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Ben's Backdraft | Turning Fire Into Flavor & Building a Backyard BBQ Brand · Single Tree Nation Show

• 0:02
  welcome back to singletree nation guys i'm
• 0:05
  your man charlie eblen and as always we
• 0:07
  have our illustrious co-host mr dairy
• 0:10
  wells with us today what is up everybody
• 0:12
  how you been doing man i'm good yeah
• 0:14
  you had a good week it's almost done
• 0:17
  almost done i thought yesterday tuesday
• 0:20
  was thursday and that made for a really
• 0:22
  long tuesday so i've had three mondays in
• 0:24
  a row
• 0:26
  haven't done that yet so as long as
• 0:28
  i don't get there i'll be fine so
• 0:30
  monday i felt like i lived twice oh
• 0:33
  man and then today's just kind of been
• 0:35
  one thing after after all the ice storm
• 0:38
  and all the other just bs that blew
• 0:41
  through here the people they're like uh
• 0:44
  january was only seventeen weeks long i'm
• 0:46
  glad they are a hundred percent right
• 0:48
  that's what it feels like
• 0:49
  February is halfway over,
• 0:50
  and I feel like it's January thirty
• 0:52
  second.
• 0:53
  Like it just is.
• 0:55
  Yeah.
• 0:56
  Anyway, look, as always,
• 0:58
  I got to highlight our primary technology
• 1:01
  partner with Toast.
• 1:02
  Absolutely.
• 1:02
  They partner with us here at the
• 1:04
  restaurant and on the show,
• 1:05
  and we are blessed to have them and
• 1:07
  highly favored.
• 1:09
  They help us provide undeniable
• 1:11
  hospitality every single day,
• 1:12
  both on the radio podcast and in our
• 1:16
  restaurant.
• 1:18
  Very thankful for them.
• 1:19
  You look like you've been restaurant busy.
• 1:24
  I have been restaurant busy.
• 1:27
  It's been very blessed for me.
• 1:30
  We sold a couple of metric tons of
• 1:33
  chicken wings.
• 1:37
  But we'll get into all that.
• 1:39
  We can talk about all that later.
• 1:41
  Today we have an incredible guest,
• 1:45
  a man that I've known for a little
• 1:47
  while.
• 1:48
  He is starting his journey into the
• 1:52
  barbecue world.
• 1:55
  And Derry will see some similarities in
• 1:57
  his story and some other people we know.
• 2:01
  But today we want to welcome Ben from
• 2:03
  Ben's Backdraft Barbecue to the show.
• 2:06
  Ben, thank you for joining us.
• 2:09
  Welcome to the show, man.
• 2:10
  Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 2:13
  We, uh, uh,
• 2:15
  we like to give everybody a second or
• 2:17
  two to kind of tell the world who
• 2:19
  they are, give a quick intro, you know,
• 2:21
  what you do every day, um,
• 2:23
  because you're not cooking barbecue right
• 2:25
  this minute.
• 2:26
  So why don't you tell everybody who you
• 2:28
  are and what you do?
• 2:29
  And, and, uh, we'll, we'll dive into, uh,
• 2:33
  into it a little bit deeper.
• 2:34
  yes so uh obviously my name is ben
• 2:37
  hooper from uh waynesville north carolina
• 2:40
  which is the very last uh little town
• 2:43
  um before you get into tennessee on
• 2:44
  interstate forty in carolina um born and
• 2:48
  raised yeah yeah born born and raised uh
• 2:52
  in western north carolina my whole life
• 2:54
  for several generations back um
• 2:57
  did not come from the restaurant industry.
• 3:00
  Uh, you just, you just made Trent really,
• 3:01
  really happy from being from North
• 3:02
  Carolina, man.
• 3:03
  He is,
• 3:04
  he's like over there jumping up and down
• 3:05
  because we got a North Carolina.
• 3:07
  So I'm going to ask the obvious question,
• 3:10
  uh, NC state or Tar Heels.
• 3:12
  Hmm.
• 3:14
  Tar Heels.
• 3:16
  Oh, man.
• 3:16
  Never mind.
• 3:17
  Had you, then we lost you.
• 3:21
  I always ask because Trent was in the
• 3:22
  room.
• 3:22
  That's the only reason.
• 3:24
  Well, only in basketball, though.
• 3:26
  Okay.
• 3:27
  Only in basketball.
• 3:28
  It's not a football state, if you will.
• 3:31
  There you go.
• 3:33
  We need Trent to understand that.
• 3:34
  He thinks y'all are up and coming.
• 3:36
  Not quite.
• 3:36
  The SEC is where it's at.
• 3:39
  I'm just going to leave it there.
• 3:40
  There you go.
• 3:40
  That's great.
• 3:42
  Shout out to Western North Carolina.
• 3:47
  It's a beautiful place.
• 3:47
  I love Blainesville.
• 3:49
  It is, yeah.
• 3:50
  So our restaurant is actually near Maggie
• 3:53
  Valley,
• 3:54
  is probably the closest town that it's
• 3:56
  closest to.
• 3:57
  That's the highest valley east of the
• 3:59
  Mississippi.
• 3:59
  So the highest elevation valley east of
• 4:03
  the Mississippi.
• 4:04
  But anyway,
• 4:05
  I work full time as a firefighter at
• 4:07
  Woodfin Fire Department,
• 4:08
  which is just north of Asheville,
• 4:10
  just a little bit.
• 4:10
  We cover...
• 4:12
  Just north of like UNCA, UNC Asheville.
• 4:17
  And we have a food trailer kind of
• 4:19
  catering company and a restaurant.
• 4:21
  So I'm married to my wife, Bailey.
• 4:24
  We have a four year old and we
• 4:27
  got a little girl on the way to
• 4:28
  be here in April.
• 4:29
  congratulations on the newborns to sum up
• 4:33
  everything you have lots of downtime yes
• 4:35
  plenty you don't do anything i hope
• 4:40
  everybody heard the sarcasm in that that's
• 4:42
  uh yeah for sure it's a lot yeah
• 4:44
  yeah but you you appear to be doing
• 4:46
  juggling it well so yeah i got a
• 4:48
  good team behind me you know that's good
• 4:50
  there's no way i could do it without
• 4:52
  a good team absolutely
• 4:53
  Absolutely.
• 4:54
  It's, it's difficult to do no matter what.
• 4:58
  That's right.
• 4:59
  That's right.
• 4:59
  This man is doing it with all of
• 5:01
  the things going on.
• 5:02
  Right.
• 5:03
  Yeah.
• 5:03
  Top to bottom.
• 5:04
  Here's a whole list.
• 5:05
  Yeah.
• 5:05
  I love it.
• 5:07
  So how do you go from, uh,
• 5:11
  putting fires out to starting fires?
• 5:14
  Yes.
• 5:14
  So, uh, kind of my story is, uh,
• 5:18
  have you been waiting on that question the
• 5:20
  whole time?
• 5:21
  Yeah.
• 5:23
  You were way too excited to ask it.
• 5:26
  Sorry, Ben, I interrupted you there.
• 5:28
  So I started out at a couple different
• 5:32
  fire departments in the area.
• 5:33
  I used to work for an Indian reservation
• 5:35
  nearby that's called Cherokee.
• 5:37
  That's where I started in the fire
• 5:38
  service,
• 5:39
  and they'd butt up to Maggie Valley.
• 5:42
  When I worked at Maggie Valley part-time,
• 5:44
  I worked Cherokee full-time,
• 5:45
  Maggie Valley part-time in the fire
• 5:47
  service.
• 5:48
  That's kind of a common theme in the
• 5:49
  fire service.
• 5:50
  You can work full-time for one department
• 5:52
  and kind of work part-time three or four
• 5:55
  different places if you want to.
• 5:56
  That's kind of how firefighters make extra
• 5:59
  money on their days off or they have
• 6:01
  a business.
• 6:02
  So I tried the whole working at other
• 6:04
  fire departments on the side and I was
• 6:07
  working twenty-five,
• 6:08
  twenty-eight days a month out of thirty.
• 6:10
  And those are consecutive twenty four hour
• 6:12
  shifts, too.
• 6:13
  So it was a lot of moving parts.
• 6:15
  You know, I had some off time,
• 6:17
  but I noticed that that didn't work and
• 6:19
  it was terrible for my health.
• 6:22
  But on July fourth every year,
• 6:24
  Maggie Valley Fire Department does a
• 6:26
  annual like barbecue cook and they had an
• 6:29
  old like milk cooler smoker.
• 6:33
  Type of setup.
• 6:34
  And we've started I started my first fire
• 6:38
  in that or helped those guys with that.
• 6:40
  It was an offset.
• 6:43
  And I fell absolutely in love with cooking
• 6:45
  barbecue from that day forward.
• 6:47
  That was in like twenty sixteen,
• 6:50
  twenty seventeen ish.
• 6:52
  um after that i sold a couple of
• 6:55
  my personal um recreation toys to buy my
• 6:59
  own trailer smoker which one was an offset
• 7:02
  um and then shortly after that uh uh
• 7:06
  bought a food trailer because i thought
• 7:07
  that was the only way you could legally
• 7:09
  sell barbecue was i thought the vessel had
• 7:12
  to be a food trailer so i didn't
• 7:14
  know you could do pop-ups out of tents
• 7:15
  and such so yeah we started the food
• 7:18
  trailer in
• 7:20
  I love it.
• 7:22
  Yeah.
• 7:22
  I love it.
• 7:22
  Yeah.
• 7:23
  I, uh, I, I,
• 7:24
  I pretty much did the exact same thing.
• 7:26
  Yeah.
• 7:27
  I, um, I, if I had to,
• 7:29
  if I could go back and redo it
• 7:30
  again, I'd probably do pop-ups.
• 7:32
  Yeah.
• 7:33
  Yeah.
• 7:34
  Without buying the food truck to begin
• 7:35
  with.
• 7:35
  What is there's a term I'm missing.
• 7:38
  But from a kitchen that like where you're
• 7:42
  doing your prep and stuff and then you
• 7:44
  commissary commissary.
• 7:45
  Yes.
• 7:46
  Yes.
• 7:46
  So are you prepping out of the commissary
• 7:49
  and then taking it to the pop up?
• 7:51
  So depending on what state you're in,
• 7:53
  what county you're in,
• 7:55
  what the health department regulations
• 7:56
  are,
• 7:57
  you can you can do so in like
• 8:01
  in Tennessee, for an example.
• 8:05
  your kitchen at your house can be your
• 8:06
  commissary.
• 8:07
  Okay.
• 8:07
  It just has to be inspected by the
• 8:09
  health department.
• 8:09
  Okay.
• 8:10
  And if the health,
• 8:11
  we all want the health department to come
• 8:12
  into our kitchen.
• 8:13
  Yeah.
• 8:14
  And that exactly what we want.
• 8:15
  Yeah.
• 8:16
  Um, but you could, I mean, you,
• 8:18
  you physically could do that.
• 8:19
  Okay.
• 8:19
  It's just,
• 8:20
  it has to be inspected and then you
• 8:22
  have to be able to have the permits.
• 8:23
  Um, yeah.
• 8:24
  So some counties like Nashville, um,
• 8:28
  Davidson County requires you to have a
• 8:30
  commissary kitchen,
• 8:32
  an off-site commissary.
• 8:33
  Like dedicated?
• 8:34
  Okay.
• 8:35
  All right.
• 8:36
  So it just depends on the state
• 8:38
  regulations in the county,
• 8:39
  depending on some are state-ran,
• 8:41
  some are county-ran.
• 8:42
  It just depends.
• 8:43
  Okay.
• 8:43
  Yeah.
• 8:46
  And then, you know,
• 8:47
  the pop-ups are more challenging from a
• 8:50
  standpoint of you have the elements to
• 8:52
  deal with.
• 8:54
  where if you have a trailer,
• 8:55
  you don't have to worry about the elements
• 8:56
  as much.
• 8:57
  You just have lower traffic sometimes.
• 8:59
  So, you know, depending on the event.
• 9:02
  But to Ben's help here,
• 9:05
  a pop-up tent's a lot cheaper than a
• 9:06
  trailer.
• 9:07
  Correct me if I'm wrong?
• 9:08
  Absolutely.
• 9:08
  Yeah, a little bit.
• 9:12
  Yeah,
• 9:12
  and I guess the biggest thing I kicked
• 9:13
  myself for is I kind of did –
• 9:17
  I've got to give Dylan four –
• 9:20
  Dylan Cook from Fort Grove Barbecue,
• 9:22
  a little plug here.
• 9:23
  His wife calls it bootleg barbecue.
• 9:26
  They used to bootleg barbecue out of
• 9:28
  tents.
• 9:29
  And I did a little bit of that,
• 9:30
  a little bit of bootlegging.
• 9:32
  But I didn't really like I missed out
• 9:35
  on all the big events.
• 9:37
  You know,
• 9:37
  I could have got into all the big
• 9:38
  events two years earlier than than we did
• 9:41
  get started.
• 9:42
  Yeah.
• 9:43
  Yeah.
• 9:44
  It's hard, man.
• 9:44
  I, um,
• 9:46
  you don't know what you don't know.
• 9:48
  And then, you know,
• 9:50
  we've talked about it before.
• 9:51
  You don't,
• 9:51
  you don't even know what questions to ask.
• 9:53
  Cause you don't,
• 9:53
  you don't know what you don't know.
• 9:55
  So you go into this with, with,
• 9:57
  with blind eyes and hands behind your back
• 9:59
  and, and,
• 10:00
  And, uh,
• 10:00
  both feet tied together trying to figure
• 10:02
  out how to run.
• 10:03
  So, um, but, uh,
• 10:05
  you've come a long way from, uh, from,
• 10:09
  from bootlegging barbecue to today.
• 10:13
  Um, you're not, you're not cooking out of,
• 10:15
  uh, a cooler smoker anymore either.
• 10:18
  That's right.
• 10:18
  That's right.
• 10:19
  Yeah.
• 10:20
  You just, you just recently,
• 10:21
  not too long ago, got a new smoker.
• 10:23
  Didn't you?
• 10:24
  I did.
• 10:25
  And, um,
• 10:28
  because of a lot of so.
• 10:30
  Twenty twenty four.
• 10:32
  You know,
• 10:32
  we operated the business kind of by
• 10:34
  vocationally.
• 10:34
  And what I mean by that is I
• 10:35
  worked full time at the fire department,
• 10:38
  part time in the business.
• 10:39
  And then three years later,
• 10:41
  I transitioned into full time into the
• 10:42
  business in twenty four.
• 10:44
  So I just recently went back to the
• 10:46
  fire department full time because the
• 10:49
  restaurant has allowed me to do that with
• 10:50
  a little bit more freedom.
• 10:53
  But I say all that to say,
• 10:57
  We had a different plan for our smoker
• 10:59
  that we had bought from TMG,
• 11:01
  the rotisserie.
• 11:03
  Our initial plan was we were going to
• 11:05
  have two food trailers,
• 11:08
  and that rotisserie was going to go on
• 11:09
  the back of our big food trailer.
• 11:13
  Twenty twenty four decided to do other
• 11:17
  things.
• 11:17
  So we had a fire in our primary
• 11:21
  food trailer that burnt almost to the
• 11:23
  ground in July.
• 11:25
  And then, of course,
• 11:26
  Helene showed her face in September.
• 11:30
  So that was a really, really,
• 11:33
  really bad year for us.
• 11:35
  You know, we, you know,
• 11:37
  negative net net income was like negative
• 11:40
  one hundred thousand dollars for twenty
• 11:42
  four.
• 11:42
  So.
• 11:43
  um the rotisserie was designed for a food
• 11:47
  trailer and luckily i think god had his
• 11:50
  hand on it but we moved into a
• 11:52
  brick and mortar um and the j the
• 11:57
  tmg rotisserie is actually i think we're
• 11:59
  getting ready to sell it um
• 12:01
  So I found a little bit better suited
• 12:04
  smoker for us because we don't need that
• 12:06
  capacity.
• 12:08
  And obviously we need a little bit more
• 12:11
  of the capital right now.
• 12:12
  So right now we're operating out of
• 12:14
  offset.
• 12:16
  We've got a TMG roll off on the
• 12:17
  back of our food trailer and then a
• 12:19
  J&R two fifty RFS.
• 12:22
  Yeah.
• 12:23
  That, that, uh, that TMG you,
• 12:24
  you had built was pretty, pretty special.
• 12:28
  It's cream of the crop.
• 12:29
  Uh,
• 12:30
  it's the nicest smoker I've ever had for
• 12:33
  sure,
• 12:34
  but it just makes the most sense for
• 12:36
  us.
• 12:36
  The best business move is to
• 12:38
  unfortunately,
• 12:39
  um i listed two different smokers for sale
• 12:41
  and i just had to mentally be okay
• 12:43
  with whichever one sold first that's right
• 12:47
  um you know and i'll i may have
• 12:49
  another one one day but you know yeah
• 12:52
  yeah we'll play those cards whenever we
• 12:54
  deal with them the tmg that you had
• 12:56
  built was it uh was it the the
• 12:58
  biggest one that they do was it the
• 13:00
  it is was it the two thousand
• 13:03
  whatever it is it holds like double the
• 13:04
  amount of a thousand gallon smoker it does
• 13:07
  yeah yeah yeah so it's a rotisserie uh
• 13:10
  it's their very first rotisserie they've
• 13:11
  ever built it's called the revolver um but
• 13:14
  it's offset style um you know cooking uses
• 13:18
  all wood it runs off a fireboard and
• 13:21
  it's only got two moving parts so it's
• 13:23
  it's a phenomenal product
• 13:26
  It's very similar to the M&M pit.
• 13:30
  Yes.
• 13:30
  It's all wood,
• 13:32
  and it's just like my smoker dairy,
• 13:35
  except it has racks in it that rotate.
• 13:40
  Okay.
• 13:41
  And it'll hold twice as much as my
• 13:43
  smoker does.
• 13:44
  For some reason,
• 13:45
  I may have to swap to my phone.
• 13:48
  My computer's not charging, so no.
• 13:51
  Nothing like a good little technical
• 13:53
  issue.
• 13:53
  Well, I'll tell you what,
• 13:56
  let's take a quick break and then we'll
• 13:58
  come right back.
• 14:03
  It's forty-five minutes done.
• 14:04
  Like, he's ready to get out of here.
• 14:06
  Welcome back to Singletree Nation, guys.
• 14:09
  I'm your man, Charlie.
• 14:10
  We are back.
• 14:11
  We have, sorry, in the break there,
• 14:14
  we were discussing some pigs.
• 14:16
  That is some pig.
• 14:21
  That's a Charlotte's Web reference for
• 14:22
  y'all that don't know.
• 14:24
  Ben,
• 14:24
  I don't know if you saw it or
• 14:25
  not.
• 14:25
  I just put a story up the other
• 14:27
  day,
• 14:27
  but I bought an inflatable pig costume.
• 14:32
  To where as you can walk up and
• 14:36
  down the sidewalk of our busy highway.
• 14:40
  And so I sent Derry a picture of
• 14:43
  it yesterday.
• 14:43
  That's awesome.
• 14:46
  We named him George.
• 14:50
  George the pig.
• 14:51
  I had a colorful description of George.
• 14:54
  Yes.
• 14:54
  That's air friendly, isn't it?
• 14:57
  B-T-G.
• 14:57
  Y'all can figure that out on your own.
• 15:04
  out the tea yourself it's great i want
• 15:07
  to know what poor schmuck you got walking
• 15:09
  around in that uh me me what's the
• 15:16
  hilarious part about the whole thing was i
• 15:18
  i uh i had my oldest son come
• 15:21
  down to do some marketing for me oh
• 15:23
  please tell me you put him in it
• 15:24
  and
• 15:26
  He wouldn't do it.
• 15:27
  Oh, come on.
• 15:28
  He refused.
• 15:28
  He said, I'm not getting in that.
• 15:30
  Nobody would notice him.
• 15:32
  I said, nobody's going to see you.
• 15:33
  We have a little fan that keeps it.
• 15:35
  What difference does it make?
• 15:36
  Yeah,
• 15:36
  it's got the little fan in the back.
• 15:38
  Let me catch you in there in a
• 15:39
  bottle of fart spray.
• 15:40
  The hilarious part about the whole thing
• 15:44
  is you ought to see when I run
• 15:46
  in it.
• 15:46
  I think.
• 15:48
  Because your arms stick out.
• 15:51
  And it's got little short legs on it.
• 15:53
  You know,
• 15:53
  they're only like nine inches tall.
• 15:55
  Oh, man.
• 15:56
  The image here.
• 15:59
  It's hilarious, man.
• 16:00
  It's absolutely hilarious.
• 16:01
  But, you know,
• 16:02
  you got to figure things out when you
• 16:03
  do stuff for marketing, man.
• 16:04
  Wow.
• 16:04
  It is what it is.
• 16:08
  Ben,
• 16:10
  I'm going to take us to a serious
• 16:12
  note here.
• 16:12
  It goes away from this.
• 16:15
  You briefly mentioned Helene,
• 16:16
  and I don't want to spend a ton
• 16:17
  of time on that because I'm sure that
• 16:18
  North Carolina is just ready to let that
• 16:20
  go in all sorts of phases.
• 16:21
  Yeah.
• 16:22
  But the barbecue community is known for
• 16:26
  just that, being community.
• 16:27
  That's right.
• 16:29
  And how that feels out for each
• 16:31
  independent location is always phenomenal.
• 16:32
  Yeah.
• 16:33
  during that time,
• 16:34
  not storm related as our response to the
• 16:37
  storm,
• 16:38
  but for the response to the community,
• 16:40
  how does that give y'all an opportunity to
• 16:42
  help out?
• 16:42
  And while it's not self-advocating to
• 16:46
  promote your name,
• 16:47
  it still gets backdraft barbecue out there
• 16:49
  because we're involved in the community
• 16:52
  and what steps we're all able to take
• 16:53
  during that time.
• 16:54
  Yeah.
• 16:55
  So, um,
• 16:57
  one precursor step that we did was we,
• 16:59
  um,
• 17:01
  kind of put a Facebook post out for
• 17:03
  the community.
• 17:05
  Um, we would take, uh, pre-bought meals.
• 17:08
  Um,
• 17:09
  like if people wanted to buy meals for
• 17:12
  first responders in our area,
• 17:13
  because they were kind of pre-staffing the
• 17:15
  area, um,
• 17:16
  with first responders from outside the
• 17:19
  area because they knew the storm was going
• 17:20
  to be bad.
• 17:21
  Um,
• 17:22
  so we put a post out that said
• 17:23
  anybody that wants to buy a first
• 17:25
  responder meal, um,
• 17:27
  Here's the link.
• 17:27
  This is what you do.
• 17:29
  And we got a huge response from that,
• 17:33
  probably like six or eighty meals
• 17:34
  pre-bought before Helene ever came.
• 17:37
  So we had those already ready to go.
• 17:42
  You know, we had the opportunity to feed,
• 17:45
  you know,
• 17:45
  fifty or sixty first responder meals right
• 17:48
  from the get go.
• 17:50
  The day of the storm, whenever it hit,
• 17:53
  I was actually at – I was still
• 17:56
  part-time at the fire department at that
• 17:58
  point.
• 18:00
  I went to Waynesville Fire Department.
• 18:02
  I was on their swift water team for
• 18:04
  about three days.
• 18:06
  But I told my wife and our team
• 18:10
  member that worked for us at the time
• 18:13
  –
• 18:14
  We don't close like the fire department
• 18:17
  doesn't close.
• 18:18
  So we are open and we opened.
• 18:24
  I finally got a hold of my wife
• 18:25
  after it quit raining because in our area
• 18:30
  we're in the headwaters.
• 18:31
  So whenever it quits raining at that
• 18:33
  point, you're safe.
• 18:34
  Right, right.
• 18:36
  I couldn't get a hold over for like
• 18:37
  four hours though.
• 18:38
  So, cause our cell service was down,
• 18:39
  internet was down, radio communication.
• 18:42
  It was, it was a whole complete mess.
• 18:44
  So once I finally got a hold over,
• 18:47
  um, I told her to go, um,
• 18:50
  you know, go home till it quit raining.
• 18:53
  When it quit raining, um,
• 18:54
  her and another one of my team members
• 18:56
  went to our food trailer and we just
• 18:58
  started handing out food.
• 19:00
  Um, and yeah,
• 19:02
  I got a hold of my distributor and
• 19:03
  we ordered ten thousand dollars worth of
• 19:06
  food and I kind of left it up
• 19:09
  to God.
• 19:10
  I was like,
• 19:11
  I don't really know what our future is,
• 19:13
  but at this point we're going to be
• 19:15
  here for our community.
• 19:17
  And I ordered through two different
• 19:19
  distributors and one of them got here like
• 19:22
  two or three days later and we had
• 19:23
  pork and to go boxes.
• 19:25
  So.
• 19:26
  It was something, you know.
• 19:28
  So we went to,
• 19:29
  I went to my church on that Sunday,
• 19:30
  told them the same exact thing.
• 19:32
  We're going to give food away.
• 19:34
  They gave up a love offering and gave
• 19:36
  us like fifteen hundred bucks right off of
• 19:38
  that Sunday.
• 19:40
  And then the Saturday before, like I said,
• 19:44
  I couldn't get food here.
• 19:46
  TMG Pits brought me like five thousand
• 19:49
  dollars worth of product.
• 19:50
  And see that right there.
• 19:54
  Like, it blew my mind.
• 19:55
  that the community yes you don't have to
• 19:58
  do that no they don't no they will
• 20:00
  absolutely do that you're sitting here
• 20:02
  saying hey we don't close we will feed
• 20:04
  everybody out there yeah and you've got a
• 20:06
  unique perspective there because you are
• 20:07
  on the first responder side right right
• 20:09
  and you are on the the barbecue community
• 20:11
  side and like i i'm literally a first
• 20:15
  responder and barbecue communities those
• 20:18
  are two of the tightest knit communities i
• 20:19
  can like just come to mind yeah
• 20:22
  The fact that you can double dip in
• 20:23
  both of those and be able to serve
• 20:25
  your brothers and sisters and still be
• 20:28
  able to look at the wife and say,
• 20:29
  Hey, we're going to be okay.
• 20:31
  Not sure what this looks like.
• 20:32
  And then you've got all these people step
• 20:33
  up.
• 20:33
  That's just, I'm getting chill bumps.
• 20:36
  Nobody can tell, but like, that's,
• 20:37
  that's phenomenal stuff that just,
• 20:39
  you're proud to hear of things and not
• 20:41
  just in America,
• 20:42
  but especially in North Carolina,
• 20:43
  your local community.
• 20:44
  That's just what we do.
• 20:45
  That's what we should do.
• 20:46
  Yeah.
• 20:46
  Yeah.
• 20:47
  Yeah.
• 20:48
  I mean, I got, you know,
• 20:49
  some of the ones I can think about
• 20:51
  that helped us out.
• 20:51
  Operation Barbecue Relief offered me food
• 20:53
  a ton of, you know,
• 20:54
  a bunch of different times.
• 20:56
  Unfortunate part about it was they were
• 20:57
  about an hour away and I couldn't get
• 20:59
  to them.
• 21:03
  TMG Pits brought me like five thousand
• 21:05
  dollars worth of product the Saturday
• 21:07
  after the storm.
• 21:08
  So they're only an hour and a half
• 21:10
  drive.
• 21:11
  But if you remember,
• 21:13
  Interstate Forty was washed away.
• 21:14
  Correct.
• 21:15
  So it took them seven hours.
• 21:19
  And they brought me that food.
• 21:20
  They brought two trucks worth of stuff,
• 21:23
  came over here,
• 21:24
  turned right back around and drove back.
• 21:26
  Like blew my mind.
• 21:28
  And so I will never, ever,
• 21:32
  ever buy another smoker brand new from
• 21:35
  anybody else ever.
• 21:38
  Absolutely.
• 21:38
  I don't care if it's,
• 21:41
  I think their products are the best,
• 21:43
  but I will never,
• 21:44
  ever buy another brand new product from
• 21:46
  anyone else ever.
• 21:48
  just because of that you know they helped
• 21:50
  me when i was down and uh they
• 21:52
  were there for my community you know they
• 21:54
  didn't have to do that like you said
• 21:55
  absolutely um john g's barbecue in
• 21:57
  charlotte uh brought me uh wood and like
• 22:02
  twenty five gallons of gas um because gas
• 22:04
  was a pretty big issue a couple days
• 22:06
  later um uh gypsy pig i think is
• 22:10
  the name of the business it's also the
• 22:12
  same guy that runs um
• 22:14
  Clever and Blade, social media,
• 22:16
  they brought us a check down to help,
• 22:19
  you know, just continue to give out food.
• 22:21
  And my goal was I was just going
• 22:23
  to give away food until we ran out
• 22:24
  of money and figure out the rest from
• 22:26
  there because there was no business to be
• 22:28
  had.
• 22:29
  Credit card machines weren't working.
• 22:30
  There was no Internet.
• 22:31
  There was no cell phone service.
• 22:32
  There wasn't.
• 22:33
  You know,
• 22:33
  like I told people they could give cash
• 22:36
  if they wanted to.
• 22:36
  If they didn't want to,
• 22:38
  they're still going to get fed.
• 22:39
  And in that moment,
• 22:40
  you're not worried about the business.
• 22:42
  That's right.
• 22:42
  You've got a countryman that you're just
• 22:44
  trying to take care of.
• 22:46
  That's right.
• 22:46
  That's beautiful, man.
• 22:47
  Yeah.
• 22:48
  So we survived it.
• 22:49
  You know, we took out some money.
• 22:52
  SBA kind of came in with some no
• 22:53
  interest loans.
• 22:54
  And if it hadn't been for that,
• 22:56
  we'd have probably had to close the doors.
• 22:58
  Also paired with Duke Power is our local
• 23:02
  power provider in our area in the
• 23:04
  Carolinas.
• 23:05
  And they contracted us for about a week
• 23:08
  to provide meals to all the linemen that
• 23:11
  were in the area.
• 23:13
  We had like fifty thousand people without
• 23:14
  power and who would or no.
• 23:17
  No, it was like twenty thousand people,
• 23:19
  I believe, without power.
• 23:20
  About half the county didn't have power.
• 23:23
  And we fed them for about a week
• 23:25
  straight.
• 23:26
  And if it hadn't been for people giving
• 23:30
  us donations to be able to give out
• 23:32
  to our community from all over the
• 23:34
  country,
• 23:34
  along with Duke power and all these other
• 23:37
  people that stepped up for us,
• 23:39
  there's no way it would have met it.
• 23:41
  No way.
• 23:42
  That's just, uh, I mean,
• 23:44
  we've had several people on the last few
• 23:46
  weeks that just the,
• 23:47
  the story of community just keeps coming
• 23:49
  back and, and,
• 23:51
  I saw a good friend of Charlie's this
• 23:53
  morning, Sean Walshelf,
• 23:54
  had put out a new post.
• 23:56
  And the two things that just kept coming
• 23:58
  out were community and storytelling and
• 24:00
  hospitality.
• 24:00
  And I just like just the fact that
• 24:03
  you can reminisce on that so quick and
• 24:05
  know that we're just pumping out food for
• 24:07
  people that need it.
• 24:08
  It doesn't matter about business at that
• 24:09
  point.
• 24:09
  And the people jump in and, uh,
• 24:10
  I appreciate you sharing that, but that,
• 24:14
  I want to let you let Helene go.
• 24:15
  Cause I know everybody else wants to let
• 24:17
  go.
• 24:19
  There's an important part in that that
• 24:20
  needs to be, so I'm glad for that.
• 24:23
  So yeah, very much.
• 24:24
  Yeah.
• 24:24
  And our area wasn't as ravaged as like
• 24:26
  Asheville.
• 24:27
  So I think there was, um, you know,
• 24:29
  and I don't want to take away from
• 24:30
  the deaths that we did have.
• 24:31
  I think we had five community deaths in
• 24:33
  our, in our community, but you know,
• 24:35
  as the area as a whole,
• 24:36
  there was two hundred,
• 24:37
  You know,
• 24:38
  so it's twenty twenty twenty one.
• 24:40
  Hurricane Fred kind of was a mini Helene
• 24:43
  for us.
• 24:44
  So our county was a little bit better
• 24:45
  prepared than than the other areas because
• 24:49
  we had just been through it in twenty
• 24:50
  one.
• 24:50
  So on the first responder side, do y'all.
• 24:53
  take a look at those things now you've
• 24:55
  had a bigger storm fred's yeah a little
• 24:57
  bit whatever do we put protocols in place
• 25:01
  now that now include things like food
• 25:04
  because we know that that is a stepping
• 25:06
  stone in that or do we strictly focus
• 25:09
  on public safety
• 25:11
  Yeah,
• 25:11
  so that's something I'm kind of actually
• 25:13
  proactively working on on our food trailer
• 25:15
  side of the business.
• 25:17
  I'm trying my best to get attached to
• 25:19
  some of these emergency management
• 25:22
  facilities.
• 25:23
  I'm trying to get prepositioned contracts
• 25:26
  done.
• 25:27
  because not only do they have some of
• 25:32
  the funds to be able to do that,
• 25:33
  but it would also help some of these
• 25:35
  local businesses that would be hurting in
• 25:37
  this time period.
• 25:38
  So instead of hurting in this time period,
• 25:40
  they can also thrive.
• 25:42
  So I'm currently working through some
• 25:44
  contracts and topping up contracts and
• 25:48
  getting a hold of emergency management in
• 25:50
  the area because that's where the money
• 25:51
  comes from is emergency management because
• 25:53
  that comes from the federal government.
• 25:55
  And then it hits the state and then
• 25:57
  the state government.
• 25:58
  There has to be a federal declaration to
• 26:01
  be able to access those emergency
• 26:03
  management funds.
• 26:05
  But that's actually something I'm actually
• 26:08
  proactively working on right now is trying
• 26:10
  to make pre-positioned contracts with our
• 26:13
  emergency management.
• 26:13
  I love that.
• 26:16
  yeah well switching gears for uh for a
• 26:19
  second here we uh we have a segment
• 26:22
  on every show that we call dinner for
• 26:23
  two and i think some of the stuff
• 26:27
  you've been through um i'll be interested
• 26:30
  to hear what your answer is but if
• 26:32
  you could go back and have dinner with
• 26:35
  anyone past present or future who would it
• 26:38
  be and why probably billy graham
• 26:46
  And I would be really curious on how
• 26:53
  he stayed such a strong, true,
• 26:57
  like valuable Christian and such a good
• 27:00
  man his whole life.
• 27:03
  Even with all the fame,
• 27:05
  like he had plenty of fame,
• 27:07
  plenty of followers,
• 27:08
  plenty of opportunity to go astray.
• 27:11
  But I'm really curious what kept him so
• 27:14
  strong,
• 27:14
  other than his relationship with God,
• 27:16
  obviously.
• 27:18
  I feel like there has to be more
• 27:21
  to the manly body.
• 27:23
  to, uh, to stay that strong, you know,
• 27:25
  obviously a good, a good, you know,
• 27:27
  godly relationship and, and, uh, a strong,
• 27:31
  valuable relationship with his wife and
• 27:32
  his kids and his family.
• 27:34
  But I mean,
• 27:35
  you see that a lot where there's a
• 27:36
  good, strong family guy, you know?
• 27:40
  So, um,
• 27:42
  Doesn't, doesn't his company have a, um,
• 27:48
  a launching off point in North Carolina?
• 27:50
  I may be.
• 27:52
  Yeah.
• 27:52
  What's that called?
• 27:53
  Yeah.
• 27:54
  Uh, there's a couple there is, um, uh,
• 27:57
  I'm trying to think of the one, um,
• 28:02
  Billy Graham libraries in Charlotte.
• 28:05
  There's the cove that's right near us in
• 28:07
  black mountain,
• 28:07
  but then Samaritan's purse is also a
• 28:10
  Samaritan's purse is like a first.
• 28:12
  They were a huge asset in our area.
• 28:14
  Absolutely.
• 28:16
  Huge.
• 28:18
  I've got a friend of mine that works
• 28:19
  with them.
• 28:20
  And when he first started describing some
• 28:22
  of the stuff now he was involved with
• 28:24
  them even in, in, in, in, in, in,
• 28:25
  in, in,
• 28:28
  He lives there in North Carolina.
• 28:30
  His wife was without power for fourteen,
• 28:34
  eighteen days, whatever the number was.
• 28:35
  And he's out with Samaritan's Purse.
• 28:38
  And so I'm impressed with with just how
• 28:41
  that so many people can be selfless within
• 28:43
  that.
• 28:44
  But that's right.
• 28:45
  Because that's that's a unique aspect
• 28:47
  that.
• 28:48
  Yeah.
• 28:48
  because I think Billy Graham being an
• 28:50
  older generation so many people kind of
• 28:53
  lose sight of who he is because a
• 28:54
  lot of people think about Franklin Graham
• 28:56
  now his son yeah yeah being more current
• 28:58
  but um I'm going to age myself a
• 29:01
  little bit here I remember watching you
• 29:03
  know Billy Graham or my mom would have
• 29:05
  him on and I'm too young to really
• 29:06
  know what's going on but you see all
• 29:08
  these people in the stadium and like
• 29:09
  something doesn't quite add up but he was
• 29:13
  able to do it time after time after
• 29:14
  time and
• 29:15
  Yeah.
• 29:15
  Uh, Samaritan's purse.
• 29:16
  I've just been impressed with how they,
• 29:18
  their response team, my,
• 29:19
  my friends on the medical side of things.
• 29:21
  Um, and,
• 29:22
  and so that is a unique aspect to
• 29:24
  have that they're local to North Carolina.
• 29:26
  So yeah, that's a good one.
• 29:28
  Yeah.
• 29:28
  Very well done.
• 29:29
  Well done.
• 29:30
  What'd you, what'd you think of, uh,
• 29:32
  since we're going down this road,
• 29:33
  what'd you think of Kevin Costner special?
• 29:37
  I don't know if I've seen it,
• 29:39
  to be honest with you.
• 29:40
  Okay.
• 29:42
  I don't watch a lot of TV.
• 29:44
  I'm not a huge media.
• 29:47
  I don't have any personal social media
• 29:49
  either.
• 29:50
  So I don't watch.
• 29:51
  I don't have time for TV.
• 29:52
  What was the actual name of it, Derry?
• 29:55
  Do you remember the name of the whole
• 29:56
  special?
• 29:57
  Trent, do you remember it?
• 29:58
  No.
• 29:59
  We had like a half episode about it.
• 30:01
  We sure did.
• 30:04
  The first Christmas.
• 30:05
  That was what it was called.
• 30:06
  The first Christmas.
• 30:07
  I'll have to watch it.
• 30:09
  It was a unique aspect from not just
• 30:14
  the biblical standpoint.
• 30:15
  You kind of see Joseph's aspect and some
• 30:17
  of the importance of it and Mary's aspect
• 30:20
  and the part that she played in it.
• 30:23
  It was unique,
• 30:24
  but I think fundamentally coming back to
• 30:26
  where
• 30:27
  so much of what America as a whole
• 30:31
  thinks about Christmas when Christmas time
• 30:34
  is on.
• 30:34
  Yeah, it's a very unique perspective.
• 30:38
  And of course, Kevin Costner,
• 30:40
  I think he does going to that directorial
• 30:42
  role.
• 30:43
  He has done a good job with it
• 30:44
  and kind of just that different spin.
• 30:46
  But I think I don't this is really
• 30:49
  going to date me.
• 30:50
  I remember when Billy Graham's crusade or
• 30:52
  whatever they called it back then came to
• 30:54
  Nissan Stadium.
• 30:55
  oh yeah and that place was packed out
• 30:57
  and that was like thirty years ago now
• 30:59
  so yeah pretty wild i was back when
• 31:02
  nissan first opened it was it was yeah
• 31:05
  now we're talking about opening the second
• 31:06
  the second stadium the second it's still
• 31:09
  going to be nissan stadium in it i
• 31:10
  have i'm sure it will or until somebody
• 31:12
  writes a bigger check so this is true
• 31:14
  that's that's how that works that is
• 31:16
  exactly how that works have you seen the
• 31:18
  pictures of it
• 31:20
  The new one?
• 31:20
  Yes.
• 31:21
  They're over halfway done now.
• 31:22
  It's starting to really take shape.
• 31:25
  I'm telling you,
• 31:26
  if we are not on Super Bowl list
• 31:28
  year one, it better be year two.
• 31:32
  We know National throws a party.
• 31:34
  That is going to be phenomenal.
• 31:36
  We have the draft.
• 31:37
  That's what I'm saying.
• 31:39
  Tell me,
• 31:40
  and I don't know that people stay that
• 31:42
  involved with it,
• 31:42
  but a better draft week leading up to
• 31:46
  it and stuff.
• 31:47
  Nashville just,
• 31:47
  they hit all the check marks.
• 31:49
  They just, like I said,
• 31:50
  they know how to throw a gig.
• 31:51
  I mean, we could have the Super Bowl,
• 31:54
  the first round pick in the draft while
• 31:57
  hosting the draft in Nashville.
• 32:00
  Easy now.
• 32:00
  Wouldn't that be great?
• 32:02
  Just because we've got ninety nine million
• 32:03
  dollars worth of cap space doesn't mean
• 32:04
  we'll.
• 32:05
  We're going to blow it.
• 32:05
  We'll see.
• 32:08
  We'll be right there.
• 32:10
  I think they ought to go to the
• 32:11
  MLS and see if they can find kickers.
• 32:17
  oh they they've been doing pretty good i'm
• 32:21
  aren't there a handful in the league
• 32:22
  already that are doing great yeah so the
• 32:25
  seahawks kicker is a mls and rugby kicker
• 32:29
  i knew he's the rugby style or the
• 32:31
  punter was yeah the punter yeah yeah so
• 32:34
  those guys are wild they they had a
• 32:36
  whole whole different what do i know i
• 32:37
  cook barbecue for a little
• 32:41
  Oh, me.
• 32:44
  Look,
• 32:45
  I wanted the Patriots to win so bad
• 32:47
  just so I could put on Facebook,
• 32:52
  good call, Amy Adams.
• 32:56
  You would have been a long line.
• 32:57
  You know, I mean,
• 32:58
  he's just the best coach in the NFL
• 33:02
  right now.
• 33:04
  Whatever.
• 33:05
  He was on our roster,
• 33:07
  if you say it like that.
• 33:08
  Yeah.
• 33:11
  So, uh, Ben,
• 33:12
  tell me a little bit about how we'll,
• 33:14
  we'll get off of the super bowl and
• 33:16
  all that stuff.
• 33:17
  Cause that's going to go down another
• 33:18
  rabbit hole, but, um,
• 33:21
  tell me how you go from,
• 33:23
  I know you had the food truck,
• 33:25
  you were doing that.
• 33:26
  You had the fire,
• 33:28
  the fire happened before the restaurant,
• 33:30
  right?
• 33:31
  That's right.
• 33:32
  Yep.
• 33:32
  Yeah.
• 33:32
  So that happened in July of twenty four.
• 33:35
  So how do you go from July of,
• 33:38
  from there moving forward?
• 33:39
  How do you go?
• 33:40
  Okay.
• 33:40
  We just burnt down a trailer.
• 33:42
  Yeah.
• 33:43
  Now let's, let's,
• 33:44
  let's spend some more money and open a
• 33:46
  restaurant.
• 33:46
  Yeah.
• 33:47
  Yeah.
• 33:48
  So, um, it wasn't the bed.
• 33:51
  I'm, I'm a huge, uh,
• 33:52
  Dave Ramsey fan too.
• 33:53
  So it wasn't a huge,
• 33:55
  it wasn't a really good Dave Ramsey
• 33:57
  decision.
• 33:59
  Um,
• 34:00
  But I drove by a building that I
• 34:04
  know used to be a restaurant and it
• 34:07
  was in an area that needs food.
• 34:10
  They're building a ton of homes in this
• 34:12
  area right now.
• 34:13
  And matter of fact,
• 34:13
  it used to be a barbecue restaurant back
• 34:15
  in the late nineties, early two thousands.
• 34:18
  And so I contacted the guy that I
• 34:21
  know that used to own it.
• 34:24
  He said, I don't own it anymore.
• 34:25
  These other, other folks do.
• 34:27
  So I called him and I must've just
• 34:28
  hit it just right.
• 34:29
  Because there was like six or eight people
• 34:31
  that called after me, um,
• 34:33
  after they found out they bought it.
• 34:34
  So, um, we found it.
• 34:37
  Rent was right.
• 34:38
  Problem was I didn't have any money to
• 34:41
  buy the things for the restaurant.
• 34:44
  So we maxed out three credit cards,
• 34:46
  but I seen the opportunity for it to
• 34:48
  work.
• 34:49
  Um,
• 34:51
  And I knew that we had just went
• 34:52
  through the worst year we could possibly
• 34:54
  ever go through.
• 34:56
  So December of twenty five.
• 35:00
  Let's see.
• 35:02
  December of twenty four.
• 35:03
  I'm sorry.
• 35:04
  We found the building,
• 35:05
  which is right after Helene.
• 35:08
  The economic impact from Helene, you know,
• 35:10
  messed the whole food truck world up.
• 35:12
  The Asheville market,
• 35:13
  which is where we were at.
• 35:16
  And I found the restaurant.
• 35:19
  I knew we needed another restaurant in the
• 35:21
  area and I set a date for March
• 35:23
  first.
• 35:23
  So we got the keys in December and
• 35:27
  I said, let's try to make this work.
• 35:30
  And we maxed out three credit cards and
• 35:32
  I had just made a mental note.
• 35:34
  I was like, well, if it doesn't work.
• 35:35
  I'll just go back to the fire department
• 35:36
  full time and figure out how to pay
• 35:38
  this stuff off.
• 35:39
  So we can see forty six three thousand
• 35:43
  square foot building rents.
• 35:44
  Right.
• 35:45
  And when we opened, we were so busy.
• 35:50
  I didn't know what to do.
• 35:52
  We were having we were we didn't have
• 35:54
  enough smoker space.
• 35:56
  I didn't have the rotisserie yet.
• 35:57
  So I was cooking all I could literally
• 36:00
  cook.
• 36:00
  And the food truck also had a full
• 36:01
  time schedule, too.
• 36:03
  So we were running around like crazy.
• 36:06
  I think our first like March or April
• 36:12
  was like a hundred thousand dollar month,
• 36:14
  which was insane.
• 36:16
  The most we had ever done.
• 36:17
  The most we had ever done was like
• 36:19
  sixty.
• 36:20
  You weren't open seven days a week either.
• 36:22
  No, this is three.
• 36:24
  Three days a week.
• 36:25
  Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
• 36:26
  Whoa.
• 36:26
  Okay.
• 36:27
  Yeah.
• 36:28
  Yeah.
• 36:29
  So it was insane.
• 36:31
  Where the brick and mortar is?
• 36:33
  Yeah.
• 36:34
  Where's the actual address of the brick
• 36:36
  and mortar?
• 36:36
  So it's thirty twenty eight Jonathan Creek
• 36:38
  Road in Waynesville, North Carolina.
• 36:39
  So it's three miles from Interstate forty.
• 36:43
  We're off of exit twenty.
• 36:46
  I think Trent's putting you in his map
• 36:49
  so that he ventures back home.
• 36:51
  He's going to dip in.
• 36:53
  He's putting it in ways to see if
• 36:54
  he can get there by the time you
• 36:55
  close.
• 36:59
  Yeah,
• 36:59
  it was for about six months we were
• 37:01
  so busy.
• 37:03
  I didn't know what to do because
• 37:05
  We were going through probably eighteen to
• 37:08
  twenty pork butts a day,
• 37:10
  ten to fifteen briskets,
• 37:12
  twenty racks ribs.
• 37:13
  It was just insane.
• 37:14
  I've never been through this volume
• 37:16
  before.
• 37:17
  But I think part of it was the
• 37:18
  community was paying us back for what we
• 37:20
  had done previously.
• 37:23
  And then on top of that, people...
• 37:26
  I think truly have craved a really good
• 37:28
  barbecue restaurant in our area that cooks
• 37:30
  with all wood.
• 37:32
  There's not many.
• 37:34
  And it's so sad in North Carolina.
• 37:36
  So many people are cooking with gas.
• 37:38
  And I'm not saying there's anything wrong
• 37:39
  with that.
• 37:40
  It ain't just North Carolina, Ben.
• 37:41
  It's all over the country.
• 37:43
  That's right.
• 37:44
  Is it purely a convenience thing?
• 37:46
  It's a cost.
• 37:47
  I think so.
• 37:50
  Yeah.
• 37:50
  Yeah.
• 37:50
  You got to think.
• 37:50
  So like they're costing can be used both.
• 37:51
  Yeah.
• 37:52
  They're using the,
• 37:54
  the rotisseries like Ben's talking about
• 37:56
  and the gas assisted.
• 37:57
  Okay.
• 37:58
  So you got to think, man, I could,
• 38:01
  I could probably cut out probably five
• 38:06
  thousand dollars a month worth of labor.
• 38:07
  Yeah.
• 38:08
  Wow.
• 38:09
  So, and then on top of that,
• 38:11
  like the pit, the rotisserie he's got,
• 38:13
  plus the one that I,
• 38:15
  that I've been looking at it, Eminem,
• 38:17
  it cuts back on the amount of wood
• 38:19
  you use as well.
• 38:20
  So when I go through a cord,
• 38:22
  you know,
• 38:23
  I'm probably going through a cord every,
• 38:27
  every two weeks, you know,
• 38:29
  I probably go through a cord in a
• 38:31
  month.
• 38:31
  Yep.
• 38:32
  That's where we're at right now.
• 38:33
  About a month.
• 38:35
  Yep.
• 38:35
  Yeah.
• 38:36
  Okay.
• 38:36
  I had no idea there was that much
• 38:38
  difference.
• 38:39
  You know,
• 38:39
  and in the way the woods going,
• 38:41
  I mean,
• 38:41
  you're talking about over the course of a
• 38:42
  year, you're talking about seventy five,
• 38:44
  eighty thousand dollars worth of savings.
• 38:45
  Yeah.
• 38:46
  So if I spend thirty five thousand dollars
• 38:48
  on a smoker,
• 38:49
  it's going to pay for itself in six
• 38:51
  months.
• 38:51
  Wow.
• 38:52
  That's it.
• 38:53
  I would never.
• 38:55
  See, that's the stuff I love,
• 38:57
  the non-entrepreneur,
• 38:58
  the person who's not involved in this.
• 39:00
  We drive by your restaurant.
• 39:01
  We sit big blue sitting out there.
• 39:03
  Somebody's stoking the fire.
• 39:05
  I'm like, eh, well, no big deal.
• 39:06
  So that's a unique aspect.
• 39:09
  The problem when you get those
• 39:10
  gas-assisted smokers is the flavor of the
• 39:13
  barbecue completely changes.
• 39:14
  Yeah, it's more acidic.
• 39:16
  It's a dirtier smoke.
• 39:18
  Yeah.
• 39:18
  You got to think about it from a
• 39:19
  standpoint of, um, it's, it's, it's like,
• 39:25
  it's like using liquid smoke in your oven.
• 39:27
  Yep.
• 39:29
  Like, I mean, I mean,
• 39:30
  I'm not trying to be an a-hole when
• 39:31
  I say that, but that's literally a thing.
• 39:33
  Oh, it's a thing.
• 39:34
  I know it is,
• 39:35
  but like nobody takes that seriously.
• 39:38
  They should.
• 39:38
  Yeah.
• 39:38
  I'm sorry.
• 39:40
  I know.
• 39:40
  I know barbecue joints that do that for
• 39:42
  their ribs.
• 39:42
  Oh, come on.
• 39:43
  They put them in a hotel pan with
• 39:45
  some water and liquid smoke and cover it
• 39:47
  up with plastic wrap and aluminum foil and
• 39:50
  smoke them quote unquote in their oven.
• 39:54
  Well, you know how I know that?
• 39:56
  Cause I used to work there.
• 39:57
  Oh man.
• 39:58
  That's so hurts my heart a little bit.
• 40:00
  They shouldn't be able to claim that.
• 40:02
  And they call them smoked ribs,
• 40:03
  but they're not.
• 40:05
  And there's,
• 40:05
  there's joints that do that and they're
• 40:08
  busy.
• 40:09
  Oh yeah.
• 40:10
  And it like, you know, there's,
• 40:12
  I can't tell you how many people have
• 40:13
  came to our restaurant and they tell us
• 40:14
  all the time,
• 40:15
  that's the best barbecue I've ever had in
• 40:17
  my life.
• 40:18
  And I just kind of look at them
• 40:19
  like they're crazy.
• 40:20
  And I'm like,
• 40:21
  It's not anything that we're doing.
• 40:23
  We're not reinventing the wheel.
• 40:24
  It's just salt, pepper.
• 40:27
  It's no crap.
• 40:28
  It's no gimmicks.
• 40:30
  It's all wood.
• 40:31
  It's being committed to the intentionality
• 40:33
  of doing it simple,
• 40:35
  doing the simple things correctly,
• 40:37
  and doing them well.
• 40:38
  Yeah, that's right.
• 40:39
  That's what it boils down to.
• 40:41
  Look, we make our own sausage,
• 40:42
  and I'm getting obsessive about this
• 40:44
  sausage.
• 40:45
  It's really kind of bad.
• 40:48
  I was measuring my sausage links today
• 40:50
  with a ruler.
• 40:50
  Yeah.
• 40:53
  Seriously.
• 40:54
  Like I wanted them all to be the
• 40:55
  exact same.
• 40:56
  Can we give a quick applause for no
• 40:58
  awkward pauses during that?
• 40:59
  You got it all out.
• 41:00
  Well said that would have been,
• 41:01
  that would have been a mess.
• 41:06
  They were all,
• 41:07
  they were all six inches at least
• 41:10
  somewhere.
• 41:11
  And yeah, I can't sell sausage.
• 41:16
  I've I've put it on our menu a
• 41:18
  bunch.
• 41:18
  And for some reason in our area,
• 41:21
  sausage does not move.
• 41:23
  Man, I tell you, we, when I opened,
• 41:27
  when I started on the food truck,
• 41:28
  I bought sausage.
• 41:29
  Yeah.
• 41:30
  Um, and quite frankly,
• 41:32
  I'm not good at making sausage.
• 41:34
  I finally developed a recipe that I really
• 41:36
  like.
• 41:37
  Um,
• 41:38
  and it's got all the flavors that I
• 41:40
  want and it's exactly what I would like
• 41:42
  in a jalapeno cheddar sausage.
• 41:43
  Um, and I,
• 41:47
  I tried for years to find one that
• 41:50
  would taste it like what I make today
• 41:53
  and couldn't find it.
• 41:54
  And we sold.
• 41:56
  i probably sold twenty to forty pounds of
• 41:58
  sausage a week nothing crazy um since
• 42:03
  we've started making our own sausage and
• 42:06
  and really got the flavor that matched the
• 42:09
  rest of my barbecue and the whole nine
• 42:11
  yards right uh i sold fifty pounds of
• 42:14
  sausage this weekend
• 42:16
  Wow.
• 42:16
  Like, I mean, Saturday alone,
• 42:19
  we sold twenty nine pounds of sausage.
• 42:21
  Wow.
• 42:22
  Wow.
• 42:22
  So, like, I mean, it's it's it's nuts.
• 42:25
  Yeah.
• 42:25
  You know, I mean,
• 42:26
  I'm selling so much sausage.
• 42:27
  I broke my stuffer.
• 42:29
  Wow.
• 42:31
  you're supposed to buy industrial grade i
• 42:33
  did it's a commercial stuffer it holds
• 42:37
  twenty five pounds all right well like i
• 42:41
  mean it's it's it's not the big you
• 42:43
  know the big huge ones but yeah it's
• 42:46
  um i have man i've been i found
• 42:48
  the more detailed we get with our food
• 42:50
  and i don't know if you feel the
• 42:51
  same but
• 42:53
  We've even gotten to where we make our
• 42:55
  own pickles.
• 42:56
  The only thing I don't make is my
• 42:58
  curly fries.
• 43:01
  Everything else we make.
• 43:01
  We make the ranch, finally,
• 43:03
  because my co-host over here,
• 43:06
  his wife didn't like my ranch,
• 43:07
  so I started making my own ranch.
• 43:10
  I like that she's the easy target.
• 43:12
  There's no way in the world she was
• 43:13
  the only one.
• 43:14
  It's just because she's the easy target.
• 43:16
  It's just because I'm next to you.
• 43:20
  I've had more than one person tell me
• 43:21
  they don't like my ranch.
• 43:22
  everybody else was just saying it's fine
• 43:24
  it's yes yeah it's fine well you got
• 43:26
  that bottle with the green cap over there
• 43:28
  i'll bring it i hate that response it's
• 43:30
  yeah i did like though that you asked
• 43:32
  do we uh when we were there before
• 43:34
  you started my grant she was like you
• 43:35
  got ranch we have an alabama white sauce
• 43:38
  i was like those are not a substitute
• 43:42
  i love your alabama white sauce it's not
• 43:43
  a substitute though so look when we opened
• 43:48
  When we opened,
• 43:49
  and there's a question coming for you out
• 43:50
  of this, Ben, I promise.
• 43:52
  When we opened,
• 43:55
  I wasn't going to have ranch.
• 43:58
  You told me you were dead set on
• 44:00
  not having ranch.
• 44:00
  I was dead set on not having ranch.
• 44:04
  I was going to have my white sauce
• 44:06
  was going to be the ranch.
• 44:07
  If you wanted a cream sauce,
• 44:09
  that's what it was going to be.
• 44:10
  Right.
• 44:10
  So I, so I say that,
• 44:14
  was there anything that you did from going
• 44:17
  from the food truck to the restaurant that
• 44:20
  you were dead set on?
• 44:21
  Hey,
• 44:21
  I'm not doing that to now you look
• 44:24
  back and go, well, that was stupid.
• 44:25
  I should have done this a long time
• 44:26
  ago and changed.
• 44:28
  Yes.
• 44:28
  Yep.
• 44:30
  Yeah.
• 44:30
  I was dead.
• 44:31
  Number one,
• 44:32
  I was dead set on not opening a
• 44:33
  brick and mortar.
• 44:34
  Yeah.
• 44:38
  Yeah.
• 44:40
  I had to eat my words a lot,
• 44:41
  a lot, a lot.
• 44:43
  Everybody came up to say, you know,
• 44:45
  you said you weren't going to do this.
• 44:46
  And I was like, well, I was wrong.
• 44:52
  Secondly,
• 44:52
  I always said I would never have a
• 44:55
  fryers or French fries in my restaurant.
• 44:58
  Um,
• 45:00
  And I was just curious one day.
• 45:01
  I had an old fry cutter in one
• 45:03
  of our storage boxes.
• 45:04
  I got it out,
• 45:05
  and I cut some fries for lunch one
• 45:07
  day.
• 45:07
  We were working at the restaurant getting
• 45:09
  it ready to get open.
• 45:10
  And I was like, okay,
• 45:13
  I got to add these to the menu.
• 45:14
  It's hand-cut fries and beef tallow.
• 45:19
  There's nothing that beats it whatsoever.
• 45:23
  I've gained thirty pounds since we opened
• 45:25
  the brick and mortar because of hand-cut.
• 45:28
  Look, we,
• 45:30
  we sell a curly fry that I,
• 45:32
  if I took off my menu,
• 45:33
  I'd probably be getting shot for doing so,
• 45:36
  but we,
• 45:36
  we do fry them and be fat.
• 45:38
  So, you know, that's, you can't, uh,
• 45:40
  you can't go wrong with beef.
• 45:41
  Somebody asked me the other day,
• 45:42
  why my chicken tenders were so good.
• 45:44
  And I just, the answer was simple.
• 45:46
  If you fry anything and be fat,
• 45:48
  it's going to be better.
• 45:49
  That's right.
• 45:49
  Yeah.
• 45:51
  It's pretty delicious.
• 45:53
  So, um,
• 45:54
  look every uh every everybody that comes
• 45:57
  on our show we ask uh the same
• 45:59
  question and when you are sitting down to
• 46:03
  have a meal in your barbecue joint or
• 46:05
  you go to another barbecue joint um you
• 46:09
  get your protein and and everybody has
• 46:12
  their protein whether it's the pork or the
• 46:13
  smoked chicken or turkey or sausage or
• 46:15
  brisket whatever we all typically go to
• 46:18
  the same thing right yeah and
• 46:20
  um but the sides never vary right you
• 46:26
  you may feel like turkey one day and
• 46:28
  brisket the next but the sides are always
• 46:30
  typically the same yeah so do you get
• 46:33
  the mac and cheese or do you get
• 46:35
  the beans mac and cheese
• 46:40
  I feel like we're leaning on the mac
• 46:42
  and cheese side recently.
• 46:44
  We are.
• 46:44
  We're taking a turn.
• 46:46
  The problem whenever somebody says mac and
• 46:47
  cheese now is I go back to Andrew
• 46:51
  Gruel's response.
• 46:53
  And, you know,
• 46:53
  we had him on the show.
• 46:56
  He's a guest spot on Fox TV.
• 46:58
  And like we he was like,
• 47:00
  why do I want to get a side
• 47:02
  that deteriorates the longer and sit
• 47:04
  there?
• 47:04
  And I don't know how long it's been
• 47:05
  sitting there.
• 47:06
  And I was like,
• 47:07
  I've never once considered that that was a
• 47:10
  great response to that.
• 47:12
  And slop and plop.
• 47:14
  That, right, yeah.
• 47:15
  And now here's the problem.
• 47:18
  I will judge a restaurant's mac and cheese
• 47:22
  by how long I think it's been sitting
• 47:23
  there once I try it off the plate.
• 47:26
  and i also think it has influenced my
• 47:28
  answer i have heavily gone toward the
• 47:30
  beans yeah maybe because of that answer
• 47:33
  and i wish he hadn't ruined it for
• 47:34
  me so but cheese is simple for everybody
• 47:38
  though we all know what that's supposed to
• 47:40
  be like if you make if you make
• 47:42
  a good mac and cheese and it's and
• 47:45
  and the noodles are al dente when you
• 47:47
  cook them in the whole nine yards and
• 47:48
  it's fresh and you keep it fresh
• 47:50
  throughout the day
• 47:52
  It's phenomenal.
• 47:54
  It's really good.
• 47:55
  But if you put a bucket of mac
• 47:57
  and cheese in a steam table and let
• 47:59
  it sit there for five hours with a
• 48:02
  lid on it, it's like Gruel said,
• 48:07
  it's slap and plop.
• 48:08
  It is slop and plop.
• 48:10
  It's gross.
• 48:11
  I don't get this opportunity often,
• 48:13
  so I'm going to ask both of you.
• 48:13
  My wife is wanting me to try a
• 48:15
  new mac and cheese recipe,
• 48:17
  and that terrifies me because that's how
• 48:19
  you mess things up.
• 48:21
  She wants mac and cheese with a seasoning.
• 48:24
  Okay.
• 48:25
  What seasoning do I need to add to
• 48:27
  that macaroni and cheese?
• 48:28
  Don't tell me salt and pepper.
• 48:29
  I already do that.
• 48:32
  Fiesta season it all.
• 48:35
  What?
• 48:35
  Fiesta season at all.
• 48:39
  That's a good one.
• 48:40
  All right.
• 48:40
  That's a good one.
• 48:40
  That's what we put in ours.
• 48:43
  Yeah.
• 48:43
  And I wouldn't be real.
• 48:44
  This was rooted in some social media video
• 48:48
  she saw.
• 48:48
  So what I was like,
• 48:50
  I need this macaroni and cheese.
• 48:51
  And I'm like, now I have a.
• 48:53
  my problem would be are you making the
• 48:54
  macaroni from scratch absolutely okay so
• 48:56
  like you're you're making a cheese sauce
• 48:58
  yes make the roux dump it all in
• 49:00
  like do the thing like what cheeses are
• 49:02
  you putting in it i'm gonna put a
• 49:04
  white cheese and a mild cheddar and then
• 49:07
  probably like a pepper jack kind of thing
• 49:10
  okay so it's gonna have a little spice
• 49:12
  nope not pepper colby jack okay um are
• 49:17
  you using heavy whipping cream
• 49:20
  I hadn't planned to,
• 49:20
  but I can if I need to.
• 49:21
  Okay.
• 49:22
  I'm telling you, she is.
• 49:23
  Look,
• 49:24
  I feel like I'm going to be on
• 49:25
  the chopping block.
• 49:26
  I'm going to mess this up.
• 49:27
  It's either going to be phenomenal or it's
• 49:29
  going to be awful.
• 49:30
  So, look, you know me.
• 49:31
  I'm a very simple person when it comes
• 49:33
  to recipe building.
• 49:35
  So, like,
• 49:36
  I would tell you I would probably pull
• 49:39
  the Kobe jack and put a pepper jack
• 49:41
  in it.
• 49:41
  Okay.
• 49:42
  And then I would probably put some fresh
• 49:45
  minced garlic.
• 49:46
  Okay.
• 49:47
  Fresh.
• 49:48
  It has to be freshly minced.
• 49:50
  No jar.
• 49:50
  If it's not, no jar crap.
• 49:53
  Like,
• 49:54
  get the actual cloves and mince them up.
• 49:56
  My favorite here lately has been the tube
• 49:58
  squeeze stuff.
• 50:01
  You see a restaurant or a chef,
• 50:02
  throw this in, throw this in,
• 50:04
  add your garlic.
• 50:04
  Pfft.
• 50:07
  Toothpaste garlic.
• 50:08
  Yummy.
• 50:09
  All right.
• 50:11
  Well, delicious.
• 50:12
  I'm going to take you.
• 50:13
  I may have to text you off.
• 50:14
  I'll show off that, but I appreciate you.
• 50:17
  Because I,
• 50:18
  I've been given this task and I don't
• 50:20
  know how I feel about it.
• 50:21
  So yeah.
• 50:21
  And if you were going to describe your
• 50:23
  style of barbecue cooking,
• 50:24
  how would you describe it?
• 50:28
  Probably Texas influenced,
• 50:29
  but with a Carolina twist.
• 50:32
  So we're in a weird part of North
• 50:34
  Carolina where most people eat sweet
• 50:39
  barbecue sauce.
• 50:41
  So we're not a very vinegar heavy place
• 50:45
  being in North Carolina.
• 50:46
  So I would say, you know,
• 50:49
  our normal customer eats pork and chicken.
• 50:53
  We're not a very brisket heavy place,
• 50:55
  but we try our best to have those
• 50:58
  Texas style dishes.
• 51:01
  you know, attributes to what we're doing.
• 51:04
  Um, because I'm not kidding.
• 51:05
  When I took a trip to Austin, Texas,
• 51:06
  it changed my life.
• 51:08
  I had never had a bite of barbecue
• 51:10
  that was so good ever in my life.
• 51:13
  I went to Lewis law barbecue and then
• 51:16
  I,
• 51:16
  I can't for the like life of me,
• 51:19
  remember the name of the one we went
• 51:21
  to near Waco.
• 51:23
  Um, and then we also,
• 51:25
  I really loved Rudy's Rudy's was
• 51:27
  wonderful.
• 51:27
  Um,
• 51:28
  Uh, it was just a little gas station,
• 51:30
  you know,
• 51:30
  that cook with all wood is super simple,
• 51:32
  grab and go.
• 51:33
  And I loved the concept.
• 51:35
  It was, it was,
• 51:36
  there's nothing like that around here at
• 51:39
  all.
• 51:39
  Yeah.
• 51:40
  That's great.
• 51:41
  I love it.
• 51:42
  That is good stuff.
• 51:44
  We, uh, do you do any,
• 51:46
  you ever do any competition barbecue?
• 51:48
  Very little.
• 51:50
  There's two that I do.
• 51:52
  I don't know if I'm going to do
• 51:53
  the wing competition this year,
• 51:54
  but we are hosting a barbecue festival in
• 51:56
  Maggie Valley in November with this
• 51:59
  series.
• 52:00
  So I participate in the whole hog barbecue
• 52:03
  competition series once a year at the
• 52:05
  Mountain State Fair in Asheville,
• 52:08
  mostly because they don't try to reinvent
• 52:11
  the wheel with the next best thing.
• 52:12
  The only three ingredients they let you
• 52:14
  use is salt, oil and baking soda.
• 52:17
  And that's it.
• 52:18
  You you make your your sauce.
• 52:21
  So really and truly your skill with
• 52:24
  trimming the hog and and all of that
• 52:27
  jazz is how they judge you.
• 52:28
  And, you know,
• 52:31
  I really like that competition series
• 52:32
  because you don't have to reinvent the
• 52:34
  best recipe.
• 52:37
  Um, so it's truly just about the cook.
• 52:40
  Um, but I really enjoy that.
• 52:42
  Do one next month.
• 52:43
  And, uh, well,
• 52:46
  by the time this comes out,
• 52:47
  it'll probably be next week, but, um,
• 52:50
  yeah, we're, we're, we are, uh,
• 52:53
  we're excited to, uh,
• 52:54
  go reinvent the wheel of the same thing
• 52:58
  everyone else is doing.
• 52:59
  Yes.
• 53:00
  So I'm just not, um,
• 53:03
  I'm not very classically trained.
• 53:06
  I'm not a good, you know,
• 53:09
  I'm not a chef by no means.
• 53:11
  I'm just a redneck with a smoker,
• 53:12
  and I try to make our products as
• 53:14
  good as possible.
• 53:16
  Aren't we all?
• 53:16
  That's what I'm talking about, baby.
• 53:17
  That's why I like you so much, man.
• 53:18
  Yeah.
• 53:19
  Yeah.
• 53:20
  Look, I have, I have, uh,
• 53:22
  I have a couple of people that work
• 53:23
  for me that are classically trained and,
• 53:25
  and,
• 53:26
  and they are incredible cooks and they
• 53:27
  can, they can throw down.
• 53:29
  Um, and I,
• 53:30
  I picked their brain for all kinds of
• 53:32
  stuff, but they, they, they find it, uh,
• 53:37
  they find it crazy when I say, eh,
• 53:39
  I don't want to do all that.
• 53:40
  Let's keep it simple.
• 53:42
  Just put some salt, pepper,
• 53:43
  and garlic in it and it'll be fine.
• 53:46
  And they're like, no, it needs way more.
• 53:47
  I'm like, eh,
• 53:48
  man,
• 53:48
  let's just try it out and see what
• 53:49
  happens.
• 53:50
  Yep.
• 53:50
  And then we try it and they go,
• 53:51
  that's right.
• 53:51
  That's not bad.
• 53:52
  That's right.
• 53:52
  Okay.
• 53:55
  That's the way it's supposed to be.
• 53:57
  Yeah.
• 53:57
  Yeah.
• 53:57
  Don't fix it.
• 53:58
  We use one cheese in our mac and
• 54:00
  cheese.
• 54:00
  That's it.
• 54:01
  That's outstanding.
• 54:02
  We use Cooper sharp and that's it.
• 54:04
  That's the only cheese we used.
• 54:06
  And Fiesta.
• 54:06
  Yeah.
• 54:06
  Don't forget the Fiesta.
• 54:09
  I'm in.
• 54:10
  I love it.
• 54:11
  It's really milk, mayonnaise,
• 54:13
  Cooper Sharp.
• 54:14
  That's it.
• 54:15
  That's incredible.
• 54:16
  I'm going to try this.
• 54:17
  I bet it's delicious.
• 54:17
  And then if it's thumbs up,
• 54:19
  I will be like, hey,
• 54:20
  thank you so much for your input.
• 54:21
  And if it's thumbs down, I'll be like,
• 54:22
  you'll never hear from me.
• 54:23
  What kind of noodle do you use?
• 54:26
  Kava toffee.
• 54:27
  Ah, my friend.
• 54:28
  I love it.
• 54:29
  See?
• 54:29
  Rednecks.
• 54:30
  We know how to do this.
• 54:32
  Hey, another little trick.
• 54:35
  My distributor sells cavatappi noodles
• 54:38
  almost al dente frozen.
• 54:39
  Oh, my goodness.
• 54:42
  You use U.S.
• 54:43
  foods, don't you?
• 54:43
  I sure do.
• 54:44
  I'll talk to the shop now.
• 54:48
  Rednecks.
• 54:51
  It saves me about
• 54:53
  Forty-five minutes on a pan of mac and
• 54:55
  cheese.
• 54:56
  Uh-huh.
• 54:56
  God, that's impressive.
• 54:57
  It sure does.
• 54:58
  Yeah.
• 54:58
  That is impressive.
• 55:00
  Yep.
• 55:00
  And you start making a batch of mac
• 55:06
  and cheese every single day.
• 55:07
  That adds up.
• 55:08
  Yeah.
• 55:08
  I love it.
• 55:09
  It sure does.
• 55:10
  That's outstanding, man.
• 55:11
  What, uh,
• 55:12
  where can people go to find you get
• 55:15
  your, you know,
• 55:16
  what are your hours of operation?
• 55:18
  You know,
• 55:18
  how do they book the food truck?
• 55:20
  All the, all the gory details of,
• 55:23
  of people wanting to get your barbecue.
• 55:25
  Yeah.
• 55:26
  So we're on the businesses on three
• 55:28
  different smoke, uh,
• 55:29
  social media platforms, Facebook.
• 55:32
  Um, it's just Ben's backdraft barbecue.
• 55:33
  Barbecue is all spelled out, uh,
• 55:35
  with a C, um, uh,
• 55:37
  Instagram is Ben's Backdraft BBQ One.
• 55:41
  And I don't know what our TikTok handle
• 55:42
  is, but we're on TikTok as well.
• 55:44
  You can just search our name.
• 55:46
  And then we have a website,
• 55:47
  Ben's Backdraft BBQ, which is BBQ.com.
• 55:51
  We have an inquiry page where you can
• 55:55
  do anything from have the food trailer all
• 55:58
  the way to cold storage rental.
• 56:02
  Awesome.
• 56:02
  Awesome.
• 56:03
  And then the restaurant,
• 56:04
  I know you said it earlier,
• 56:05
  but just in case people missed it, where,
• 56:07
  where is it located at?
• 56:08
  Yep.
• 56:08
  Yep.
• 56:08
  Yep.
• 56:08
  Yep.
• 56:08
  Yep.
• 56:09
  Yep.
• 56:09
  Yep.
• 56:09
  Yep.
• 56:10
  Yep.
• 56:10
  Yep.
• 56:10
  Yep.
• 56:10
  Yep.
• 56:10
  Yep.
• 56:10
  Yep.
• 56:11
  Yep.
• 56:11
  Yep.
• 56:11
  Yep.
• 56:30
  a ten ounce ground brisket burgers.
• 56:34
  Friday is one dollar smoked fried wings
• 56:37
  and Saturday is brisket burnt ends.
• 56:39
  Love it.
• 56:40
  I love it.
• 56:41
  That is outstanding, man.
• 56:43
  Good deal.
• 56:44
  Darryl,
• 56:44
  you got a Friday to feel good for
• 56:45
  us?
• 56:45
  Always.
• 56:46
  Always.
• 56:46
  If I can get my little notes to
• 56:49
  open up here.
• 56:50
  Winston Churchill has a quote,
• 56:53
  and I think given Ben's background and
• 56:56
  where he was in twenty twenty four and
• 56:57
  just entrepreneurs in general,
• 57:00
  success is not final.
• 57:02
  Failure is not fatal.
• 57:04
  It is the courage to continue that counts.
• 57:07
  Make sure you keep going forward.
• 57:09
  Make sure you don't give up just because
• 57:10
  you hit a trial.
• 57:11
  Y'all know what to do.
• 57:11
  Find somebody you know,
• 57:12
  tell them you love them.
• 57:13
  hard to beat the guy that don't quit
• 57:14
  that's it yep amen to that ben man
• 57:17
  thank you for coming to hang out with
• 57:19
  us today we appreciate it we uh it
• 57:23
  was a pleasure getting to hang out with
• 57:24
  you and talking to you for a little
• 57:25
  while and getting getting the story of
• 57:27
  ben's back draft barbecue out there
• 57:29
  hopefully yeah hopefully we'll hear all
• 57:31
  about it even more i can't wait to
• 57:34
  make a trip and come see you myself
• 57:37
  If I'm even in East Tennessee,
• 57:38
  I'm driving over.
• 57:39
  It's not generally where that's at.
• 57:43
  So we, uh, we do a lot of,
• 57:46
  uh, we do a lot of motorcycle rides,
• 57:48
  so we might, uh, who knows?
• 57:50
  We're near the tail.
• 57:52
  Might have to take a trip and, uh,
• 57:54
  he's throwing out references.
• 57:55
  It sounds like you have to take a
• 57:56
  trip now.
• 57:56
  Yeah.
• 57:57
  So we're, we're, we're, we're,
• 57:58
  we're planning something.
• 57:59
  So,
• 58:00
  and I was planning on letting you know
• 58:01
  when I come up there,
• 58:02
  so we'll do it,
• 58:03
  but I appreciate you very much.
• 58:06
  Awesome.
• 58:07
  I love that.
• 58:08
  I love it.
• 58:09
  Look guys, you know what to do.
• 58:10
  If you want to get involved with the
• 58:11
  show,
• 58:11
  please feel free to reach out to me
• 58:13
  directly at charlieatsingletreebbq.com.
• 58:17
  You can call me at six one five
• 58:18
  three zero seven zero one two zero.
• 58:21
  Make sure that you like share and
• 58:22
  subscribe to our YouTube channel.
• 58:25
  We air every Saturday and Sunday morning
• 58:28
  on ESPN, ninety four point nine.
• 58:30
  The fan from eight until nine a.m.
• 58:33
  You can't miss it.
• 58:35
  Look, we appreciate you.
• 58:37
  Thank you, Ben.
• 58:38
  Thanks, Terry.
• 58:39
  Trent, we appreciate you guys very much.
• 58:41
  And until next time, guys,
• 58:42
  we'll see you then.
• 58:43
  Y'all be good.