Latest / Single Tree Nation Show / Pastry Chef Turned Pitmaster: Terren Williams of Slow Fire BBQ (Savannah, GA)

Transcript

Pastry Chef Turned Pitmaster: Terren Williams of Slow Fire BBQ (Savannah, GA) · Single Tree Nation Show

0:02
take your little rice beater on somewhere.
0:05
Welcome back to Singletree Nation, guys.
0:07
I'm your man, Charlie Emlin,
0:08
and as always,
0:09
we have our illustrious co-host, Mr.
0:11
Derry Wells, with us today.
0:12
What is up, everybody?
0:13
You know the problem.
0:14
We didn't start the last episode with a
0:16
little back-and-forth banter.
0:18
That's the problem.
0:18
There wasn't no fun in it.
0:19
It's too stale.
0:22
Gotta have a little spice.
0:28
if we don't yeah if we don't if
0:30
we don't start with some some laughter
0:32
absolutely absolutely we ever started a
0:34
show that we tried apparently it failed
0:39
sometimes sometimes you run an a b test
0:42
that's it and we fail that's it that's
0:44
it now we know we got to have
0:46
eight lug nuts
0:51
I want a sticker on the back of
0:52
your truck.
0:53
Eight lug nuts.
0:56
What a license plate.
0:57
That would be one of those dumb southern
1:01
apparel companies.
1:02
You could make hats and t-shirts that just
1:04
have pictures of ducks, dogs, and boats.
1:07
We run an eight lug nuts and you
1:09
will be fine.
1:11
I'm telling you.
1:12
Go ahead.
1:12
I've seen goofier stuff.
1:14
Look,
1:14
I just got the license plate for my
1:16
bike that says brisket.
1:18
B-R-S-K-T?
1:20
B-R-S-K-I-T.
1:24
Love it.
1:24
I love it.
1:28
On a motorcycle license plate,
1:29
you only get six letters.
1:30
Okay, that's what I was going to ask.
1:35
But somebody already has it for a car.
1:39
Could you do like a one?
1:41
Or B-R-S-K-I-T.
1:47
Yeah, you could.
1:48
Yeah, come on.
1:50
I'll figure it out.
1:51
Get some originality.
1:52
There you go.
1:53
Well, they turned me down.
1:55
They turned me down for whole cakes.
2:00
I've seen so much crap in this town
2:02
and they turned you down for whole cakes.
2:05
Yeah.
2:06
Please tell me.
2:07
I spelled it correctly.
2:10
In the description,
2:11
I even put I own a barbecue joint
2:13
and we love our whole cakes.
2:16
Nope.
2:17
Nope.
2:17
Denied.
2:18
They said that's inappropriate.
2:20
They said it was inappropriate.
2:21
That's the state of Tennessee though,
2:23
right?
2:23
How is a hoe cake inappropriate?
2:25
It is griddled cornbread, homie.
2:29
It's George Washington's favorite food.
2:31
Right.
2:31
You lost them at home.
2:32
That's exactly right.
2:33
I put the E on it.
2:33
I think that makes it worse.
2:40
That's how you spell it.
2:41
I know.
2:45
They don't know that.
2:46
They don't have a clue.
2:47
I didn't give them just an O.
2:48
This ain't porn, huh?
2:51
You got me choked up now.
2:52
Oh my gosh.
2:55
Good lord, man.
2:57
Wow.
2:57
All right.
2:58
Well, much different intro.
3:00
There we go.
3:01
Now we can get back to the show.
3:04
Aaron's like, what did I step into now?
3:07
I got a mic that works and I
3:08
don't know what's happening.
3:09
Here we go.
3:10
We got a better internet link.
3:13
Oh, man.
3:14
Trent hooked us up to the fiber this
3:16
time.
3:16
That's right.
3:17
He's ready to rock.
3:18
You're a lot of my lifestyle.
3:19
Yeah.
3:22
The dial up, the AOL.
3:23
Here, here, here.
3:24
Trent.
3:26
Didn't they finally,
3:27
like just a month or two ago,
3:29
they stopped the service to their dial-up?
3:32
The AOL?
3:33
Yeah.
3:33
Yeah.
3:34
Like it's just recently,
3:35
I didn't know you could even still do
3:37
dial up.
3:38
I don't know how many people have phone
3:40
lines in their house where you could do
3:42
a dollar.
3:42
Like what,
3:43
what kind of misfit operation we run it.
3:46
So, uh, that's a good question.
3:49
I'm just, you know,
3:50
the things that keep me up at night.
3:51
So, yeah.
3:52
Hey, somebody has to think these things.
3:57
Well, I wish it wasn't me.
3:58
I prefer to sleep.
3:59
But, you know,
4:00
you rock four hours of sleep at night.
4:02
I prefer to sleep too,
4:03
but I don't think about shit like that.
4:08
Well,
4:08
not everybody has running a business,
4:11
and more importantly,
4:12
a restaurant business.
4:13
Oh, I'm not running it.
4:15
The complexities that come with that.
4:18
What keeps him up is like, man,
4:21
how do I get past hoecakes?
4:26
How can I spell that to where it
4:27
won't be?
4:27
How do I get it to where it
4:28
gets passed?
4:30
some of these people are trying to figure
4:31
out farm to table and you're like would
4:33
the state still take it out if i
4:35
used a three for okay
4:41
Oh, man.
4:42
I think I'm not going to resubmit it.
4:43
It's a good day.
4:44
I know you are.
4:46
The best part about it is you get
4:47
three choices.
4:48
Yeah, you get three choices.
4:49
You get three choices.
4:50
You get denied on all three?
4:51
No.
4:53
I got denied on brisket because somebody
4:54
already had it.
4:55
That's fair.
4:55
Okay.
4:56
And then I put in whole cakes.
4:57
Yeah.
4:58
That got denied.
4:59
Right.
5:00
The last one is a license plate my
5:01
dad had for years.
5:05
I mean, probably decades.
5:09
And it was E-Z-One.
5:12
E-Z-One?
5:14
Or E-A-S-Y-One?
5:15
Yes.
5:21
I could see your dad with that license
5:23
plate.
5:24
Isn't that great?
5:26
I wish our listeners had the opportunity.
5:29
If you listen to our hundredth episode,
5:31
it's your dad.
5:32
Go back to episode a hundred.
5:33
It's your dad.
5:34
But to sit across
5:38
the room from that man.
5:39
And like, I mean,
5:40
cause I've seen him at your restaurant.
5:41
Like it's,
5:42
it's a cut up every single time.
5:44
Like he doesn't know how to turn it
5:45
off.
5:45
That's just who he is.
5:46
And I love it.
5:47
And the fact, cause here's the other part.
5:50
Custom license plates are,
5:53
there's an upcharge for that.
5:54
Oh yeah.
5:55
And correct me if I'm wrong.
5:56
Your dad was a wheeler and dealer back
5:58
in the day.
5:58
Like never drove the same car more than
6:00
three or four months.
6:01
Yeah.
6:01
So he's paying for that extra vanity tag
6:04
several times a year.
6:05
Yeah.
6:06
Oh yeah.
6:10
I love it.
6:11
I love it.
6:11
Everybody had to know he was the easy
6:12
one.
6:13
Easy one, baby.
6:15
Yeah.
6:16
The car he had that on the most
6:17
was a...
6:19
It wasn't a T.O.
6:19
It was like a seafoam green nine eleven
6:22
turbo.
6:23
OK, that's appropriate.
6:25
Had a big old whale fin on the
6:26
back.
6:26
I thought she was going to say some
6:28
sort of like Thunderbird or some sort.
6:29
I don't know why that would have been
6:31
appropriate.
6:31
I would have been underneath my father to
6:33
buy an American car.
6:34
Oh, come on.
6:37
We buy we buy German.
6:41
He's driving a Ford Mustang right now,
6:43
and I feel like he's got amnesia.
6:45
I forgot who he was.
6:47
He's upset about it every time he shuts
6:49
the door.
6:50
I can't believe it.
6:51
He's called me three times this week and
6:52
was like, hey,
6:53
did you see that QA I sent you
6:55
the other day?
6:55
It's a nice Audi.
6:56
I'm like, hey,
6:57
you can't get away from the German cars,
6:59
can you?
6:59
You know?
7:02
Hey, German engineering is top notch.
7:03
I ain't got nothing against that.
7:05
My heritage is from Germany,
7:07
so I guess it runs in the family.
7:09
Sure.
7:09
You know,
7:10
I just don't like paying seventeen hundred
7:11
dollars to change my brakes.
7:13
Boy, you got that right.
7:14
You know what I mean?
7:14
You got that right.
7:16
Let's introduce Taren properly.
7:19
Let's do.
7:24
Taren, welcome to the show, my friend.
7:27
For those of you who don't know Taren,
7:29
he is the owner of Slow Fire BBQ
7:32
out of Savannah, Georgia.
7:34
Come to find out,
7:35
we have a small circle that we didn't
7:38
know about until just a minute ago, but...
7:42
Taryn and Derry have some mutual friends
7:45
that live right here in the borough.
7:49
We'll keep their names.
7:51
I mean,
7:52
y'all can write them out if you want
7:54
to.
7:54
No, I'm not going to.
7:55
I'm the kind that like...
7:57
That's something you asked somebody first.
7:58
Let me just throw your name out there,
7:59
you know, whatever.
8:00
But it is a small world because fantastic
8:02
people that we're talking about.
8:04
And when you throw out the last name,
8:05
the way he was like,
8:06
I know some of those folks,
8:07
the last name,
8:07
and I'm here listing off all the brothers.
8:09
He's like, I don't know.
8:10
And then I was like,
8:12
here's his wife's name.
8:13
Yep.
8:13
So I texted him immediately.
8:15
He was like, first of all,
8:16
he said to tell you, hello, Taryn.
8:17
So I don't want to go without following
8:19
instructions there.
8:20
But it's just a small world because
8:21
that's,
8:22
They met by way of Dallas,
8:24
which he's going to share with us here
8:25
in a minute,
8:25
that he spent some time there.
8:28
And then, you know,
8:29
so like the way things move,
8:31
it's just always impressive.
8:32
That six degrees of separation kind of
8:34
deal is always, it exists.
8:38
It's real.
8:38
I don't know how accurate it is,
8:40
but it's real.
8:42
It's pretty accurate.
8:43
It's real enough, right?
8:43
Pretty accurate.
8:47
Somebody asked me the other day,
8:49
one of my team members, they said,
8:51
do you know everybody?
8:54
They're like, no.
8:55
Just try to.
8:55
No.
8:56
I would like to.
8:56
That's it.
8:58
Because then my text thread to come eat
9:00
in my restaurant would be much larger.
9:05
Please come try out the new lunch menu
9:07
for six ninety nine.
9:09
Six nine pound burgers, baby.
9:11
Yeah, they're delicious.
9:12
That's what I'm talking about.
9:13
My son is actually smoking some as we
9:15
speak.
9:16
Oh, good for him.
9:17
It is.
9:17
Yeah, he's learning.
9:19
You know,
9:19
I will say I did see you on
9:20
your recently.
9:22
I saw you on the
9:24
The ad that was going around Facebook with
9:26
the, was it the sales tax?
9:29
Davo?
9:31
Yeah.
9:31
Davo's great, man.
9:33
Do you use Davo?
9:35
No.
9:36
As a matter of fact,
9:36
sales tax are literally like,
9:38
it's just the biggest pain.
9:40
Oh, man.
9:42
I will.
9:43
What PLS system do you use?
9:44
We use Toast.
9:46
Oh, then it's a no-brainer.
9:48
It's sixty bucks.
9:50
It automates all your sales tax.
9:52
They take it out of your sales,
9:53
put it in their account,
9:55
and then they pay it.
9:56
Like you have to do all of that
9:58
by yourself already.
10:01
And when we first started, like, I mean,
10:03
it saved me.
10:04
And look, I'm not getting paid by Davo.
10:07
I've done a couple of commercials for
10:09
them, but this is just true.
10:13
It's absolutely amazing.
10:15
I haven't even thought about paying sales
10:18
tax since we got it.
10:19
It's paid every time it's on time.
10:22
It takes it out.
10:22
We don't even think about the money.
10:24
It's gone.
10:25
It's super simple.
10:26
And that's what kills you is like you,
10:28
you know,
10:28
you get it in your account and you're
10:30
like,
10:30
you just don't think to take it out.
10:32
Next thing you know,
10:32
you're behind and you're having to pay
10:35
like a big payment all of a sudden.
10:36
It's just like, Oh yeah.
10:38
Yeah.
10:39
You forget about it.
10:40
And then, Oh,
10:41
now you got a couple thousand dollars you
10:43
got to put down and.
10:44
You know, you could have,
10:45
you could have had all of that.
10:46
So yeah, I would look, it was,
10:49
it was when we get done today,
10:50
go to your toast dashboard,
10:52
go to integrations, look up Davo.
10:55
You can click on it.
10:56
I think it's three clicks and you'll be
10:59
signed up and done and you won't have
11:00
to worry about it.
11:01
Like, I mean, it is literally that easy.
11:04
It will take you – we've talked about
11:07
it longer than it will take you to
11:09
sign up for it.
11:09
It's that crazy.
11:13
I've got to say, though,
11:14
like I know you're one of the ambassadors
11:17
or whatever for Toast.
11:18
The way you nerd out on your excitement
11:21
of not just knowing their system but like,
11:23
no, look,
11:24
like – because you're not getting a promo
11:26
for that.
11:26
There's no specialness.
11:27
Like you're just like, no, look,
11:29
entrepreneur to entrepreneur,
11:31
make your life easier.
11:32
Yeah, man.
11:36
I get it.
11:37
I get it because the amount of time
11:41
that you have to go through those
11:42
classrooms and learn all the stuff,
11:45
when you learn how to get in and
11:47
throughout it and do that, oh my gosh,
11:48
there's a pride that comes with it.
11:50
There's definitely a pride that comes with
11:51
it.
11:53
Well,
11:53
and then especially the field you're in,
11:54
like time is money.
11:55
Like you need every second you can get
11:57
because either you're cooking or hiring or
12:00
firing or whatever you're doing.
12:01
And there's a whole lot that goes into
12:02
that.
12:03
I'll never forget when I was, you know,
12:06
we've been a food truck for a long
12:08
time.
12:08
And, you know, we got on there.
12:11
We've got a KDS system.
12:13
And I'll never forget the day that when
12:17
my guy came on the truck and he
12:19
shows me the, like, show all day.
12:23
On the KDS, I mean,
12:25
absolutely blew my mind.
12:25
I was like,
12:26
how do I not know about this?
12:28
You know, it's a little,
12:29
it's a little things like that.
12:30
It's a big deal.
12:32
It's amazing.
12:32
Look, my team members, you know,
12:34
they're all like twelve.
12:35
So they they get technology for the for
12:38
the for for human resource reasons and the
12:42
Better Business Bureau.
12:43
No, his workers are not twelve.
12:45
They just younger than him.
12:53
They can all legally work in the United
12:56
States at sixteen years old and provide
12:58
their own transportation.
12:59
We're all good.
13:00
So their parents signed off on it.
13:01
I'm helping you out.
13:02
That's fine.
13:05
Only twelve year old.
13:06
Somebody's going to pull that clip.
13:07
It looks like single trees are twelve year
13:09
old.
13:13
They told me they had to be eighteen.
13:15
I don't know why my son can't work
13:16
there.
13:16
I'm going to get sued next week.
13:20
Add it to the list of shit I'm
13:22
already doing.
13:23
Good Lord.
13:28
Somebody was messing around with me the
13:29
other day.
13:31
They said, I'll sue you.
13:33
I said, well,
13:33
you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip.
13:36
Sue away!
13:39
Throw a box of toothpicks in a napkin,
13:40
have a ball.
13:41
Come on, man.
13:44
Oh,
13:44
you want me to give you some of
13:45
my stress?
13:45
That's what you want me to put you
13:47
in?
13:47
No problem.
13:48
I got you.
13:49
Oh, man.
13:50
All right, let's get back to Taryn.
13:52
We're going to go down some rabbit holes
13:54
today.
13:54
Oh, Lord.
13:57
The second show,
13:58
the next show we record is going to
13:59
be wild.
14:02
Taryn,
14:03
you had in our previous attempt to get
14:06
this show going,
14:07
you had made a reference to the very
14:10
first barbecue meal that ever kind of just
14:12
like drew you in.
14:13
Like you remember, like, you know,
14:15
you're like, hey, this is the one.
14:17
And I'm not going to step on your
14:18
toes because I want you to tell us
14:19
again what it was.
14:20
But I'm just going to preface it with
14:23
what he's about to describe to y'all is
14:25
like my wife's final meal.
14:28
like you don't understand like this is
14:29
perfection right down to the not well done
14:33
process like i mean like this is just
14:36
and your last condiment and i want you
14:37
to do them in the same order the
14:39
last condiment that you throw on there she
14:41
would just want a bowl instead of just
14:43
the cup or side so if you would
14:45
be right okay oh see i know i
14:47
know so yeah it was uh you know
14:48
uh
14:53
Obviously, I grew up here in Savannah,
14:54
Georgia until I was about middle school,
14:57
high school age, you know,
14:58
and that's when we moved out to Atlanta.
15:01
And I lived in the little town of
15:03
Powder Springs, Georgia, man.
15:04
That was kind of my stomping ground for,
15:06
you know,
15:07
quite quite a while during my young
15:09
adulthood.
15:11
And there was a, you know,
15:13
grew up eating barbecue.
15:14
But, man,
15:15
there was one place when I was a
15:17
young adult called Johnny's Barbecue in
15:19
Powder Springs, Georgia.
15:21
And, uh, you know,
15:22
that little place has got a little
15:23
choo-choo train that goes around the top
15:25
of the, uh, you know,
15:26
they got around the whole restaurant.
15:28
It's got a little choo-choo train.
15:29
They turn on and off.
15:30
And, uh, you know, that, that,
15:32
that place has got a little country store.
15:34
When you first walk in, it's a,
15:36
it's a killer vibe, not the best barbecue,
15:39
you know?
15:41
And I used,
15:42
I loved it and thought it was the
15:43
best barbecue,
15:44
but the biggest thing and what you're
15:45
referring to is man, that place,
15:47
that place.
15:49
marked me because it helped me through two
15:51
major breakups in my life.
15:55
Man, I mean,
15:56
it just got me right in my soul.
15:57
So what I would do is I would
15:59
go through these difficult times.
16:02
I would go to this restaurant and I
16:04
would get what's called hickory fries.
16:06
Now,
16:07
these hickory fries were made from fresh
16:08
cut fries.
16:09
And, you know,
16:10
they can't cook them like you.
16:11
You cut a potato and you cook it
16:13
fried.
16:13
I don't care how long you fry.
16:14
They're going to be crispy.
16:15
You got to.
16:16
There's a certain process.
16:17
So it's got to be, you know,
16:18
like they just aren't quite crispy fries.
16:21
And then you pile on some pulled pork
16:24
and then you put on some melted cheese
16:26
and, you know, melt some cheddar on there.
16:28
And then you got a big old,
16:30
big old side of some ranch dressing.
16:34
That's it, man.
16:35
That was it.
16:36
It was five dollars and sixty nine cents
16:38
or something stupid.
16:40
And you ate it was a whole meal.
16:42
And we would.
16:42
Man, I ate that meal probably three,
16:45
four times a week.
16:47
And during I ate it all the time.
16:49
But during specifically during these
16:50
breakups, man,
16:51
what helped me do is I would go
16:53
and I'd get them to go.
16:54
I take him.
16:55
I live right, you know,
16:56
maybe a mile away.
16:57
I take him home.
16:58
I'd sit there and eat them.
16:59
I'd sit there and watch reruns of Dukes
17:02
of Hazzard.
17:02
And that's what got me through my major
17:05
breakups in life.
17:06
And that experience is just what truly was
17:11
like, I love it.
17:12
And since I've kind of been put onto
17:16
Good Barbecue, I've been back.
17:18
I realized the barbecue,
17:22
but that's a barbecue love story, right?
17:24
So like, you know,
17:27
like barbecue is romantic.
17:28
Barbecue is romantic.
17:29
That's exactly right.
17:30
I will say this.
17:32
They were at least cooking with real fire.
17:34
They weren't doing it on an old hickory
17:36
or some product or something like that.
17:37
They were really,
17:39
they're really throwing wood in there.
17:41
Um,
17:42
But they weren't throwing much else.
17:43
They weren't throwing much seasoning on
17:45
there.
17:47
You talk about real barbecue,
17:49
and it's funny.
17:52
I have a lot of conversations around
17:55
cooking styles and preferences.
17:57
And recently, and when I say recently,
18:01
meaning the last couple of weeks,
18:03
I've had a lot of people want to
18:06
know where I actually do all my cooking.
18:11
Do you just point the window?
18:13
Like they think.
18:16
Like literally the last couple of weeks,
18:18
people think it's more of a prop.
18:20
Like, I don't really cook on that.
18:21
I don't see the smoke coming out or
18:23
the doors open with everybody out there
18:25
doing.
18:25
The way I smoke,
18:26
there's not a lot of smoke coming out.
18:28
I know, but like.
18:29
Like,
18:29
and if you're not paying attention on a
18:30
hot day, I mean,
18:32
you could just think it's, you know.
18:34
Maybe that's it.
18:35
It's your summertime problem.
18:36
Yeah.
18:36
It's my summertime.
18:38
You need to get a big sign.
18:39
One of those things, live cooking.
18:42
We cook here.
18:43
Like, you know, just.
18:43
I cook right here on this big blue
18:47
pit.
18:48
What's the Krispy Kreme with the lights
18:50
on?
18:52
You need to have like a flame and
18:54
neon and when it's on... Hot and fresh.
18:57
Don't touch the firebox.
18:58
That's it.
18:59
Don't touch the firebox.
19:01
Come get your hoecakes.
19:02
Hot and fresh and fully rested.
19:07
That is a fucking t-shirt.
19:12
Holy shit.
19:12
Thank you for that.
19:14
I am going home.
19:16
I'm texting you right now.
19:17
I'm texting it to you.
19:19
Fresh and fully rested.
19:21
Not to be confused with, ho,
19:23
come get your cakes.
19:30
Oh, that is great.
19:32
The first T-shirt I ever made for my
19:34
restaurant was a black T-shirt,
19:38
and it's got our single tree logo in
19:40
the center of the chest,
19:42
and it's just the round tree.
19:44
And above the tree, it says,
19:47
Got Ho Cakes.
19:51
I loved it,
19:52
but nobody else thought it was funny.
19:54
Why aren't these shirts moving?
19:56
Yeah.
19:59
Now I got one that's hickory and hoecakes,
20:03
but I like the... Hot, fresh,
20:07
and fully rested.
20:08
Hot, fresh, and fully rested.
20:11
That is coming to a theater near you.
20:14
Oh, man.
20:15
All right.
20:16
So you spent some time in Atlanta,
20:21
spent some time in Dallas in school.
20:24
You guys moved back to...
20:28
moved back to savannah when did you when
20:30
did you move back to savannah uh we
20:33
moved back the summer of twenty nineteen
20:35
so it was like uh the summer right
20:37
before covid hit because covid hit that
20:39
following march and you were didn't you
20:43
tell me that you were cooking in uh
20:47
you were in another restaurant at that
20:48
time yeah and so there's a lot a
20:52
lot happened as far as like you know
20:55
um
20:57
in texas what really kind of you know
21:00
made me go down this out or down
21:02
this you know down this pathway of
21:04
barbecue uh a lot of that came from
21:06
texas itself uh you know the it's funny
21:11
because the you know not to to jump
21:13
back a little bit for the story as
21:16
far as like my story and that johnny's
21:18
barbecue and everything that's what
21:19
initially marked me with barbecue and like
21:21
really made me really fall in love with
21:24
barbecue but i know i had no idea
21:25
how to cook it
21:27
Um, I was learning,
21:29
I was going through culinary school, um,
21:31
you know,
21:31
when I was going through all that stuff,
21:33
but they don't teach you how to smoke
21:34
meat and stuff really cold.
21:35
Uh, and so, uh,
21:39
when I ended up going into Texas,
21:41
that's when I really got smacked in the
21:43
face with what real barbecue was.
21:45
And, uh, we had,
21:47
there was a group of guys, we went,
21:48
we were doing a, uh,
21:50
a deep sea fishing trip.
21:51
and uh again i had no idea about
21:54
the texas barbecue culture uh the old the
21:57
old spots in lockhart none of that i
21:59
had no idea and luckily some of the
22:02
guys that we were on the trip with
22:03
grew up in and um all around that
22:06
area so they knew about it so we
22:08
on our trip through going down to the
22:09
coast we stopped in lockhart and we
22:12
stopped at smitty's market and man that
22:14
place
22:15
Um, if you've never been, man,
22:17
I highly encourage you to go any of
22:19
them, you know, uh, down there, you know,
22:22
um, but man, it's amazing.
22:24
What's the place down there that like you
22:28
got the barbecue hook from Johnny's,
22:31
but what's the place in Texas that you
22:33
said, Hey, this is, this is,
22:37
this is just different.
22:39
That's, that's it.
22:41
That's it.
22:41
Wanted to make it Smitty's because again,
22:44
I, I didn't, I didn't know, like, it's,
22:46
it's, it's wild, man.
22:48
When you go into one of these old
22:49
joints like that, uh, you know,
22:52
the crisis, the,
22:53
the Mueller's like any of these old, um,
22:56
places, man, uh,
22:57
even blacks really like there's just a,
23:01
uh, you just feel it.
23:02
You feel the history, the culture, you,
23:05
the, the, the walls are staying black,
23:07
but specifically about Smitty's.
23:09
You walk in, man,
23:10
and the fires are on the floor.
23:12
You literally have to walk right next to
23:14
it.
23:14
And you're like, whoa,
23:16
this singes my leg hair.
23:18
I mean,
23:19
because it's these brick pits that they
23:21
lift the doors on,
23:23
and the fires are right next to them
23:24
just drawn in.
23:25
And they're literally just out open on the
23:27
floor.
23:27
I'm like,
23:28
has the health department been in here?
23:33
It's just, it is wild, man.
23:35
I mean,
23:35
you could literally just fall right into
23:37
it.
23:37
And, uh, man,
23:38
when I went in there at the time,
23:41
it was the best I'd had, you know,
23:43
ever since the, you know, my,
23:44
obviously these new guys like the
23:46
Franklin's the, you know,
23:47
the truth and all that,
23:48
like these places are doing much better
23:50
barbecue, but man, you just can't,
23:52
it's just the history behind it.
23:54
You know what I mean?
23:54
It's just some of the stuff I find
23:57
recently.
23:57
And we've had some,
23:58
we've had some of the, the,
24:00
the Texas monthly guys on and, um,
24:03
We had Ernest from Burnt Bean on,
24:07
which was number one last year.
24:08
And we've had Interstellar on.
24:12
We've had quite a few guys before
24:14
barbecue.
24:14
And I have found that although barbecue is
24:22
still barbecue...
24:24
It's still low, it's still slow,
24:26
it's still wood, no gas.
24:30
Today's world is,
24:32
it's not poor people food anymore.
24:37
It is turning into, okay, hey,
24:41
we have an elote,
24:42
but we're going to chef it up a
24:44
little bit.
24:45
Yeah.
24:45
We have a chili,
24:47
but it's not just chili.
24:53
It's a full-on six-hour recipe to build
24:58
out this chili.
25:01
Brisket is not just a cheap hunk of
25:04
meat that you have to cook for twelve
25:05
hours to get it to render down.
25:07
There is there's a craft in how you
25:10
trim it.
25:10
There's a craft in how you smoke it
25:13
and where you wrap it,
25:14
how you wrap it.
25:15
And everybody has their own thought
25:16
process about it.
25:18
And, you know,
25:21
the tallow is changing.
25:24
I infuse my tallow with garlic and it
25:27
goes on everything.
25:31
I tell people that we have a garlic
25:33
infused tallow that we make inside the
25:35
restaurant and their minds are blown by
25:39
it.
25:40
What do you mean?
25:41
You make your own fat?
25:43
I don't understand.
25:45
How do you get garlic in there?
25:49
It's not really that hard.
25:51
You too can do this at home.
25:57
Even my own son,
25:58
I was teaching him how to make our
26:01
garlic tallow.
26:03
and and he was like man we really
26:04
strain it this much and i'm like yeah
26:06
we get all the impurities that's it man
26:08
and you want it clear as can be
26:10
and it's liquid gold like i mean it
26:12
is it is just packed full of flavor
26:15
you know and we put i put over
26:18
a pound of garlic and five pounds of
26:20
tallow oh my gosh right and and we
26:23
we render that down we kill vampires for
26:25
that oh yes
26:28
Oh, yeah.
26:29
Well, over the last month or two now,
26:32
I take when we when you buy a
26:34
rack of ribs from us,
26:35
we'll take the rack of ribs out of
26:37
the wrap and we'll douse them in tallow
26:40
and rub that tallow all over them before
26:43
we sell them to you.
26:44
Wow.
26:45
So we're just imparting more flavor into
26:48
it, you know.
26:49
But, you know,
26:51
what's crazy to me and I'm and I'm
26:53
saying all of this because there's a
26:55
question to it.
26:58
One of the other things I have found,
26:59
even with all the chefiness that we're,
27:03
and there's an actual word,
27:07
even with all the higher end culinary
27:09
techniques that people are using to cook
27:13
barbecue today,
27:16
I'm still finding that we have to educate
27:18
people on what barbecue actually is.
27:21
It's not nothing against Johnny's,
27:24
but it's not Johnny's.
27:26
It's not wits.
27:28
It's not barbecuity.
27:30
It's not, we're not,
27:31
we're not taking something from a
27:33
commissary and throwing in a pot of
27:34
boiling water to heat it up.
27:36
But at the same time, I'm going to,
27:39
say so many people grew up with that
27:43
being your first thing of barbecue like
27:46
here in town initially snagged you you
27:48
know right right and like i could still
27:51
remember the brown paper sack that if mom
27:53
brought that in and you could see the
27:55
little fluff of the the bun wrapper
27:57
sticking out the top there's a pound of
27:58
barbecue in there and it came from wits
28:00
look one of my favorite places and you
28:02
may remember this from atlanta but sunny's
28:04
barbecue right right
28:07
And I'll tell you,
28:07
it wasn't even the barbecue.
28:09
It was the smell of the place and
28:10
the sweet tea.
28:13
Because that sweet tea,
28:16
you could speckle something with that
28:18
sweet tea.
28:20
It left that, like,
28:20
that feel on the top of your lip
28:22
when you drank it.
28:24
Uh-huh.
28:24
Oh, yeah.
28:24
You licked your lips and you felt the
28:25
sugar go across your mustache after
28:28
drinking it.
28:28
It's like a gloss.
28:30
Yeah.
28:30
It was worse than drinking milk.
28:32
Like Tala.
28:32
It's like drinking Tala.
28:33
That's it.
28:33
That's it.
28:34
Yeah,
28:35
you just come out getting that hot and
28:37
fresh donut.
28:38
It was all over.
28:39
How much tea is in this sugar?
28:41
That's what I want to know.
28:41
Yeah.
28:43
You got one tablespoon of tea.
28:44
You just put a spoon in his sticks.
28:47
That's it.
28:50
Somebody came in the restaurant the other
28:51
day and they said, man, this tea's good.
28:54
And I said,
28:54
did you put your knife in it?
28:58
If you put your knife in and it
28:59
stands up, that's it.
29:01
If it's not,
29:02
it ain't got enough sugar in it.
29:03
No, that's how we measure.
29:05
But I ask you that with being in
29:07
Savannah,
29:08
because I was stationed at Fort Stewart,
29:10
which is an hour or so away from
29:12
you guys in Hinesville, Georgia,
29:15
which is also referred to as the armpit
29:18
of the South because it is so...
29:22
Damn hot.
29:24
It's not even the heat.
29:25
It's humid.
29:26
It's the thickness.
29:28
It's never the heat.
29:29
It is THUCC in Savannah.
29:32
It's the weather you wear.
29:33
Yes, yes.
29:37
It is part of the attire.
29:41
Do you find yourself educating your guests
29:44
on what, I mean, in your name,
29:48
Slow Fire Barbecue,
29:49
it is built with wood and love.
29:52
It's not built with a CFAP and a
29:57
pot of boiling water.
29:59
Yeah, we definitely do.
30:01
You know,
30:01
and it's funny you bring up the name
30:03
because the name was like where I got
30:06
the name was for a couple of reasons
30:08
because of the, you know,
30:10
you want slow fires, right?
30:11
That aren't big flaming, you know,
30:14
you want those slow, subtle fires.
30:17
But also with the food part of it,
30:20
being a chef,
30:21
like I really love the slow food movement
30:23
where it's like sustainably sourced.
30:25
products and stuff like that.
30:26
So that's very important to me.
30:27
And I wanted to bring that into what
30:29
we were doing and be heard through what
30:32
I was trying to say.
30:33
And we definitely have to do a good
30:36
bit of educating, you know,
30:37
because there are a lot of places,
30:39
especially down here in the dirty South,
30:42
You got a lot of places that are
30:44
that kind of, um,
30:46
just those old barbecue places.
30:48
Uh, we still, uh,
30:50
you would think that Savannah hat would
30:52
have like a lot of good barbecue,
30:54
but actually it's a barbecue desert.
30:56
Um, there,
30:57
that doesn't mean there's not a lot of
30:58
barbecue places here.
31:00
Uh, they're just all pretty mediocre.
31:03
Uh,
31:03
a lot of them are cooking out of
31:04
Southern prides, um,
31:06
or an old Hickory pit, you know,
31:08
gases to steal.
31:10
And they go home and get some sleep,
31:12
you know, which sounds great.
31:16
It sounds amazing.
31:17
I can totally understand why they would
31:19
want to do that.
31:20
uh you know but uh you know you
31:22
got your jim and nicks around and stuff
31:24
and your dickies and um but even the
31:28
mom and pop there's a lot of mama
31:29
bought places still doing that too and so
31:31
there's just very few that are doing it
31:33
uh you know uh like actually on wood
31:38
and a lot of the places around here
31:39
too i don't call them barbecue places i
31:41
call them uh rib shacks because they don't
31:44
cook brisket or pulled pork
31:46
They're not cooking stuff long.
31:48
They're just cooking like your ribs.
31:49
They're cooking chicken.
31:50
They're cooking lamb chops.
31:52
They're doing like hot and fast kind of
31:53
stuff.
31:54
They're going to Sam's that morning buying
31:56
some ribs and they're cooking whatever
31:58
they got for the day.
31:59
And then when they sell out,
32:00
they sell out.
32:01
And that, you know,
32:02
and they sauce the crap out of it
32:04
with this like orange colored sauce.
32:06
And they're all, man,
32:07
there's so much of those places around.
32:09
And there's just, that has its place.
32:13
But, you know, it's definitely...
32:16
different than what we're doing.
32:17
And, uh, you know, obviously being a chef,
32:20
I wanted to make sure that the sides
32:23
were very intentional.
32:24
Uh, everything we do.
32:25
I'm glad you just said that.
32:26
Cause I'm looking at what, uh,
32:28
you got some Brussels sprouts on that
32:30
menu.
32:30
Oh my gosh, dude.
32:31
That's the best side we do.
32:32
And we may miss that one.
32:35
Click it.
32:36
We make, uh,
32:40
we make an Asian barbecue sauce.
32:42
Uh,
32:43
that gets on it, man.
32:44
And the sauce hurt me.
32:46
I mean, it's,
32:48
it's like slappy mama and kick a dog.
32:50
Good.
32:51
It's so kick a dog.
32:52
Good.
32:54
And it's, uh, uh,
32:56
that's my favorite side easily.
32:58
And, uh, you put bacon in your slaw.
33:01
No, no.
33:04
What is it in your slaw?
33:06
Our slaw is just cabbage, carrots,
33:07
red cabbage.
33:09
We have parsley in there and that's all
33:12
green onions.
33:13
That's it.
33:14
And our dressing.
33:15
It looks delicious.
33:16
Yeah, we make it from scratch.
33:18
I'm big on having the,
33:20
we use the curled parsley.
33:21
We use quite a bit of it on
33:22
there to really give it that pop.
33:24
You know, it makes it look really fresh.
33:26
It gives it a good bit of a
33:28
flavor too.
33:30
You know, the dressing is, you know,
33:32
it's mayo based,
33:33
but it has a lot of honey.
33:35
You know, use local honey.
33:36
And so it's just a lot of things,
33:39
you know, you know, we were taking,
33:44
for instance, with our,
33:45
with that Asian barbecue sauce, we'll,
33:48
you know,
33:48
like I'll ferment garlic in honey and then
33:52
I'll use that honey in that dressing.
33:58
And so all I do,
33:59
so all I do is you just take
34:00
garlic and you just dunk it and like,
34:02
let it sit in honey and it'll ferment,
34:03
give it a few weeks and it'll,
34:05
it'll just ferment in there.
34:06
And it uses the honey,
34:08
but also you can use that.
34:09
And then I'll take the garlic cloves and
34:11
we make a comeback sauce with those garlic
34:13
cloves, you know,
34:14
so it's little things like that.
34:16
And I, you know, to your point of,
34:18
uh, to your point of like,
34:22
you know, chefing things up, you know,
34:24
it's,
34:24
it is a good point because a lot
34:26
of us now,
34:27
I think that we're realizing that,
34:30
you know,
34:30
like barbecue used to be this very humble
34:32
thing of, and it still is,
34:34
but it used to be just like, Hey,
34:36
it's whatever cuts and I'm just going to
34:38
do this.
34:39
And it, it was good,
34:40
but it wasn't like what it is today.
34:42
I'll tell you when, I don't know,
34:45
I don't know if it was, uh, uh,
34:49
who was it?
34:49
Um, it might've been Franklin.
34:55
I don't remember who it was right off
34:57
the top of my head, but when,
34:58
when one of them,
35:00
Franklin or Rodney Scott or somebody got a
35:02
James beard, um, and then, uh,
35:07
one of them got a Michelin star, um,
35:11
and when i heard of a barbecue joint
35:15
yeah getting a beard award yeah and then
35:19
getting a star like i was flabbergasted
35:23
yeah agreed like what do you mean we're
35:27
just a whole bunch of dumb rednecks
35:29
cooking cooking some meat how how and then
35:35
i went to la
35:39
It was probably, I don't know.
35:42
What is this?
35:43
Oh, you're low.
35:45
Um, it was probably ten years ago.
35:49
Um, or, or thereabouts.
35:51
And I went out there with Pat Martin
35:53
and I cooked in the LA food bowl.
35:54
Good dude.
35:56
And I, he's a great dude.
35:57
I love him to death.
35:58
Um, but he,
36:02
he invited me to go out there with
36:03
him.
36:03
We cooked a hundred and twenty-five racks
36:06
of ribs on a,
36:07
on a cinder block pit in the middle
36:09
of, in the middle of downtown LA.
36:12
One of the coolest things I've ever done
36:14
from a cooking standpoint.
36:17
But I was with Pat,
36:20
and then we had Matt Horn was there
36:26
from Horn Barbecue out in California.
36:31
Aaron Franklin was there.
36:31
He was literally right behind me.
36:34
He brought two of his offsets and was
36:36
right behind me.
36:38
You want to talk about fangirling out?
36:40
I bet.
36:41
Oh, man.
36:41
I'd have gone nuts.
36:42
I was like, oh, I'm looking up.
36:45
What do I ask him?
36:46
What do I ask him?
36:49
The funniest thing about the entire trip
36:51
was I was standing behind our cinder block
36:54
pit,
36:55
staring at Aaron and his two guys working
37:00
his pit.
37:01
And Pat walks up over and kind of
37:03
gets up next to me and goes,
37:05
you can go talk to him.
37:08
he could see your eyes i was like
37:10
i was like what do you mean pet
37:12
and he goes he's a nice guy you
37:16
can go talk to him that's funny i
37:18
was like i know he's i know he's
37:22
nice it's okay like he comes up to
37:26
you and he's like
37:28
Yeah, a hundred percent.
37:28
That's it.
37:30
Um, but we had him,
37:31
we had Sam Jones, uh,
37:32
we had William Darney, um,
37:35
Adam Perry Lang, uh, uh,
37:39
I'm forgetting four or five others, but,
37:41
um, off the top of my head,
37:43
we had some incredible cooks and our
37:47
chefs, I should say they're,
37:48
they're not cooks anymore, but yeah.
37:52
Having some of their food, like I was,
37:55
I was blown away at Franklin's barbecue
37:58
and his, his brisket.
38:01
That was,
38:02
that was an incredible experience.
38:05
William Derny's pastrami from hometown
38:08
barbecue in New York is, is, is fantastic.
38:14
What?
38:18
It's one of those...
38:18
We talked about getting hooked earlier on
38:20
barbecue.
38:21
It's one of those things that...
38:24
it's just a out of body experience.
38:27
Like, I mean, it's incredible.
38:29
Um, and look,
38:31
all of those guys can cook.
38:32
Absolutely.
38:33
You know, I mean, and they're,
38:35
they're just, you know,
38:36
spouting stuff off.
38:37
I asked Pat, we were,
38:40
we were getting the rub ready for the
38:41
ribs.
38:42
And I said, I said, Hey Pat,
38:44
they didn't ship us the, the, the,
38:48
the house rub.
38:49
And he was like, oh yeah,
38:50
they were supposed to just send us a
38:51
whole bunch of spices.
38:52
I was just going to make something up.
38:55
And I said, okay,
38:58
you want to tell me what that is?
39:01
And I mean, literally with beer in hand.
39:06
He just spouts off like six ingredients
39:10
and the amounts to put them together and
39:13
then turns back around and sits down and
39:15
finishes the story that he was having.
39:16
Right.
39:17
And I was like, that's it.
39:19
That's it.
39:19
That's how we do this.
39:21
That's how this is going.
39:21
That's exactly how it went down.
39:23
Okay.
39:23
So I go make it and I come
39:25
back and I'm like,
39:27
That's how this is going down.
39:28
That's pretty good.
39:30
All right.
39:31
You know, I, I, I thought,
39:33
I thought I was a good cook and
39:35
then I figured out, uh,
39:37
was still learning.
39:37
You still learn a lot.
39:39
That's it.
39:40
Taryn, you got y'all are back in Savannah.
39:43
You're getting ready to go through COVID.
39:45
You're working with this other restaurant
39:47
and, uh, you know,
39:49
I don't know to what extent that falls
39:51
through.
39:52
And then you have the bright idea.
39:53
We're going to jump into barbecue.
39:54
Yeah.
39:55
So.
39:57
With the coven that you know I was
40:00
at the time it covered it hit we'd
40:02
only been back and so moved in Savannah
40:04
we've been here for gosh maybe nine
40:06
months.
40:08
During that time I had moved back with
40:09
hype which I was a chef at the
40:11
time with was there very,
40:13
very small amount of time and I the
40:15
height here when I got hired on.
40:17
with a James Beard award-winning chef that
40:20
owns a couple of restaurants here in town
40:22
called The Gray.
40:24
I was running her second location and was
40:28
very proud of it.
40:30
Great job and everything,
40:31
put my heart and soul into it.
40:33
COVID hits and that kind of pushes me
40:36
out.
40:37
And it was just like, hey,
40:37
thanks for your time.
40:39
And I was like, it was just,
40:40
that's when I realized that you could just
40:43
work so hard,
40:45
put your effort into something like it's
40:47
your own and then realize real quickly,
40:50
it's not your own.
40:52
Like, Hey, cool.
40:52
Thanks.
40:54
Uh, and I, again,
40:55
I had never had any,
40:57
I never wanted to open a restaurant.
41:00
Um, when,
41:01
what made me go into culinary school is
41:02
actually, uh, baking.
41:04
Like I love.
41:05
I love pastries, I love baking and sweets.
41:09
I was a pastry chef for many years.
41:11
And so that's actually kind of more of
41:13
my strong suit, strong side.
41:16
And so, you know,
41:18
like I had what made me go to
41:19
school is that I wanted to open up
41:21
a bakery, but quickly realized like, no,
41:23
I don't wanna do any of that,
41:24
you know, like, cause it's really hard.
41:26
So when COVID hit,
41:28
that's when it kind of just hit me
41:30
some kind of way.
41:31
And I was like, man,
41:33
You know, it's clutching my pearls.
41:35
I was like, man,
41:36
I just put like all this into something
41:39
just for nothing, you know?
41:41
And that's what I was like, man,
41:42
I need to,
41:43
I need to take a step back.
41:44
And so I just went and like,
41:47
I just went and door dashed for a
41:48
little while and just kind of like soul
41:49
searched and I'm a dreamer and my wife
41:53
is the opposite, right?
41:54
You know, it's usually how it goes, uh,
41:56
very risk averted.
41:57
And so, you know, as I'm driving,
42:00
I got a lot of time to think
42:01
and all of a sudden,
42:03
um again up to this point i had
42:05
just only been a backyard smoker uh you
42:08
know i got i i did i was
42:10
obsessed with it obviously and and for
42:12
years i did it in texas but um
42:15
you know i thought i could do a
42:16
pretty decent brisket on a you know on
42:17
a little backyard offset and it just kind
42:21
of like it just was a little glimpse
42:23
you know uh i actually did a couple
42:26
of butts for a nephew
42:28
of mine and had a baby shower and
42:31
we did some like pull poor tacos and
42:34
he went out there and you know like
42:37
we did this little party for him and
42:38
he was like man he said listen he
42:40
came to me afterwards he's like man dude
42:42
you are missing your your calling like
42:45
this is it right here man he said
42:47
I you've got to do something.
42:49
You've got to do something with this.
42:51
And everyone has it right.
42:52
If you make food and you can make
42:53
good food,
42:55
you're going to go to a party where
42:56
you make some good food.
42:59
You're going to you're going to go to
43:00
a party where somebody is going to be
43:02
like, oh, man,
43:03
you should open up a restaurant.
43:05
We all hear it.
43:06
But what made this different was he was
43:08
like, I've got some money.
43:10
I've got some money in my store in
43:11
a way.
43:12
Let me know what you need.
43:13
Like I'm, I will put it in you.
43:15
And that, uh, you know,
43:17
that just made it feel different.
43:19
And,
43:20
and so that just kind of like was
43:21
a little spark that I needed.
43:23
And then next thing, you know,
43:24
I'm thinking about it, thinking about it.
43:26
And I build this little thing in my
43:28
mind.
43:28
I was like, well, if we did this,
43:31
I looked up, you know, primitive pits,
43:33
how much it was to have one build,
43:34
how long it took.
43:36
And I was like, man, these are the,
43:38
you know, like this might be the way.
43:39
And at the time with COVID,
43:41
they were just throwing money at us
43:43
anyway, you know,
43:44
all this unemployment and the refunds and
43:46
all that.
43:47
And so I went,
43:48
I went home and I talked to my
43:49
wife.
43:49
I was like, look, I said,
43:52
here's what I'm thinking.
43:52
And I fully expected her to be like,
43:54
that's stupid.
43:59
no way no way she's a teacher she
44:01
was a school teacher by the way she
44:03
did hate teaching so she was kind of
44:05
looking for a way out um you know
44:08
taught for eleven years but it just uh
44:11
you know i i proposed it to her
44:14
and she's like let's try it what do
44:17
we have to lose uh and so you
44:20
know lo and behold we we bought the
44:22
smoker and
44:23
I got a home and we started,
44:25
you know, just kind of smoking and like,
44:27
well,
44:27
let's see if I can even cook a
44:28
brisket.
44:28
Of course, it just kind of gets,
44:30
you know, better and better.
44:30
And you realize real quickly how much
44:33
easier it is on a large commercial smoker.
44:35
I thought, man,
44:38
this is going to be tough,
44:39
but actually it was easier.
44:40
But, you know,
44:41
you just kind of like start learning more
44:43
and honing it in and
44:45
one thing that's really helped is like,
44:47
obviously we're in this age of YouTube
44:50
books,
44:51
all that stuff wasn't around twenty years
44:53
ago, you know,
44:53
and so it's a lot easier now to
44:57
to to do this and to be good
44:59
at it, you know, and to, you know,
45:01
figure out what you're doing wrong.
45:02
And not only that,
45:04
but also the community and the community
45:07
of barbecue is just unreal.
45:09
Like you can you can just reach out
45:11
to somebody on Instagram, be like, man,
45:13
I love your stuff.
45:13
Like,
45:14
know like i know you're busy i'm busy
45:16
too so anyway we can you know i'd
45:17
love to chat some time uh just pick
45:19
your brain about some things and you're
45:21
you're able you're able to make friends
45:23
that way and i've noticed that the people
45:26
the better barbecue they make the more
45:28
they're willing to share you know these
45:30
people these these clowns that like
45:33
they're making just okay barbecue those
45:34
are the ones that are like gatekeeping you
45:38
know so uh you know for instance i
45:41
had um
45:43
I was part of Holy Smokes as just
45:45
helping.
45:46
I'd love to be in it,
45:47
but I just went out to help one
45:49
time.
45:50
And Leonard was there with Truth.
45:53
And that's my fangirl.
45:54
Like he's, you know,
45:56
like we went out there and we had
45:58
Franklin's.
45:59
And then the same day we went down
46:00
and had Truth.
46:02
And Truth at five thirty,
46:05
six o'clock in the afternoon,
46:06
the evening was better than what we had
46:08
at Franklin's.
46:09
uh, that morning, first thing.
46:11
And so just as an overall experience with
46:13
sides and everything, but, um, you know,
46:16
and so I finally got to meet him
46:17
at this festival and was asking questions,
46:20
everything in the dude is just an open
46:21
book, man.
46:23
Just one of the coolest guys in the
46:25
industry.
46:26
And, uh, you know,
46:27
I just had a lot of questions just
46:29
about business.
46:30
And he was like, look, man,
46:31
if you can afford it, you know,
46:32
he said,
46:34
He said, come out.
46:35
He said, it's been a week with me.
46:37
He said,
46:37
I'll show you everything you want to see.
46:38
He said, I'll pull the whole curtain back.
46:40
I don't care.
46:40
I got nothing to hide.
46:42
Uh, and, and I did,
46:43
I took them up on it.
46:44
And so, you know,
46:45
during the like slow months, January,
46:47
February,
46:48
I went out there for almost a week
46:50
and he did, man.
46:51
I got to spend a day with his
46:52
manager, spend a day with him,
46:55
like his pit guys.
46:56
Like he just truly, because he,
46:58
what he knew that like, he's like, dude,
47:00
I can show you exactly how I smoke
47:02
a brisket, but you're going to go home.
47:03
You'll be using a different smoker,
47:05
different wood, different atmosphere.
47:07
Yeah.
47:07
Not going to be the same.
47:09
So, you know, like, uh,
47:11
Like, that's why, that's what made it,
47:13
when he put it that way,
47:14
I was like, that totally makes sense,
47:15
you know?
47:16
And it just is such a great community.
47:18
I tell people all the time, man,
47:22
I don't care who you are.
47:26
I don't care how good you are cooking.
47:29
I don't care how bad you are cooking.
47:31
We can both cook a brisket.
47:33
We can both cook a pork butt.
47:34
We can both cook chicken, whatever.
47:37
And if you don't use a thermometer and
47:39
you just go off a feel and
47:42
There's no way yours is going to be
47:45
the same as mine.
47:46
I agree.
47:47
Because it's feel.
47:49
And what feels right to me doesn't feel
47:52
right to you.
47:53
Right.
47:54
They can be real close,
47:56
but they're not the same.
47:58
And the amount of salt I put on
48:00
mine,
48:01
comparative to how much salt you put on
48:03
yours, is going to be different.
48:05
Some people like more pepper.
48:06
Some people like less pepper.
48:09
it's different.
48:10
And the, the,
48:13
but that's what makes barbecue so
48:15
beautiful is, you know, I,
48:18
I got a one-star review last week and
48:23
I don't ever really get irritated about
48:25
one-star reviews or any bad review for
48:28
that matter.
48:29
Sure.
48:29
Because everybody has their opinion.
48:33
Yeah.
48:33
This one, this one, this one got me,
48:37
it got me good.
48:39
And I responded in courage.
48:41
Was it about your beans?
48:43
No.
48:45
You've been so touchy about your beans
48:47
here lately.
48:48
I'm worried.
48:48
What's crazy is I haven't gotten a
48:50
negative comment about the beans since I
48:52
changed.
48:52
Freaking.
48:52
There's something wrong with the beans.
48:55
Oh, that's a whole nother conversation.
49:00
We can do that with all fairness.
49:00
He gets touchy about it.
49:03
So we had a lady come in the
49:05
restaurant and she got a half rack of
49:06
ribs.
49:07
Okay.
49:10
I do not cook my ribs.
49:12
I don't overcook my ribs.
49:15
My ribs are not fall-off-the-bone tender.
49:18
They're tender,
49:20
but they're not fall-off-the-bone.
49:21
And they have a bark.
49:24
Sounds like a fantastic rib so far.
49:29
No issues here.
49:30
The inside of the rib is going to
49:32
be nice and juicy and tender.
49:34
And then you're going to have some...
49:37
lack of better wording,
49:38
chewy pieces on the outside from the bark.
49:40
Just that pool.
49:42
Yeah.
49:42
Just the pool.
49:42
Yeah.
49:46
She was not happy with her ribs.
49:51
She ate every damn one of them ribs.
49:53
This is horrible.
49:58
There was not meat left on the bone.
50:00
Awful, awful ribs.
50:01
I hated licking this all five fingers.
50:03
Right.
50:04
Sucked it dry.
50:07
And then left me a one-star review and
50:09
said the ribs sucked.
50:13
You should print that one out and put
50:14
it up above the cash register.
50:16
This is what pisses me off.
50:19
We offered to get her something else.
50:21
Yeah.
50:22
She declined.
50:25
Not once.
50:26
Not twice.
50:28
Three times a lady.
50:29
All right, Lionel Richie.
50:32
And four times she gave me a one-tar
50:34
review.
50:37
I love it.
50:38
Like, I just don't look.
50:40
That's the thing that irritates me about
50:42
barbecue.
50:44
She even said in her review,
50:46
the service was great,
50:47
the people were kind,
50:48
the restaurant was clean, the food sucked.
50:53
Okay.
50:54
Well, that's your opinion.
50:56
Because you didn't go get some
50:58
boil-in-the-bag barbecue from Sam's.
51:01
and heat it up in the microwave.
51:02
I liken barbecue to pizza.
51:04
Everybody's got what they like.
51:06
I like a lot of flop.
51:07
I like a crispier crust.
51:10
I like this.
51:10
I like the mozzarella.
51:11
I like, you know, a little sauce,
51:13
a lot of sauce, blah, blah, blah.
51:15
Barbecue's the same way.
51:17
You could change so many things about it.
51:19
You can go down to Slow Fire in
51:22
Savannah and say, I want this.
51:24
And we can come back the next day
51:26
and we're going to take a north trip
51:27
to Georgia.
51:28
And, hey,
51:28
we're going to Tennessee and we're going
51:30
like this.
51:31
And then you're going to be like,
51:33
I like Terrence Ribbs a lot better than
51:34
him.
51:34
Well, why is that?
51:36
Well, they just tasted, right?
51:38
Well,
51:38
all it was was they used his sauce
51:40
and your sauce.
51:40
He had three ounces of brown sugar.
51:44
You had two and some honey.
51:46
Whatever the combination is.
51:47
And it's just palates.
51:48
It's what people get to.
51:49
But everybody wants their point to be
51:52
heard.
51:52
So now you had great service,
51:54
clean restaurant, friendly staff,
51:55
but you had sucky ribs, quote.
51:58
And so I'm going to give you one
51:59
star.
51:59
And everybody wants their point to be raw,
52:01
rawry.
52:03
I gave her my phone number.
52:04
She hadn't called yet.
52:05
I'm telling you,
52:06
print that and put it up.
52:09
Just take a clean plate of bones and
52:11
there you go.
52:14
Good picture.
52:16
I'm in.
52:17
Do it.
52:17
Here's a picture for you.
52:18
That's it.
52:19
Merry Christmas.
52:22
All right, Taryn.
52:24
I'm coming to Slow Fire.
52:26
First time ever being there.
52:28
What do I got to eat?
52:31
I'm going to tell you,
52:31
but first I'm going to tell you about
52:34
a one-star that I just received just a
52:36
couple days ago because we have outdoor
52:39
seating.
52:40
Outstanding.
52:40
Yeah,
52:41
one star because we have outdoor seating,
52:43
and it was hot.
52:44
She said it was hot,
52:46
and I have outdoor seating.
52:47
She's like, there were flies.
52:49
And she posted a picture.
52:52
I have fly fans out on my seat,
52:55
on my table.
52:56
The damn fly fan was in the picture.
52:59
That's what I'm talking about.
53:01
All right, ladies.
53:04
Man, you are in Georgia on the coast.
53:07
Yeah, it's going to be hot and humid.
53:09
That's a good one.
53:11
These gnats just about picked me up and
53:13
took off with me, you know?
53:16
So if you come to, you know,
53:18
we obviously we do Texas style barbecue.
53:20
I've tried when we first started to give
53:23
it like a low country flair, you know,
53:26
because that's what, you know,
53:27
being on the coast and we're right at
53:29
the low country and all.
53:31
And we do,
53:32
we do that with some things, you know,
53:35
it's kind of harder to do that with
53:36
barbecue.
53:37
I tried to do it with barbecue and
53:38
it just didn't really work.
53:41
just hard you know and so there are
53:43
a few things that we do it with
53:44
like our uh when we do a street
53:46
corn we do a street corn salad like
53:48
a latte salad uh eskites if you will
53:51
and that is you know that's made a
53:53
little bit like savannah style whereas we
53:56
don't put the lime juice and the cilantro
53:59
and all like we do a lemon juice
54:01
and we use our harissa seasoning and uh
54:04
you know um
54:06
you know,
54:06
just a little bit different spin there.
54:08
We also,
54:10
we do a low country boiled potato salad.
54:12
So cook the potatoes in water season,
54:16
like you would cook a low country boil
54:18
in.
54:18
And then we make the potato salad out
54:20
of that.
54:21
And so it's got like,
54:23
it's got green onions in it.
54:24
It's got diced up preserved lemons to give
54:27
it that lemon pop to it.
54:28
It's really, really good.
54:30
And then lastly, with our sausage,
54:33
We haven't been doing sausage lately
54:35
because we've just been so busy.
54:38
Once we get the restaurant fully open,
54:40
we'll be able to incorporate that more
54:42
because I'll have a team and not just
54:43
myself doing most of everything.
54:47
And so there's a low country boiled
54:50
sausage that I've made that it's,
54:53
you know,
54:53
essentially we take the trimmings from
54:55
beef, pork,
54:56
and then we'll throw chunks of Georgia
54:57
shrimp in there too.
54:59
um and then it'll have like uh diced
55:02
up potatoes in it it'll have uh lemon
55:05
in it it'll have uh the the all
55:07
the seasonings from a boil and so it's
55:09
really really good it's a little different
55:11
with the texture uh with the shrimp in
55:13
there it makes a little bit of a
55:14
different texture a little chunky yeah
55:17
yeah but it's it's really good um it's
55:20
when are you gonna have that yeah
55:22
uh once the restaurant gets back up and
55:24
running we'll definitely have that back uh
55:26
it's got corn in it i mean just
55:28
essentially everything a low country bowl
55:30
would have stuffed inside of the sausage
55:31
you know what i like about sausage you
55:34
can do what you want you can put
55:34
all kinds of that's exactly right yeah all
55:37
kinds of absolutely but to answer your
55:40
question if you're coming here uh you know
55:43
the brisket obviously is our number one
55:45
seller
55:46
Uh, to be honest, the Turkey, man,
55:48
the Turkey,
55:49
I like it as almost as much as
55:51
our brisket.
55:53
Uh, we do a really,
55:53
really good job on our Turkey.
55:55
Um, you know,
55:56
the way that we cook it, uh, we,
55:58
we doing whole breast.
56:00
Yeah, we're doing whole breast.
56:02
Um, you know,
56:03
like we don't cook it as far as
56:04
a lot of restaurants do.
56:06
We cook a little bit.
56:07
Uh, we don't take it that far.
56:09
So it makes it really, really tender,
56:10
really moist.
56:12
Um,
56:13
I would say... Turkey's an art form, man.
56:17
It is.
56:17
It really is.
56:18
Man, it's so good.
56:21
I would say that you would probably need
56:23
to get our oxtails.
56:30
Okay.
56:31
I say that if you come, like,
56:34
ninety-nine percent of the time,
56:35
I'm going to tell you,
56:36
if you've never been here,
56:37
you need to get brisket and turkey.
56:38
That's what I'm going to tell you.
56:40
My favorite are Brussels sprouts.
56:43
And, um, and actually our tots,
56:46
which is kind of stupid, uh, you know,
56:49
our, um, the potato salad was really good.
56:52
Obviously Mac and beans are crazy.
56:53
We put our choppers, getting the beans.
56:56
Um, like a lot of people do,
56:57
you know,
56:58
so you can't go wrong with you.
56:59
When you're, when you're ordering your,
57:00
we have a segment called Mac and beans
57:02
on our show and we hadn't gotten to
57:03
it.
57:03
We got,
57:03
we got to get to it before we
57:05
cut out.
57:05
But, um, when you're ordering, you get,
57:08
you're probably going to get your Turkey
57:10
man after my own heart.
57:12
So you get the Turkey or the brisket,
57:14
which is pretty much my daily meal.
57:17
Do you get the Mac and cheese or
57:18
do you get the beans to go along
57:19
with it?
57:20
Man.
57:24
God, that's a hard one, dude.
57:28
It really depends on the day,
57:29
but I'm going to probably go with the
57:33
Mac and I'm gonna tell you why we,
57:35
um, so we do a really creamy Mac.
57:38
It, uh, it isn't that home style baked,
57:41
so it's, it's really creamy,
57:43
but it's like thick, creamy.
57:45
Um,
57:47
and we top it,
57:47
we top it with this,
57:49
what we call mac crunchies.
57:51
And what it is,
57:52
is we grind up chili cheese Fritos and
57:56
Ritz crackers,
57:56
and we toss it in brown butter.
57:59
and that's what gets topped on the mac
58:00
and cheese and it just makes it like
58:02
it just sends it next level yeah it
58:08
looks dude yeah i did trent's face his
58:10
jaw just when we first when we first
58:14
opened i did uh ritz crackers and panko
58:17
bread crumbs yeah and we put some
58:19
seasonings and butter in that and toss
58:21
that up and then
58:22
but I treated it like croutons and I
58:24
throw it in the oven and get it
58:25
extra crispy.
58:25
Yeah.
58:26
So I'd have just a little extra,
58:28
you know, slap your crunch bite to it.
58:29
Yeah.
58:29
Oh man.
58:30
It's good.
58:30
Yeah.
58:30
It's good.
58:30
And yeah,
58:31
the reason why I would say the reason
58:34
why I mentioned the oxtails is because,
58:37
you know, uh,
58:38
I feel like with the oxtails being in
58:40
Savannah, you know, like that kind of,
58:42
you know,
58:42
everyone's looking for like that.
58:44
What's that one thing that sets you apart
58:45
from anyone else?
58:46
And I feel like the oxtails that's,
58:49
that's our thing.
58:50
You know, um, you know,
58:51
we usually only do them on Saturdays
58:53
because they're, they're a good bit of,
58:55
you know, a little bit of work, um,
58:58
you know,
58:58
to get them to where we like them.
59:00
Uh, you know, it,
59:01
I'm sure at some point they'll become a
59:02
daily, a daily thing, but, um, yeah,
59:05
the oxtails, man.
59:08
Yeah, they're really good.
59:09
I have been on a kick of pork
59:11
chops lately.
59:13
And I'm getting ready to start doing a
59:16
tomahawk pork chop.
59:19
I wanted to do that for Father's Day
59:20
so bad.
59:21
Yeah.
59:21
We do...
59:23
I've been trying to do can-can pork chops
59:26
for a long time,
59:27
but it's just such a large piece of
59:28
meat.
59:31
It's hard to sell because you need more
59:33
than one person to eat a three-pound pork
59:37
chop.
59:38
It kind of makes it difficult.
59:42
But now I have some tomahawk pork chops
59:46
I've gotten.
59:47
The, the chop itself is a,
59:49
is about sixteen ounces.
59:51
So they're pretty,
59:52
they're pretty delicious.
59:54
Throw them in a brine for twenty-four
59:55
hours and then smoke the crap out of
59:57
them.
59:58
Make you slap your grandma.
59:59
Sounds like a good time.
1:00:01
If if people are wanting to come see
1:00:04
you and eat at the restaurant,
1:00:07
when what hours operations,
1:00:09
where are you located?
1:00:10
All the things.
1:00:11
So we're it's a little tricky right now.
1:00:14
So we are and have been a food
1:00:17
truck.
1:00:18
Right.
1:00:18
And so the food truck has been it's
1:00:21
like an old school bus,
1:00:23
a nineteen eighty nine school bus that
1:00:25
that short bus actually.
1:00:26
You know that we're starting to a food
1:00:28
truck, not by us,
1:00:29
but so we've been rocking the food truck
1:00:32
for a while.
1:00:34
We have a new location that is the
1:00:37
address is four ten East Thirty Seventh
1:00:39
Street.
1:00:40
And so if you were to come
1:00:43
You know, probably not this week,
1:00:46
but starting probably next week,
1:00:47
we've had some, we're having,
1:00:49
we're dealing with some issues with the
1:00:51
city as far as like zoning and man,
1:00:54
it's just,
1:00:54
the city has been an absolute nightmare
1:00:56
for us just because Savannah is not very
1:00:59
food truck friendly.
1:01:01
And we're trying to do things a little
1:01:02
unconventionally.
1:01:03
Like we don't want to be a food
1:01:04
truck that just travels around everywhere
1:01:06
because people have to hunt us.
1:01:08
Like I want to sell out of my
1:01:10
food.
1:01:10
I don't want to make people guess like
1:01:11
I, you know,
1:01:12
and so I want to create consistency and
1:01:14
popping it up a single location.
1:01:16
So we have signed a lease on this
1:01:18
new place.
1:01:19
Um, it's actually an old, um,
1:01:21
it's like an old filling station,
1:01:23
old gas station.
1:01:24
on a corner of a couple of really
1:01:26
busy streets.
1:01:28
Outdoor seating,
1:01:28
it's got a stage for live music.
1:01:31
And so we're working on building it into
1:01:35
a restaurant.
1:01:35
That's where I'm at now currently.
1:01:38
We're working on building it into a
1:01:39
restaurant.
1:01:39
It should be done four to five months.
1:01:46
And then, like,
1:01:46
we'll have a meat market style when you
1:01:48
come in.
1:01:49
And so, like, when you come in,
1:01:51
you're going to come in and get your
1:01:52
food inside because it's a small little
1:01:54
area that I'm in, the inside.
1:01:57
You come in just to get your food,
1:01:59
and then it's completely outdoor seating.
1:02:01
Now,
1:02:01
the seating is a good bit of it's
1:02:04
covered.
1:02:05
We have fans, you know,
1:02:06
all that kind of stuff.
1:02:07
There's a good breeze that comes through
1:02:08
here.
1:02:10
Please don't leave us a one-star review
1:02:11
for single size.
1:02:16
But no, I mean,
1:02:16
like we've got picnic tables everywhere.
1:02:18
We've got old blues playing, man.
1:02:20
It's just, it is completely a vibe.
1:02:22
And right behind us,
1:02:24
we're butted up against the train tracks.
1:02:26
And so like where we're at,
1:02:29
the train cannot honk because we're in
1:02:31
downtown.
1:02:32
So the train can't honk here.
1:02:34
So it has to slowly roll by real
1:02:37
quietly.
1:02:38
So it is, man,
1:02:39
it's just an incredible vibe when that
1:02:41
happens.
1:02:42
I love it.
1:02:44
Currently right now, we are very,
1:02:47
very close to opening the inside as a
1:02:49
general store because that's what it was
1:02:52
before.
1:02:54
With that being said,
1:02:56
we'll be able to activate and have beer
1:02:58
and wine.
1:02:59
So you'll be able to come in and
1:03:01
order
1:03:02
Um,
1:03:02
like essentially order your food from the
1:03:04
food truck.
1:03:04
The food truck will be outside.
1:03:06
You'll get a pager to go pick up
1:03:07
the food when it's done,
1:03:08
but you'll be able to get drinks and
1:03:10
stuff inside while you wait or, you know,
1:03:12
get refills.
1:03:14
Um, and that's just a,
1:03:15
for a small amount of time until we
1:03:16
get construction done, which like I said,
1:03:18
it'll take like four or five months,
1:03:20
you know, yeah, we'll be open.
1:03:22
So what, uh, what,
1:03:24
what hours are you currently open?
1:03:26
Uh, currently Thursday,
1:03:27
Fridays and Saturdays,
1:03:31
Nice.
1:03:32
All right.
1:03:32
Y'all know what to do.
1:03:33
Go get the oxtails, the brisket,
1:03:34
the turkey, the Brussels sprouts,
1:03:36
the mac and cheese, all the things.
1:03:40
Our Thursdays,
1:03:41
we have our pastrami Reuben days.
1:03:43
That's what I would.
1:03:44
I saw that on your Instagram.
1:03:46
Holy crap.
1:03:47
I would absolutely get that.
1:03:48
That's my favorite special.
1:03:50
I will be down there in a little
1:03:52
while.
1:03:54
Uh,
1:03:54
usually Fridays are our brisket smash
1:03:56
burger days, uh, that we, you know,
1:03:58
collect our shrimp and do that.
1:04:00
Uh, and then Saturdays we usually do, uh,
1:04:04
the oxtails, um, you know, but we,
1:04:07
we try to,
1:04:08
I try to throw in some,
1:04:09
some fun things in there, uh,
1:04:11
like this Saturday or next Saturday,
1:04:13
we'll probably do one of those Saturdays.
1:04:15
We're going to do our crispy skin pork
1:04:17
belly and do the bond me sandwich from
1:04:19
that.
1:04:20
Um, another thing we'll do is I'll,
1:04:23
Uh, I'll take a, um,
1:04:25
I'll take a Burberry seasoning,
1:04:26
which is like an Ethiopian kind of like
1:04:28
very Indian type of spice.
1:04:30
And I will coat, um,
1:04:33
lamb shoulders and that,
1:04:35
and we'll smoke it.
1:04:36
It's unreal flavor.
1:04:37
And then we'll,
1:04:37
we'll do pulled lamb with that.
1:04:39
And then we'll do like pulled lamb euros,
1:04:41
you know,
1:04:41
little things like that that we'll throw
1:04:43
into kind of just keep it fresh.
1:04:45
Um,
1:04:45
I hadn't done pulled lamb in a long
1:04:47
time.
1:04:48
Yeah.
1:04:50
It's so funny, dude.
1:04:51
When we do it, it's like, man,
1:04:53
it'll be super slammed.
1:04:55
Everyone loves it.
1:04:56
Or no one will get it.
1:04:58
It's just weird.
1:04:59
Yeah, I understand.
1:05:01
And obviously, we do our dino beef ribs.
1:05:04
For the most part,
1:05:05
we only did them on Saturdays.
1:05:07
But we did a test.
1:05:09
We ran a test to see if people
1:05:10
would buy them on Thursdays and Fridays.
1:05:12
And they are.
1:05:13
So I think we're going to start doing
1:05:15
them every day.
1:05:17
Nice.
1:05:17
I love it.
1:05:20
Barry,
1:05:20
you got a Friday to feel good for
1:05:21
us?
1:05:21
Of course I do.
1:05:22
I was watching Mike Rowe speak here
1:05:25
recently,
1:05:26
and he had brought up the fact that
1:05:28
he had watched some class or lecture
1:05:32
online, and he had a great point.
1:05:35
Never stop learning.
1:05:36
Literally,
1:05:37
the world is at your fingertips.
1:05:38
Whatever you want to do,
1:05:40
you can find a way to do it.
1:05:41
You have to have the want to,
1:05:43
and then you can never stop learning.
1:05:45
Keep moving forward.
1:05:46
Y'all know what to do.
1:05:46
Find somebody you know.
1:05:47
Tell them you love them.
1:05:49
Outstanding.
1:05:49
That's good stuff.
1:05:50
Slap that like button like your mama told
1:05:52
you right.
1:05:53
Yeah, buddy.
1:05:55
Taryn, man,
1:05:56
I appreciate you coming to hang out with
1:05:57
us today.
1:05:59
It was cool to hear some of your
1:06:01
story.
1:06:02
Hopefully we can – we have a countrywide
1:06:07
tour we're going to have to take.
1:06:08
We're going to have to eventually.
1:06:10
We would love to get down there and
1:06:12
hang out with you for sure.
1:06:13
If you're ever in Nashville,
1:06:15
please reach out.
1:06:15
Make sure you come see us.
1:06:18
I definitely will.
1:06:18
The nice thing about Savannah is it is
1:06:21
–
1:06:22
Obviously,
1:06:22
a very beautiful place to come and just
1:06:23
hang out for a vacation.
1:06:25
It is.
1:06:26
And it's only six and a half hours
1:06:27
away.
1:06:29
I have spent many a night there.
1:06:30
That's it.
1:06:31
For sure.
1:06:33
We won't talk about St.
1:06:34
Patrick's Day in Savannah.
1:06:35
But it is what it is.
1:06:38
Look, y'all know what to do.
1:06:39
If you want to get involved with the
1:06:40
show,
1:06:40
please feel free to reach out to me
1:06:42
directly.
1:06:42
You can call me at six one five
1:06:44
three zero seven zero one two zero.
1:06:46
You can email me at Charlie at single
1:06:48
tree bbq.com.
1:06:50
Make sure that you like share and
1:06:51
subscribe to the channel.
1:06:53
And, uh, and until next time, guys,
1:06:55
we'll see you then.
1:06:56
Y'all be good.