Ocala barbecue owner Rashad Jones finds success through social media

During a busy Saturday lunch rush at Big Lee’s, Rashad Jones noticed that a customer wasn’t matching his upbeat energy.The woman told him her father was in hospice and had requested a pulled pork sandwich, two orders of fries and coleslaw from the Ocala barbecue restaurant.Jones said he covered the order. Later, he called to offer encouragement and volunteered to provide food for her father’s celebration of life.“It was a super humbling experience to realize that someone in their final moments on this earth desired our food above anything else,” Jones said in written responses to Channel 9.For the owner and founder of Big Lee’s Serious About Barbecue, those conversations are central to the business. They have also become the foundation of videos introducing the restaurant to people far beyond Marion County.A Thanksgiving meal sparked the businessJones traces his interest in barbecue to Thanksgiving 2011 at his wife’s uncle’s home in Greenwood, Mississippi.Leon Archie, known as “Big Lee