A Q&A with the husband-and-wife team behind Wilson’s Secret Sauce
This time last year, Delco was all a-twitter after a resident spotted celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay walking down the street in Upper Darby. It turned out he was here to “save” popular Best of Philly-winning barbecue joint Wilson’s Secret Sauce via a new Fox show, Gordon Ramsay’s Secret Service, which was all about “America’s filthiest restaurants.” (Wilson’s turned out to be not the least bit filthy.)
One year later, after Ramsay exited the premises, Wilson’s Secret Sauce is closing its sit-down restaurant – just like Philly restaurants Zocalo and the Hot Potato Cafe closed not long after getting the Gordon Ramsay treatment years ago — and selling their building. Here, husband-and-wife team Steve and Kelly Wilson talk about their experience living through a restaurant “reality” show and what’s next for them.
For those of you who don’t know your backstory, tell us what you were doing before you opened Wilson’s Secret Sauce in Upper Darby in 2018.Steve Wilson: I was a mechanic for many years and started smoking ribs and brisket on the side as a hobby. Gary Maddox used to have a big barbecue competition down at the ballpark, and we entered and took first in chicken and second in ribs a couple of times. This evolved into doing a bit of catering, which grew quickly to the point where we couldn’t do it out of our house…