We are Jack and Kim Snively, the owners of Legacy Craft BBQ & Catering Co. Together, we work as a team and we split the cooking duties. Jack takes care of the meat, while Kim takes care of everything else, including Jack. Our families have always enjoyed great food and have centered most of our activities around it. So, it sort of makes sense that we would spend our retirement running a food truck.

Jack, whose actual name is John A. Snively, IV, is a graduate of the University of Alabama and loves college football. On the other hand, Kim is a Florida State Alumni and would rather do just about anything else but watch college football. We have two incredible daughters and two rambunctious grandsons whom we love to spend time with.

The Snively family has been around Winter Haven, FL for many years. Our grandchildren are now the 6th generation of Snivelys. John A. Snively, Sr., who settled in Winter Haven, literally had nothing but the shirt on his back. However, coming from the Pennsylvania railroad, he understood hard work and landed a job selling fertilizer. His clients were fledgling citrus growers, and that’s how he began to learn all about growing citrus.

John Sr. lived frugally and saved his money until he was able to purchase a 5-acre orange grove. With his earnings from selling fertilizer, he continued buying groves and land to plant more groves on. In 1911, he married Dorothy DeHaven, and they had three children – John A. Snively, Jr., Evelyn Snively, and Avis Snively. Avis, later known as Big Avis, is the mother of Gram Parsons, who many consider the father of Country-Rock (born Ingram Cecil Connor, Jr.).

By the mid-1940s, John Sr.’s company, Snively Groves, Inc., had become the largest privately held citrus company in Florida, and he owned the largest citrus packing house in the world. Two of his brothers, Harvey Bowden Snively and Thomas Vinton Snively, had also joined the family citrus business. However, Harvey would later leave Snively Groves and start his own packing house, causing a major split between the family for many years.

John A. Snively, Sr. called for Florida citrus growers to organize in the late 1940’s. He believed through increased cooperation and organization growers could increase the demand for their product thus making the industry more profitable. He also believed that organization would ensure that quality standards would increase and that customers would receive greater satisfaction from the product.  In a speech he said, “We need some system other than that employed by volume hogs and price cutters. If we don’t want to organize, then let’s find it out right away, quit wasting a lot of time and see just how quick we can all go broke.”  Through his efforts to organize and the power of his influence Florida Citrus Mutual was formed and was soon regarded as the most authoritative voices of the citrus industry. He passed away in 1958 and was inducted  into the Citrus Hall of Fame in 1962, the first year it was established.

The reason we’re sharing all of this Snively history is twofold. Firstly, we often get asked if all the Winter Haven Snivelys are related, and the answer is yes. We all come from one of the three brothers – John, Harvey, or Tom. Secondly, the history of our family’s connection between citrus and great food is the reason Legacy Craft BBQ & Catering Co. exists today.

Snively Groves, Inc. used to hold large industry dinners and barbecues, as well as barbecues for their employees. During these events, my grandfather, John A. Snively, Jr., would man the open barbecue pits filled with pork, chicken, ribs, and roasted corn on the cob. He would also make enough Brunswick stew for everyone to enjoy. As the years went by and John Jr. had his own children, John III, Pate, Martha, and Susan, his sons joined him for the cooking duties, and the Snively company barbecues continued even after John Jr.’s passing in 1978.

It was in November 1952 that my grandfather developed our family barbecue sauce for a family dinner, and it has been used at every company and family barbecue since then. The recipe remains unchanged and is still used today here at Legacy Craft BBQ & Catering Co.