This South Jersey BBQ gem got its start at the Free Library of Philadelphia

However you get to Big Swerve’s BBQ in Westville, N.J. — whether from I-295 or off of Route 130 — it would be wise to follow Google Maps, which will send you not to the street address, but down an alley and around a parking lot that will swing you perilously close to a brick building.

You’re almost there. In front of you will be the 20-foot converted shipping container that houses Big Swerve’s offset smoker, fashioned out of a 500-gallon propane tank.

That’s “Big Bottom Betty.”

If you time it right, through the smoke you’ll see Big Swerve tending Betty as customers order ribs, brisket, and jerk chicken from a takeout window and eat under canopy tents. There’s also an indoor dining room, Stella’s Banquet Hall, which has a stage and hosts a schedule of entertainment acts.

Big Swerve is Stephen Clark, 55, who became a serious backyard barbecue cook 15 years ago after his late brother William showed him a few tricks. “Pretty much every birthday, Father’s Day, and Christmas, my wife [Darlene] would ask, ‘What do you want?’ I’d say, ‘A grill,’” he said. Finally, she got him an Oklahoma Joe barrel smoker, a workhorse popular among barbecue competitors, and he started posting food photos on social media.

Back then, Clark was a Free Library of Philadelphia security officer, stationed at Lovett branch in Mount Airy. It was one of Clark’s library coworkers who gave him the nickname. “Out of the clear blue, he said, ‘If I was driving down the road, I’d have to do a big swerve to get around you,’” Clark, who is 6-foot-3, said. “There was silence and then you just heard nothing but laughter.”

Clark started taking a small grill to work, where coworkers would chip in $20 each for homemade lunches. “They eventually gave me $300 and told me to go buy a grill [to store at a library branch] so I could cook for the team every other Friday,” he said. “That’s when I knew this could be something more.”

Big Swerve’s was born two years ago, when the Clarks took over the backlot and adjacent catering hall behind Westville Brewery. The couple, who have a blended family of 10 children, live nearby.

Big Swerve’s is open Thursday through Sunday. The best sellers are the brisket, pork ribs, and jerk chicken sliders, plus fried egg rolls stuffed with brisket or jerk chicken; they’re served with a sweet, spicy sauce that is also great atop the cornbread. Three people can share a combo, such as the Lil Dip Two ($49), which is a sampler of three proteins (let’s say brisket, chicken, and three or four ribs, depending on size), plus three medium sides, such as candied yams, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, and “mean beans,” a combo of ground beef and baked beans, and cornbread. Sauces are all house-made.

Besides Betty, Big Swerve’s setup includes barrel smokers and chicken flippers — enough firepower to feed the crowds, like the 1,200 people Clark and his wife served recently from their food truck at various Cooper University Health Care locations one day earlier this month. Clark prefers using lump charcoal, plus oak and cherry wood — milder, he said, than mesquite or hickory.

Before he was a library guard or Big Swerve, Clark was an Army veteran living in Colorado Springs, near his former post, Fort Carson. He got a dishwashing job at a Japanese restaurant. When one of the chefs left, the owner asked if he wanted to learn to cook. “I said, ‘Well, it beats washing rice out of bowls,’” he said.

“I learned all the kitchen dishes,” Clark said. “That’s where I really learned discipline in cooking.”

He doesn’t have to exercise as much discipline in making barbecue. “I can tell [the food’s doneness] by touch and texture and look,” Clark said. That’s a good thing, because after two hot summers and long workdays running Big Swerve’s, he’s come down with what he calls “the cook’s curse.”

“I don’t sample anything anymore,” he said. “If you cook all day, you really don’t want to eat.”

Big Swerve’s BBQ, 201 Broadway, Westville, N.J. Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, noon to 8 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 7 p.m. Sunday.