Home base
The restaurant
310 E Waters AveTampa, FL · Counter service
Fri to Sun11 AM to 2 PM
Our story
Every step led here.
Every great story begins with a question.
Ours was: how do you honor a life that ended too soon?
Where it started
Bryan Jacobs grew up in Virginia, and food found him around age eight. His grandfather was a German chef who had cooked in the Navy during World War II, and he taught Bryan that good food starts at the source.
If they wanted fish, they fished. If they wanted mushrooms, they foraged. That respect for doing things the right way never left him.
Iraq
Bryan served two combat tours in Iraq with the Marine Corps as a corpsman and was cited for bravery.
Far from home, he found peace in cookbooks. He read them cover to cover and taught himself to master soups and stews, bringing a little comfort to a hard place.
Like a lot of veterans, Bryan came home without a map. He tried job after job, spent time homeless, and struggled to figure out who he was outside the uniform.
The one thing that always made sense was the kitchen.
2008–2012
Learning the craft
Bryan enrolled in culinary school in Norfolk, Virginia, under Chef Hans Schadler, the “culinary grandfather,” who sent him to Master Chef Peter Timmins at the Gasparilla Inn. Bryan worked his way up to Sous Chef in a kitchen serving 450 fine-dining guests a night.
Executive chef
Bryan became private Executive Chef to the Anheuser-Busch family. He cooked for distinguished guests including former President George W. Bush, while also earning his bachelor’s in hospitality at USF Sarasota-Manatee.
Finding the purpose
Over Memorial Day weekend in 2014, Bryan lost his younger brother, a fellow veteran, to suicide.
When my brother took his life, he gave my life purpose.
Cooking had saved Bryan once, and he set out to make it a lifeline for other veterans: a culinary training program that took struggling and homeless veterans and put them to work in real kitchens.
The 22 stars in the Liberty logo carry that mission. They stand for the 22 veterans lost to suicide every day in America.
Lyon, France and Vet2Success
Bryan was invited to earn a Master’s in Culinary Innovation and Leadership from the Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon. When he came home in 2017, he founded Vet2Success and was named USF’s Veteran of the Year.
44veterans have graduated from the program to date
Falling for fire
After a veteran tribute episode of Guy’s Grocery Games, Bryan searched for what he really wanted to say with food. He found it in smoke and fire, and brought everything with him: the French technique, the discipline, the obsession with getting it right.
Fine dining precision meets BBQ.
Liberty Smokehouse is born
Liberty launched in 2022, serving out of a 1971 military cargo truck. Months later, Hurricane Ian hit Southwest Florida, and Bryan drove south to serve up to 1,000 meals a day on Fort Myers Beach and Pine Island.
Tents, a trailer and a partner
Pop-ups at breweries and events: a smoker, a folding table and a line that kept getting longer. By year’s end Liberty moved into a trailer, and Bryan met Dalton through Dalton’s parents. That connection became a partnership.
Triple D and a home of our own
Liberty Smokehouse was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. That same year we opened our first brick-and-mortar at 310 E Waters Ave in Tampa.
Just the beginning
From his grandfather’s kitchen to Iraq, from Lyon to a folding table under a tent, every step led here. And we’re just getting started.
