It helps to know where Stitt is coming from. On bacon itself, his understanding is practically primeval. “I learned how to make it when I was a teenager,” he said. “A guy in Mississippi taught me how to butcher, and then he taught me how to cure meat. Then before I went off to college, he said, ‘I want to teach you to make bacon the way our ancestors did.’ And that’s what I’ve been doing.”
Visited recently, Stitt talked about the adaptations that have strengthened his businesses and set the stage for future growth, without requiring him to run himself into the ground. And yet, the bacon production facility is remarkably compact, even after multiple rounds of expansion. It’s all on the grounds of the sprawling restaurant, if you know where to look.
“I started with three small farms. I now have 24 that grow for me,” said Stitt. “They’re my friends. They’re, some of them, fourth-generation.” Packaging includes wrapping paper and boxes that bear the Bill E’s logo, and that’s another piece of the process that illustrates the extent to which Stitt does not take any of this for granted.
That came in handy during the COVID-19 pandemic. When the shutdowns hit, the bacon business exploded. The restaurant almost imploded. As you'd expect, the BLT at Bill E's restaurant in Fairhope features plenty of the bacon Bill Stitt makes on-site.Is bacon on the menu? Lord, yes. There’s a fine BLT and a Pork Belly Sandwich that a restaurant industry news site picked asin 2018. You can get it in appetizers, such as the Pork Belly Bites Trio. You can get it on a salad or add it to a burger.