PUEBLO, Colo. – When Frank Willis III first started his food truck-turned-restaurant, Alpha Grill, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he had an interaction with a homeless man.
Willis was opening up his trailer to get the smoker going, and the man came up to him, asking if he had any food he’d thrown away or dropped on the ground.
“And I’m like, ‘No sir, and if I did, I wouldn’t let you eat that. I wouldn’t give you that. I wouldn’t give that to my dog, so I wouldn’t give that to you,’” Willis said. “So I fixed him a sandwich, and he was very appreciative.”
It’s an interaction that speaks to the heart behind Alpha Grill.
Willis opened his food truck in 2015 with the hopes of doing much more than serving “barbeque with a twist.”
“I come from the bad parts of Tulsa,” he said. “I grew up in low-income housing basically my whole life, a single household, and I wanted something different for my kids. I have a son (Deivon, 18) and a daughter (Melale, 20), and I wanted something different for my kids. So then I started Alpha Grill. I wanted something better for them.”
Willis is the second-oldest of five children and spent the majority of his life in poverty, attending seven different elementary schools because of instability in the household. He began cooking for his siblings at a young age, learning from his family and TV shows, but it was always something he simply enjoyed doing.
He never considered turning it into his livelihood until his wife, Quinta, bought him a smoker one year for Father’s Day.
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“It was like a new toy, so I just started playing and playing and playing,” Willis said. “And then I created a barbeque sauce and rub with zero experience, zero knowledge of it. That’s one thing I can say: God blessed me with a gift, and I can create all kinds of different food.”
Willis would bring leftovers to work, and the buzz amongst his coworkers about his delicious creations caught the attention of his boss, who asked him to cook for a company lunch.
“My coworkers were always like, ‘Man, you really need to sell this food. It’s amazing.’ And I’m just thinking, you know, it’s just talking, blowing smoke,” Willis said with a laugh. “So when that happened, then I decided I wanted to start a food truck.”
Alpha Grill opened its doors in 2015. Within a year, it was named the No. 1 food truck in Oklahoma and has since become one of the most reviewed food trucks in the U.S., with more than 620 five-star reviews.
“It’s truly a blessing,” Willis said. “I didn’t have a clue. I wouldn’t have never thought of it. And when it came, it came like a storm.”
In 2021 and beyond, the PBR is partnering with local businesses in the cities it visits. Alpha Grill is the league’s second community spotlight as the Unleash The Beast comes to the BOK Center for the PBR Express Ranches Classic, presented by Pit Boss, on July 31-Aug. 1.
The Tulsa community has rallied around Alpha Grill, and Willis says the customers have been the most rewarding part of his job.
“Our customers make it worthwhile,” he said. “The motivation every day, besides my wife and my son, is our customers, seeing when they take the first bite, their facial expressions, the comments.
“We have a lot of regulars. I’m going to tell you the thing that matters most, the most important thing, was, we get a lot of people who do barbeque, or they had a favorite restaurant. And then when they tried us, they were like, ‘Man, I don’t need to look around for no barbeque restaurant no more. I don’t need to go back to the other restaurant I used to go to,’ or, ‘I don’t need to cook no more.’”
Alpha Grill also sells its own barbeque sauces as well as t-shirts, which are priced at $15. If a customer wears the shirt to the restaurant or food truck, they get 10% off.
“It’s something that can always be giving back,” Willis said. “People give to us, and we give back to the community. I look at it like this: you never judge nobody’s situation, and you can be easily in their same predicament that person is in right now. So we always try to give back and stay humble.”
Key among these efforts is feeding the homeless population of Tulsa. Willis has brought the food truck to homeless shelters to feed people but will normally give away leftovers at closing time every night.
Through Alpha Grill, Willis also wants to inspire the youth in Tulsa.
His first focus was, of course, on inspiring his own children. His son Deivon has worked at the restaurant as the cook, but this weekend departs for Arkansas Baptist University, where he’ll be attending on a football scholarship.
“It’s a blessing, it is, because where we come from, a lot of people really don’t go to college,” Willis said.
Outside of his own home, Willis hopes to set an example for disadvantaged youth, showing that anything is possible.
“I was one of them children that was a troubled kid,” he said. “I’ve been in trouble and everything before, and I’ve overcome everything for the higher power and to do something positive for my family, and for my son and my daughter to have a positive role model and to grow and expand. That’s what we want to teach other people that come from problems as well. I’ve overcome a lot of obstacles to be where I am today.”