candied burnt ends, beef-back ribs and a new 24oz bone-in cowboy steak.

Morgan's was one of several BBQ joints to open its doors in 2013, but its commitment to Austin-style meats and indoor-outdoor Texas vibe helped it rise above the rest, an Eater critic said shortly after Morgan’s first opened.

In January 2021, a fire decimated Morgan’s and the building above the restaurant. FDNY officials said the blaze started in the ducts above the smoker.

About 60 smoke eaters showed up to battle the blaze for nearly two hours and no injuries were reported.

"It was devastating," Glazier said, who has worked in the restaurant business his whole life and has owned Morgan's since purchasing it from the original owners four years ago.

Once he heard about the fire, he rushed over from New Jersey as fast as he could.

"When I got here, they were still fighting the flames," he recalled. But Glazier acknowledges how luck he — and the upstairs residents in the building — were that the fire was during the day and not at night.

The building next door, Glazier said, also had an awful fire five years earlier. But it was at night, and killed a father, he recalled.

"If this fire was during the night, it would have killed someone for sure," he said.

Glazier is looking forward to serving up their famous barbecue in the coming weeks, starting with a soft opening and dinner service only to work out the kinks. And he's ready to put the fire and the struggles of reopening behind him.

"Now you get to see the other side of the story," he said.

As he discussed hiring front-of-house staff, Glazier reflected on the neighborhood he's helped bring Austin-style barbecue to over the last few years.

"It's a great neighborhood" he told Brooklyn Patch, "I've owned restaurants all over the city and even the country, and you don't get more diverse than where we are in Brooklyn. And that's what makes it so, so wonderful."