{"id":222622,"date":"2024-12-12T07:45:49","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T12:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=222622"},"modified":"2024-12-12T08:05:25","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T13:05:25","slug":"bears-smokehouse-bbq-to-open-in-student-union-food-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2024\/12\/bears-smokehouse-bbq-to-open-in-student-union-food-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Bear\u2019s Smokehouse BBQ To Open in Student Union Food Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bear\u2019s Smokehouse BBQ, which operates several restaurants along with locations at numerous UConn athletic venues, will soon open a new location in the UConn Student Union\u2019s Food Court.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Board of Trustees on Wednesday approved a five-year lease with the company to open in the location currently occupied by One Plate, Two Plates. The space <\/span>will be renovated <\/span>for Bear\u2019s to open early in the spring 2025 semester.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since opening its first location in 2013, Bear’s BBQ has earned the type of name recognition in Connecticut and the Hartford area typically reserved for legacy businesses that have been operating for decades.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bear\u2019s Smokehouse BBQ is co-owned by Jamie McDonald and Cheryl Antoncic. Antoncic, a native of Windsor Locks, and McDonald, a Kansas City native, recognized an opportunity to bring outstanding Kansas City-style barbecue to Connecticut.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“<\/b>Our partnership with the University of Connecticut and UConn Athletics started in 2015 and has continued to evolve over the last nine years bringing delicious Kansas City-style BBQ to UConn sports fans on and off campus,\u201d says Antoncic. \u201cWe are very excited for our new location in the Student Union, allowing us to integrate further into the UConn community with students and staff on a daily basis.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bear’s operates four Bear\u2019s BBQ locations in Connecticut and two in Asheville, North Carolina. They also have food trucks, a full-service catering division, as well satellite locations at places such as Pratt & Whitney Stadium in East Hartford, and Gampel Pavilion and the Toscano Family Ice Forum at UConn Storrs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Alongside their brick-and-mortar locations, the Bear\u2019s Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2020 by <\/span>Bear\u2019s Smokehouse LLC<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 The Foundation seeks to further the restaurant group\u2019s mission of serving the communities in which they are located and bringing awareness to important issues affecting society on local and national levels.\u00a0 Such issues include mental health, animal welfare, conservation of natural resources, and protection of wildlife.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bear’s BBQ has earned the type of name recognition in Connecticut and the Hartford area typically reserved for legacy businesses that have been operating for decades<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":222565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,2235,2225,2234,2233],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2113],"class_list":["post-222622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-life","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life","category-university-news"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 07:50:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222622"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222629,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222622\/revisions\/222629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/222565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222622"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=222622"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=222622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}