A familiar local barbecue flavor could soon be making its way back to grocery store shelves.
Roy Henry, founder of Henry’s Boogalou BBQ, said he is in the process of bringing his popular Boogalou barbecue dip back to market after several years off the shelves. If production stays on schedule, he hopes the sauce will be available again within about 30 to 45 days.
Henry recently shared on social media that he has approved the final sample from his new bottler and is working toward getting the product produced again.
“We already went through the trial-and-error stage, and I’ve approved the final sample my bottler produced,” Henry said. “Production is three to four weeks out, but with any luck, we should have gallons in April.”
Henry said his connection to barbecue goes back decades.
“So it’s my dad’s recipe,” Henry said. “He came up with it around ’77 or ’78. We grew up cooking in churches and community events, and everybody seemed to like it.”
Henry said the recipe even made an appearance at a notable event.
“We actually cooked for President Bush in ’88,” he said. “That day, I told my dad I was going to bottle it and start selling it in stores. That was kind of my dream.”
Henry eventually turned that idea into a business, beginning to sell the sauce in local grocery stores in the mid-2000s.
“I started selling my Boogalou dip in IGAs back around 2006 or 2007,” he said.
The brand grew in popularity over the years. Henry also ran a food truck for several years and appeared on the television show BBQ Pitmasters in 2013. He later opened a restaurant in 2014, though that venture lasted only about a year and a half before closing.
Despite the restaurant’s closure, Henry said the sauce itself developed a strong following.
“I’ve got a big following,” he said. “I probably had a hundred phone calls from people I didn’t even know asking where they could get it.”
Henry said many local caterers and longtime customers continued asking for the sauce even after it disappeared from store shelves.
“A lot of my friends’ kids grew up on it,” he said. “They say they won’t even eat a burger if they don’t have Boogalou on it.”
The product remained available in stores until several years ago, when the local bottling operation Henry worked with was bought out and shut down.
“When that happened, I was living in Florida,” Henry said. “If you switch bottlers, you’re looking at redoing labels and startup costs that can run $3,000 to $5,000 depending on the order size.”
Henry returned to Owensboro in April 2024 following a storm that increased demand for his roofing business. As work slowed during the winter months, he said he began focusing again on relaunching the barbecue brand.
However, the effort has also been shaped by personal challenges.
“In the middle of all this, I lost my son back in January,” Henry said. “He and I had big plans. He was going to run the food truck and kind of take over that side of things.”
Even with the setbacks, Henry said he remains determined to bring the sauce back to the market.
“It’s been a slow process, but we’re working our way there,” he said.
Henry said the initial goal is to get the Boogalou dip back into grocery stores, particularly IGAs that previously carried the product.
“Right now, the goal is to get the barbecue dip back on the shelves,” he said. “A lot of people have been waiting for it.”
Once the sauce returns to stores, Henry said, he hopes to expand again into catering events and possibly food truck appearances once he builds a team to help operate those ventures.
“We’ll probably start light this year,” he said. “Maybe do some home-run events or some things we know about locally. Once we build a team, that’s the plan.”
The name “Boogalou,” Henry said, came from an unexpected moment while he was attending the University of Kentucky and playing club hockey. After cooking barbecue for teammates at a gathering, one of them jokingly declared the meal “Boogalou barbecue.”
“He said, ‘Henry, this here’s the Boogalou barbecue,’” Henry said. “It stuck. When people hear ‘Boogalou,’ they get curious. Then they taste it, and they say, ‘Oh, Boogalou.’”
Henry said the sauce’s vinegar-based flavor reflects the regional barbecue style of western Kentucky and has helped set it apart.
“Seven out of 10 people who sampled it bought a bottle,” he said. “Once people try it, the quality speaks for itself.”
For now, Henry said he is focused on completing the production process and getting the long-awaited sauce back into customers’ hands.
“We’re targeting as soon as possible,” he said. “People have been asking for it for years.”
