Smokehouse and Mercantile
Our Family Business
Our restaurant and store is designed to meet the needs of all kinds of customers. Due to the natural tourist traffic that Brenham receives on the weekends, we will offer a large variety of handmade Texas-themed products that make great gifts and additions to people's homes. As a restaurant, we also hope to build ongoing relationship with local residents and other business owners in town.
Our BBQ restaurant is our main attraction! We provide great food cooked the old fashioned way at a great price. We will also sell handmade beer can art, coasters, local coffee and raw honey. . To keep people coming back and becoming regular customers, our icehouse will offer Texas beers and great country music. With stools at the bar, lounge areas for kicking your feet up, and areas for pub games like darts and cornhole, we hope that Pioneer Mercantile and Smokehouse becomes a favorite destination for both locals and visitors to the city.
As the business and church get off the ground, both the customers and the members of the community will naturally overlap and mutually reinforce one another. The same stage that we will build for worship might be used on other nights for live music performances. We hope to set up the Pioneer Mercantile and Smokehouse as a must-visit destination in Brenham.
We love the idea that when people are checking out in the store, or paying their tab at the smokehouse, we can invite them back on a Sunday night for a simple worship service and free food!
We want to use this concept to reach people for Christ who would not be attracted or interested in your typical Sunday morning church service. It is our goal to use this business and ministry model to minister to a whole new group of people, that might have given up on ‘church as we know it’ long ago. We will give them hospitality, welcome, friendship, the Word of God and a chance to meet Jesus.
Since 2011, Mark Renn has owned and operated a family business on the side of pastoring and raising a family. As part of a wider ministry model, running booths at farmers and craft markets has allowed Mark to meet people in his community that he otherwise would not have. With a storefront and hospitable venue in Brenham, the store and restaurant will become a revenue source for both the Renns and to expand the reach of the church.