Mack Sevier was born on June 24, 1944 in
Augusta, Arkansas. His mother was a restaurant cook, and he had four brothers and a sister. After graduating high school, Sevier moved to
St. Louis, Missouri but he decided to move north, eventually going to Chicago in the early 1960s. He worked as a meatpacker at a meatpacking factory in Chicago for almost a decade and opened his own butcher shop, Honda Poultry & Meats, in 1971. He also practiced backyard barbecuing as a passion. He supplied meats to many famous
South Side restaurants, including
Harold's Chicken Shack and
Mumbo Bar-B-Que. In the late 1980s, Sevier decided to quit the butcher business and become an apprentice pitmaster. Sevier is known for his trademark use of the
aquarium smoker, a staple of Chicago barbecue. Writing for
Saveur, Kevin Pang called him "Chicago's king of the hot link". Hunter Owens of
Saveur wrote that "If someone were to carve a Mount Rushmore of Chicago barbecue pitmasters," Sevier's face would be included. Pitmaster Gary Wiviott said that Sevier was an "artist" whose "medium was fire and meat." and diabetes which cost him the use of his fingers. After his retirement, he continued to cook for fundraisers and church picnics. He died of complications including heart and kidney failure at
Holy Cross Hospital on June 1, 2015. == Personal life ==