Take a tasteful tour of Bush Brothers & Company headquarters.
By Diane Morey Sitton
March 2019
Anyone who thinks they can visit the Bush Brothers & Company visitors center to sneak a peek at the secret family recipe is out of luck. That elusive baked bean formula is concealed in a leather binder behind glass, secured under lock and key, and safeguarded by laser beams. (Okay, those are just light beams that resemble lasers.)
When it comes to protecting the recipe for the “Number-one baked bean in the world,” you can’t be too careful.
Canning items from days gone by show how the Bush family made a living over the years.
With that plan wiped off your agenda, what else can you do here? Well, if you want to learn everything you ever wanted to know about beans, you will not be disappointed. And you won’t be alone in your pursuit, since this free attraction entices more than 161,000 bean-loving visitors each year.
Here in the Smoky Mountain foothills, in the original building where family patriarch A.J. Bush opened the A.J. Bush & Company general store in 1897, folks can tour a museum, watch a film, and dine in a café where pinto beans pie is the signature dessert. In the old-timey general store, Bush’s canned beans are interspersed with Bush Brothers memorabilia, including souvenirs featuring A.J. Bush’s great-grandson and family spokesman, Jay Bush, and Duke, the talking golden retriever in the company’s commercials.
The fun begins as soon as you arrive. As you approach the visitors center, look for the photo-friendly 1940 Ford pickup and 1947 Ford stake bed truck parked out front. They represent trucks once used by the company. Nearby are cut-out photo props of Jay and Duke.
At the Bush Brothers & Company visitors center, exhibits include a timeline of the family business, which started in 1897.
Once inside, begin your bean adventure at Bush’s Theater. An 18-minute film starts with a welcome by Jay and Duke, and then serves up tidbits about the family’s 100-plus-year canning legacy. It began with a small tomato cannery. As Americans clamored for the convenience of canned foods, Bush family members expanded their operations to include blackberries, peaches, hominy (corn), and green beans. During the Great Depression, the company kept afloat by canning and selling inexpensive staples, including hominy, sauerkraut, and pork and beans. In later years, to meet the increasing demand for ready-to-eat specialty products, Bush’s introduced a line of variety beans.
The famous family-recipe baked beans were first produced for customers in 1969, when Condon Bush, A.J.’s grandson, wanted to more closely match his mother’s beloved secret recipe. Although the new, more flavorful beans proved to be the biggest success in company history, it was not until Jay Bush began rolling that “beautiful bean footage” in television ads with his sidekick, Duke, in the 1990s that Bush Brothers & Company became a household name.
The introductory film also shows the steps taken to make tasty, finished beans. You could say it spills the beans on how the company washes, blanches, seasons, cans, labels, and distributes the final product. Just know that although the canning plant shares the property, it is not open for tours.
The steps involved in making and canning Bush’s baked beans are revealed inside a walk-through-size can.
If you skip the film, you can still follow the beans’ journey by looking at the exhibits inside the giant replica can of Bush’s Baked Beans located outside the theater.
As you head upstairs, past a replica of Duke’s doghouse and a scale that reveals your weight in beans, you realize that the bean mania here is just getting started. Displays and artifacts follow Bush Brothers & Company on its ascent from tomato canner to bean-canning powerhouse. Relics include a can seamer and other canning paraphernalia common in the early 1900s. At a display devoted to hole-and-cap cans, visitors learn that these containers were produced by hand using tinplate. The painstaking process yielded 10 cans per day. Nearby, at Duke’s own display, you can watch film clips of his most famous commercials.
Despite the interactive nature of some exhibits, folks seem to have the most fun posing in front of a mural that lets them look as though they’re petting Duke on the head. Staff members stay handy so they can take the photo for you.
Visitors of all ages enjoy learning about how the foods are made.
Back downstairs, an old-fashioned store entices foodies, cooks, kitchen gadget lovers, and browsers with cookbooks, aprons, placemats, coasters, flour-sack dish towels, cookware, and shelves stocked with Bush’s Beans. You can visit a kiosk, click on a Bush’s Beans product, and request a free recipe (print or email option). Rustic home décor, quilts, and craft items are offered, too.
Then, when you’ve worked up an appetite for a fried bologna sandwich, bowl of chili, catfish dinner, or other Southern staple, it’s time to visit Bush’s Family Café. Although the coconut cream pie and other sweet desserts get rave reviews, it’s the pinto beans pie that evokes the most oohs and aahs. The mouthwatering confection is concocted from Bush’s pinto beans, crunchy pecans, and other ingredients normally associated with pecan pie.
And unlike the secret family recipe for baked beans, the recipe for this treat is free for the asking.
The Tasty Details
Bush Brothers & Company visitors center is open year-round, Monday through Saturday (closed on major holidays). Hours vary by season. The center is located off Interstate 40, approximately 35 minutes east of Knoxville, Tennessee, at 3901 U.S. 411, Dandridge, TN 37725; (865) 509-3077; www.bushbeans.com.
Bush’s Pinto Beans Pie
1 unbaked pie crust
1 cup sugar
¾ cup margarine (melted)
1 teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup Bush’s Pinto Beans, heated and lightly mashed
½ cup finely chopped pecans
2 eggs, well beaten
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine all the ingredients and pour into an unbaked pie shell. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. The center of the pie should be slightly unset.