Business

Don Pelts, founder of Corky's, dies in Memphis

Don Pelts, who founded the Memphis-based barbecue restaurant Corky’s Ribs and Bar-B-Q and helped increase the popularity of the savory food style with a shipping and supermarket sales business, has died, a relative said Thursday.

Pelts’ son, Barry Pelts, said his father died Wednesday night, May 15, of a heart attack at age 72.

Pelts opened the first Corky’s in Memphis in 1984, serving ribs and hand-pulled pork cooked over hickory wood and charcoal. According to the company’s website, Corky’s catering business started within a year of the first restaurant’s opening. […]