Want one last bottle of Maull’s? Better hurry, some local shelves are empty.

A St. Louis barbecue staple may be coming to an end: Maull’s may have closed its factory.

There were reports Wednesday morning that some customers were buying up the last bottles of Maull’s at grocery stores in the region. In Belleville, one store was out of Maull’s on Wednesday, but two others still had several bottles.

The Wal-Mart Super Center in Belleville on Green Mount Commons Drive was sold out of Maull’s barbecue sauce Wednesday morning.

A store manager said he could not make official comment, but noted he did not know when the store sold out or who bought the barbecue sauce. The store expects a shipment of the famous St. Louis condiment to come in Jan. 12.

After hearing the news about Maull’s, the Wal-Mart manager said he would attempt to order another several cases of the sauce.

The Schnucks on Carlyle Avenue in Belleville still had a shelf full of Maull’s early Wednesday morning. A store manager said he had not had customers come into the store asking for the sauce since the news of the possible factory shutdown broke.

He also noted that that location was a discount store, so prospects of the location ordering more were slim.

A store manger at the Shop’n Save on Carlyle Avenue echoed those sentiments, as the shelves there had plenty bottles of Maull’s. She noted she had not had any customers asking about the sauce and had not known about the discontinuation until Wednesday morning.

Maull’s is “like the Ted Drewes of St. Louis barbecue sauce,” according to Fox 2. The Maull’s site indicates it cannot fill new orders, and Fox reports that the factory appears to be shut down. There is no notice posted on the company’s Facebook page, but customers have posted asking after the company.

Maull’s has been bottling its original barbecue sauce since 1926, and is widely distributed in St. Louis-area stores.

But Maull’s has lost multiple court judgments totaling more than $100,000 when the company failed to appear in court, according to the St. Louis Business Journal and Fox.

This story was originally published January 10, 2018 at 9:59 AM with the headline "Want one last bottle of Maull’s? Better hurry, some local shelves are empty.."