Biggs Ribs brings halal beef back ribs to Brampton in an industrial complex

Elias Williams, a 31-year-old founder with no culinary training, built Biggs Ribs from a grease fire in his family's garage into a two-location halal barbecue brand. The concept now operates in Brampton and Hamilton, turning out slow-cooked beef back ribs that have drawn enough word-of-mouth buzz to keep freezers full of pickup orders.

Williams was inspired in 2021 after tasting beef back ribs from an Etobicoke restaurant. "I tasted them, and I thought I could do it better," he recalls. He had no restaurant experience — before diving into barbecue, he was selling MacBook upgrades — but he started with Google searches and trial-and-error cooking in his mom's kitchen.

Disaster nearly ended the project. In April 2021, a grease fire broke out in the family's garage; the ceiling still bears the scorch marks. Williams was ready to quit until his then-girlfriend (now wife) gave him a pep talk about failure and perseverance. "Her belief in me was the only reason I continued," he says.

Once word spread on social media, demand exploded. "I had to buy a chest freezer because of all the pickup orders I was getting." As restrictions lifted, he added outdoor pop-ups to the pickup business, "barbecuing in the dead of winter to meet so many orders." By 2023, he had brought in childhood friend Isaiah Davidson as a business partner and moved operations into a ghost kitchen — what Williams calls "boot camp," a testing ground before opening the Brampton brick-and-mortar location in 2024.

The transition to running a physical restaurant taught both partners painful lessons. "For example, I got a deep fryer and didn't even know how it worked — I thought it was a plug-and-play situation, but I quickly learned that you needed a gas line and a technician to set it up. We made so many mistakes during that first year, but it was a blessing in disguise."

He opened a second location in downtown Hamilton last fall. The menu includes short ribs, chicken legs and wings, with beef back ribs as the signature item.

Brampton location hours: Tuesday–Thursday 12–9 p.m.; Saturday 6 p.m.–midnight; Sunday 2–9 p.m. Closed Monday and Friday.