Owners Shane Linn, left center, and cousin David and Jennifer Blankenship, right center, are helped by Shane's son, Lawson Linn, left, and Jake Osborn, David's son-in-law, to staff Townsend Spice and Supply.
Mills is a four-time World Champion and three-time Grand World Champion at Memphis in May. He is also the 1992 Grand Champion of the Jack Daniel’s World Invitational Barbecue Cooking Contest and he won the Jack Daniel’s Sauce Contest that year as well. Jack Daniel’s is one of the most prestigious barbecue contests in the world.
“If you have a good pitmaster, a
good rub and a good smoker, you can do amazing things,” said Linn.
Linn and John Hatfield had been buddies for 20 years and Linn was always fascinated by the business.
“John spent 30 years creating these products. It just interested me how he went from zero to self-made,” said Linn.
Ten years prior to buying it, Linn
started asking John about selling the company.
“I told him if he ever sold it, I wanted to be his guy. As time went on he told me he was interested. He never committed but I kept coming by and talking to him. One day I saw a text from his wife that said ‘It’s time.’ We put the bill together and were closed in 30 days,” Linn said.
They opened the retail front in
June 2012.
Prior to their new venture, Linn worked in insurance and his business partner was a high school counselor. Both men have a passion for cooking, and smoking meats. They live in Mount Olive, a small community on the White River, but selected Melbourne for a retail store because it gets more traffic. The business has always been wholesale
Living Well i January/February 2017 27
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