Typically, nobody ever knocks on the door at night for a good reason. Centerville’s Devin Pickard knows this better than anyone. The owner of Papa Kayjoe’s Barbecue was sound asleep on the morning of April 27, 2016 when he received a visitor.“Timmy Quillen from the sheriff’s department standing there. He said ‘You might need to get down to the restaurant. There’s a fire. ”So, Pickard quickly dressed – and made the mile-long drive to his store. What he saw shook him to the core.“For the most part, the flames were put out, so it was pretty much pitch black. They were still spraying stuff down, and I knew. It was a total loss.” He held himself together until he walked to his parent’s house – directly up the hill.“I knocked on the door. I told her it was gone. I started walking back down the driveway. I fell on my knees and looked up, and said ‘God, I don’t know why this happened. But I know you have this under control. I know it’s going to be fine.
”It took faith, hard work, and a little bit of help from his friends, but Pickard – who also serves as a local minister at Centerville’s Hope Church, took measures to get his business back running – via an empty building on the edge of town, while committing himself to rebuilding. “From the moment I hit my knees in my mama’s driveway, there was never one thought of doing something different. I knew there would be another Papa Kayjoe’s in this very spot.”