Latest / BBQ Therapy / #52 Darren Warth Smokey D's BBQ - The Winning Addiction of a BBQ Legend

Transcript

#52 Darren Warth Smokey D's BBQ - The Winning Addiction of a BBQ Legend · BBQ Therapy

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  I think the craziest thing that ever got done when I turned 50
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  at the American Royal and Luke Darnell, no, it wasn't Luke
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  Darnell. He was involved.
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  But the guys from Shiggin and Grinning, Jeff and Teddy and
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  Derek, they hired strippers. They hired a stripper.
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  They hired a stripper to come to the American Royal on Thursday
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  night. So we're outside Jeff's camper
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  with a full blown stripper and it just the craziest as I look
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  back on I'm going what what may be a reason I don't drink
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  anymore. That's probably the craziest
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  thing that ever happened. I cannot believe we not didn't
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  get disqualified. Somebody come around and said
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  you can't do this, but that was probably the craziest thing we
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  ever did. Listen, learn.
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  Get inspired. I'm Tavis Bryant and this is BBQ
• 0:57
  Therapy like subscribe and follow to help grow the BBQ
• 1:01
  Therapy community. Also visit my website at
• 1:05
  www.barbecuetherapypodcast.com. Welcome to the BBQ Therapy
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  podcast. My name is Tavis Bryant and
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  today I get to sit down with a living legend.
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  Darren Wirth is a Hall of Famer, a multi time world champion in
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  the Pitmaster behind Iowa's Smokey D's.
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  He's won the American Royal three times, the Jack, the
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  Houston Livestock, and more than a boatload of grand
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  championships, state, local, regional and national awards.
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  I'm not going to put a number on it because it's different
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  numbers everywhere, which puts him in the conversation of being
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  the goat or in the discussion of being the goat.
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  But beyond the trophies, Darren is a business owner, a family
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  man and someone who's helped shape BBQ into what it is today.
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  And I'm a note on the side that also top five wise, he got a
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  fifth, two, fifth place in America, Royal, 4th place, the
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  third place and the second place and another second place in the
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  Jack. So those could have been World
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  Championships also. But we're not just talking about
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  titles, we're talking about stories, struggles, the lessons
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  and the success that define who Darren really is.
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  This is BBQ therapy. Welcome to barbecue therapy.
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  I got one rule. Make yourself at home.
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  I had no sponsors yet, so speak freely.
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  But I know you already. That's kind of, that's kind of
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  like us. Yeah, no, it's glad to finally
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  be here after what, 6 months of prodding me and I'm like, I
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  ain't got time. I ain't got time now we got
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  time. All right, definitely, because
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  it's all about timing, so I knew.
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  I'm just glad it happened. All right, let's start off from
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  the beginning. Were you originally born in
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  Iowa? Yeah, I grew up in southeast
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  Iowa. I grew up in town, but I was a
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  farm boy, so I I spent my weekend shoveling hog shit and
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  running wagons for my dad, running the corn picker and
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  everything. So I'm a farm kid at heart.
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  Oh wow. And I read that your dad used to
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  blackened chicken breast with that influence on you and
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  grilling or? Yeah, that's my earliest
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  memories of grilling were my dad just grilling chicken breast
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  till a char and then my mom would mix up open pit BBQ sauce
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  and squeeze honey in it. And that was growing up, that
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  was BBQ. That was, there was no smoking.
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  That was really are grilling BBQ.
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  We were poor. We didn't eat steak.
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  We had family dinners. But I tell you, we ate together
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  family at 11:30 every day and at 5:30 every night and every
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  Sunday we ate family dinners by it wasn't 5 minutes late, it
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  wasn't fast food. It was my mom's a wonderful cook
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  and she taught me the love of cooking.
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  I was sitting on the counter when I was a little kid learning
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  recipes, so I've always loved food.
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  OK, OK. And based on your social media,
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  I can see that you look like a good cook baseball with the
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  stuff that you'd be making because I had a lot of it I
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  haven't seen before. And I was like, wow.
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  Yeah, my favorite thing to do is as, as you can imagine, on the
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  BBQ circuit. We travel around the country and
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  my favorite thing is when I go to a local place and I find
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  something I really love, I come back home and I try and recreate
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  it. So it's, it's crazy.
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  It's just one of my, whether it's a Chinese dish or whether
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  it's like, for instance, we were down in Alabama a couple years
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  ago and we went to a Thai restaurant with Brad Lininger
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  and Joe Pierce and all these guys.
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  And they, those guys really know how to, they really know how to
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  pick out the best local restaurant.
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  OK, They do all the research. I just go along for the ride.
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  And some sometimes you get stuck with a bill.
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  But anyway, I had this pad Kropal and I'd never been to a
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  Thai restaurant in my life. And I just fell in love with
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  this. And I go down this rabbit hole
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  of how do I recreate this? So I'll find 15 different
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  recipes, put them in a spreadsheet of the ingredients,
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  and then try and come up with my own and recreate it.
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  So that's my favorite thing to do.
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  Oh, wow, that sounds great. All right, let's move on to the
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  How did you first learn about competitive barbecue?
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  And how did you find out about the American Royal that that you
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  went to, first of all? Yeah, so the story started with
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  deer sausage. I went to my locker to get my
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  deer. I used to be a Deer Hunter and I
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  went to the locker and it was $1200.
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  And I'm like, that's back then. We didn't have a lot of my.
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  I'm like, I really should be able to learn how to do this.
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  So I started researching on the Internet and there really
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  wasn't, yeah, there wasn't Google back then, There wasn't
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  Facebook, There wasn't anything. We're talking 2002.
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  And so I found the BBQ forum and the BBQ forum was just a chat
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  board out there for BBQ backyard and competitive cooks and
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  everybody's, hey, you should really try and go to the
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  American Royal. So I'm like, OK, so let's go to
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  the American Royal. So my wife and I went to the
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  American Royal and we were in love.
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  It's like the ultimate. It's like a big tailgate.
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  We used to be the first in the parking lot at Iowa State games.
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  It was a big tailgate, but it was cooking food and grilling
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  and everything. And one team took us under their
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  wings and said, hey, you can just hang out all we can if you
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  want. And so we hung out with them and
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  we just, I'm not sure we learned anything about competitive BBQ,
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  but we knew it's something we want to be.
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  And I'm an all in guy, right? So anything I do is 110% all in
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  once I dive. So as soon as we got from the
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  American Royal, I did my research.
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  About two weeks later I called up and I ordered a Gator Pit out
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  of Houston, TX to be built and got that Gator pit.
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  One day I was sitting at work, I was in Atlanta for work and I,
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  they said, hey, your pit's ready.
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  So I flew from Atlanta, I was supposed to fly home.
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  I flew from Atlanta to Houston, TX, picked up my Gator pit,
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  drove all the way home with a rental car with this pit because
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  I was so excited to cook on this pit and started practicing on
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  the pit. And pretty soon the next year in
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  May I think it was, we started, we entered our first BBQ
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  contest. We never did any backyard stuff.
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  We never did. We just entered the BBQ contest
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  and that's how we're going to learn.
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  And when did you realize that it wasn't a hobby anymore and that
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  BBQ can change your life? Barbecue, change your life.
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  All right, So we started competing and in that first
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  contest we got two top 10 calls. And the beauty of it is if
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  you've ever seen the picture, we were, we had an 85 mile an hour
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  straight line winds come through the contest at 6:00 in the
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  morning and it melted my tents to the smoker and I had brand
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  new everything. As you can imagine with your
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  first BBQ contest, I ended up doing turn insurance out of the
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  back doors of a Suburban with mud up to my ankles and it was
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  just the most miserable. I want to quit so bad.
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  And my wife's you bought all this crap you are finishing.
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  So we finished and we got a top ten call in chicken and a top
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  ten call in pork and those are the 2 calls that changed the
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  life forever. So we started competing and we
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  started back then. I mean, there wasn't BBQ
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  classes. You only learn by going to
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  barbecue contests and just keeping your ears open on Friday
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  night when the good cooks would, they get a little too much to
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  drink and you'd start, they'd start spewing out comments.
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  That really hasn't changed today, but people can learn a
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  lot quicker. But we started winning.
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  We won our first contest in 2004 in Colorado Springs.
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  It was a 15 team contest. And then right after that, we
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  came back and we won Wacoma, Iowa.
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  And pretty soon by 2006, we had won 27 state championships and
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  we were getting good at it. What happened was people kept
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  coming to us saying, hey, we want you to, we want you to
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  cater our wedding. Hey, we want food for our lunch.
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  And we're like, we both got full time jobs.
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  Here I am. I'm a vice president of
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  logistics for a National Transportation management
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  company. My wife has a full time job as
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  an office manager. And so we have no time and we're
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  trying to figure out what to do. And we're started doing some
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  meat and whatever. I'm like, OK, if we're going to
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  do this, we're going to be legal.
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  So we went and bought a new competition BBQ rig.
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  So we bought a 32 foot trailer and put a commercial kitchen in
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  the back of it and got it all certified and we parked it in
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  our driveway and that was our commissary.
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  We were able to park that and we did everything out of there.
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  Now, mind you, I'm on the road 50% of the time.
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  So my wife, I'm anytime at a home, I'm cooking barbecue and
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  I'm freezing it or I'm cryovacking it.
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  And then during the week we're actually catering and she is,
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  she's taking this stuff out and leaving for work, coming home at
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  noon, processing it and then going and delivering it for
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  lunch. And we're starting to do
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  catering. We're vending almost every
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  weekend when we're competing at BBQ contest.
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  And it just became crazy. And then it that in 2006, we did
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  100,000 in sales out of our driveway and we're, and so at
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  the end of the year, we looked at each other and said, there's
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  no way we can continue. There's just no way.
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  We have to figure out we're either going to take this to the
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  next level and we're going to open up a place that we can hire
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  people to manage. Look at the business and I can
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  smoke the meat at nights and on weekends.
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  And, and so we decided that we were going to open Smokey D's
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  BBQ because back then we were the smoking clones.
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  We were the smoke and clones after the Cyclones.
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  While we knew that if you're going to have a restaurant or a
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  business that even Hawkeye fans needed to eat too.
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  So that's why we changed it to Smokey D's and Big D Darren
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  Little S Sherry. That's where Smokey D's was
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  born. And in May of the next year, we
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  actually found a building right up down the street from our
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  house and we were going to open a catering kitchen.
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  And about two weeks before we got ready to open, we said,
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  let's just put a little carry out on here.
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  We're going to have employees here.
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  And I, I actually brought on a business partner that knew the
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  restaurant business. And so we brought Chad on and he
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  was running the day-to-day operation, even though I was the
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  guy behind the meat and he was the guy behind the side dishes.
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  We brought this on and we started and day one we lined him
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  out the door and it was just carry out.
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  We had two picnic tables. Was our seating outside and even
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  though it was 10° outside, there was people outside sitting on
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  those picnic tables eating barbecue.
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  And it just went crazy. And it just built and built.
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  And then the next year I got corporate downsized on purpose.
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  I actually, my boss said, hey, do you want to be in the
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  transportation business or I've got an opportunity to bring
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  another person in that's been gone.
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  And I'm like, yeah, I really want to survive until July.
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  Just give me till July and he's going to tell you what I'm going
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  to make you one better. I'm going to give you a
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  severance package to July. And by the way, just go ahead
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  and keep your company car. And I'm like, oh, I said this
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  today, my last day and he goes, make sure you catch them up to
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  speed. Then you're done.
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  I'm like sweet, still a great Fred.
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  It was positioned that way and it allowed me to get full time
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  in the business. And then two months later we
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  opened our second location and then a year later we opened our
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  third location. And then in 2010, we took a huge
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  jump and said we need to get bigger if I'm going to be on the
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  payroll. We've got it.
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  We can't struggle with payroll. You've got to scale in this
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  business. So one afternoon we shut down at
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  4:00 and at 6:00 we opened our 400 seat restaurant right down
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  the street, right on I-80 and it was nuts.
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  We were horrible at it. We were horrible at it, but we
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  got better. We got really good really quick.
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  Amazing. If you just put 22 hours a day
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  in and sleep two hours underneath the desk, you do that
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  for about a month, you figure out how you can be good at it.
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  Yeah, it just evolved. Customers forced me into the
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  business. I didn't want to be in the BBQ
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  business. I was a transportation guy at a
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  six figure salary. I was traveling the world,
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  playing company golf every week. I was.
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  Life was good. And that's the part people don't
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  hear about this long hours like that.
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  And I got to meet Shed this year at the Royal.
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  I was walking high and I was like hey, you're the guy from
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  the BBQ pit master. He was over there quietly doing
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  his thing. But and also for everybody to
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  know, I met Darren at the Royal 8 times.
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  The people introduced me. I was like y'all going to blow
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  it? Stop introducing me to him, for
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  you'd be like, you know what? That's it.
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  But that's a good. Thing to have people.
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  Yeah, it was when we first opened.
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  She had just won Pitmasters and then we got to 2013 and Diners,
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  Dr. Insurance and Dives came and that was like life changing for
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  us. And it still is today.
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  As a matter of fact, it was just on last night.
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  They've aired that thing 345 times a year and for some
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  reason, I don't know why, they always air us around holidays.
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  And that's just it. We see instant pumps in our
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  business every time. And that was 12 years later and
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  we're still seeing pumps. Wow, wow.
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  All right. We're going to switch over to
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  the comp side real quick. Which wind do you think was the
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  greatest for you and why does it stand out above the rest?
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  There's a lot of winds. That's a lot of who I would say
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  probably the most special when it besides the first, the first
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  one was OK. It was like been shocked, but
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  winning the American royal the first time because the American
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  Royal to me is the Creme de la clime.
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  Anybody that's anybody is there, right.
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  And so by winning the American Royal in that crowd first, you
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  got to be, you got to be super lucky to win the Open.
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  You got to be dead ass, have rabbit's foot up your butt to
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  win it three times, right, which we have.
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  It's just crazy. But winning that one time gave
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  us that credibility, gave us that.
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  And just standing on that American Royal stage back when
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  it used to be in Kemper Arena or the in the bottoms at the horse
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  Arena, and it was just an amazing experience.
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  There's just crowds of people congratulating you and it's not
• 15:45
  like that anymore. But yeah, you get 1020 thirty
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  people when you win their royal, but everybody else is pissed
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  off. Looking at their score.
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  She's wondering why they didn't win.
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  Going back to their site. One of my biggest pet peeves
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  ever, but. That's crazy.
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  All right, I'm going to make this statement.
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  This is me and it's not Darren. I'm going to ask you the
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  question first. What do you think your absolute
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  best year competing was and why? Wow, I don't.
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  I'm not sure I have a year because somewhere between 2013
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  and 2018 were like my glory days after winning the Royal in 13
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  and then you won the Jack, we also won that Sam's Club
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  National championship and so we run won the Royal I think in 13,
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  the Jack in 14 and 15 we kind of laid off the competition I think
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  a little bit. But in 16 we won the Royal again
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  and 1717 we won the Sam's Club National championship somewhere.
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  We won Houston too, in 17, I think maybe 18.
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  And then in 18 we won the Royal again.
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  So I'm not sure I could pick out one year.
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  The there was a group of years in there that and I'm sure we
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  ever won a lot. I think one year, our best year
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  was 2014. I think I won $159,000 on the
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  BBQ circuit. Well, that money's not even
• 17:17
  there anymore. It's just there's no, there's no
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  contest that pay that type of money.
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  We won $50,000 contest, you win the royal, we won $25,000
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  contest and we just the big ones, we tend to rise and we did
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  really well at the big contest. I'm.
• 17:34
  Going to make this statement for me because I can only go by BBQ
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  data or what it says, but I think that 2016, your 2016 might
• 17:43
  have been the best year of someone competing that I've seen
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  because I went through different people and looked at it.
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  Because you did 37 comps. They said all of them were top
• 17:57
  1234 out of 37 were top 1033 were top 6 with 10 GCS and 11
• 18:08
  RGCS. So I mean it.
• 18:13
  And I still didn't, and I still didn't win the team of the year,
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  evidently. I don't know.
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  I've never been a team of the year guy.
• 18:20
  I've never you have them stats. I've never heard those stats
• 18:23
  before. I don't even really have a
• 18:24
  membership. I'm not a I'm just not a numbers
• 18:28
  guy. I maybe should be.
• 18:30
  I'm a numbers guy, but I'm not a my.
• 18:34
  My stats are, I think the amount of brisket wins I have on BBQ
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  data I think will stand up for a long time because right now
• 18:45
  there's just not that many people that like Brad super hot
• 18:48
  and they're Gabe Trevino. He won, he won brisket team of
• 18:51
  the year, Super, super hot. But the ability to be just there
• 18:58
  over the long term, right, it's just consistency and that's
• 19:01
  what's kept us in the game, both in the restaurant business and
• 19:05
  there. And do you know how many states
• 19:09
  you cooked in? I don't have a clue.
• 19:13
  Not all of them, because I know we've got, we're trying to look
• 19:16
  at Alaska and Hawaii for this year coming up.
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  And no, I wish I've, I wish I have, but I don't.
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  Maybe maybe you could do that analysis for me if you don't.
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  I I work on it again. In your spare time.
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  I got a 19 month old and 9 year old so I don't have much spare
• 19:38
  time. I feel for you and I waited
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  until age 4849 to have that. Wow, I got a three-year old and
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  a almost 6 year old grandkids and they're just, you know,
• 19:51
  they're getting fun. Yeah, I just got married two
• 19:53
  years ago, so 48. Wow, yeah, no thanks.
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  At least mine when mine cry I can send them home.
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  And that's why I haven't started competing yet because since I
• 20:10
  had the baby I was like, I'm a father first.
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  So I got to wait till she get up in age before I jump out there.
• 20:15
  But yeah, important my, my daughter was, she was, I don't,
• 20:19
  I think she must have been six or seven when we started
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  competing and she went every time.
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  She was every time. And until the time she got 14 or
• 20:26
  15, I want to stay home. So then we just left her home by
• 20:29
  herself and she did fine. She dealt with absentee because
• 20:33
  she knew our love and it's our love, still our love today.
• 20:38
  And what was the craziest thing you ever done at a BBQ
• 20:41
  competition? I think the craziest thing that
• 20:45
  ever got done when I turned 50 at the American Royal and Luke
• 20:50
  Darnell, no, it wasn't Luke Darnell.
• 20:53
  He was involved. But the guys from Shiggin and
• 20:56
  Grinning, Jeff and Teddy and Derek, they hired strippers,
• 21:02
  they hired a stripper, they hired a stripper to come to the
• 21:07
  American Royal on Thursday night.
• 21:10
  So we're outside Jeff's camper with a full blown stripper and
• 21:16
  it just the craziest as I look back on I'm going what what may
• 21:21
  be a reason I don't drink anymore.
• 21:26
  That's probably the craziest thing that ever happened.
• 21:28
  I cannot believe we not didn't get disqualified.
• 21:31
  Somebody come around and said you can't do this, but that was
• 21:34
  probably the craziest thing we ever did.
• 21:36
  Wow and I was just talking about cooking during the competition
• 21:41
  but. Oh, wow.
• 21:44
  I got all kinds of I got all kinds of crazy cooking, Probably
• 21:48
  most well known for the craziest crap I ever pulled.
• 21:53
  In 2018. We had just won the American
• 21:57
  Royal for the third time. And then the week after, two
• 22:00
  weeks later, we went to the Jack Daniels.
• 22:03
  And I had in my mind, because I hadn't been scoring that well in
• 22:06
  pork, and I had in my mind that I was going to turn in a box of
• 22:11
  pulled pork. And my wife's what I'm like,
• 22:14
  Nope, I'm not going to give me a chance.
• 22:16
  It's all celebrity judges. I'm just going to turn in a box
• 22:19
  of pulled pork. So she's whatever.
• 22:22
  And everybody knew. All my friends knew what I was
• 22:25
  doing. They're like, you don't have the
• 22:26
  balls to do that. And I'm like, oh, watch me.
• 22:28
  I got the balls to do anything. I've won the world.
• 22:30
  I don't have nothing to lose here.
• 22:33
  So I turn in this box of pulled pork and we're doing our pork
• 22:36
  box and I have these beautiful money mussels and sherry's come
• 22:38
  on. Just you can put pulled in.
• 22:40
  Just slice up one of those and put it on top.
• 22:42
  And I'm like, Nope. And I ripped it up in front of
• 22:45
  her and I put it in and I turned in a box of pulled pork.
• 22:49
  And we go to awards and I get 5th place in chicken and then I
• 22:55
  get first place in ribs with a 180 score.
• 22:59
  And then they come to pork and they come all the way down to
• 23:02
  1st place. And Chip Chapman goes, and
• 23:06
  you're not going to believe this with another 180.
• 23:10
  And Brad from getting based and sitting right across from me, he
• 23:13
  looks over at me and goes, you son of a bitch.
• 23:16
  And because he knew what I did too, and they called him for a
• 23:20
  180 in pork because he had got a 180 in dessert.
• 23:25
  So we didn't get a call in pork. We get third place in brisket.
• 23:29
  So we got three top five calls at the Jack.
• 23:32
  We've got this thing won by 100 miles, right?
• 23:37
  I get 52nd in pork, 51st in pork.
• 23:43
  I win the Jack for the second time.
• 23:45
  So things like that. And then when we cook Las Vegas
• 23:49
  here, just a few weeks ago, I went to Las Vegas and I think we
• 23:52
  finished six in the country last year in pork, which I just got
• 23:56
  on a pork run. I wasn't trying to, but it was
• 23:58
  my pork was just automatic to me.
• 24:01
  And I get to Las Vegas and decide that I'm just going to
• 24:03
  turn in pork steaks. So instead of turning in
• 24:07
  traditional money muscle and cubes, pork and pulled or
• 24:12
  whatever, I'm going to turn in pork steaks.
• 24:15
  And we have done that. Luke and I did that when we
• 24:17
  teamed up down in Florida and got a 180 score cooking pork
• 24:21
  steaks and I've tried it a couple times, 3 or 4 times, and
• 24:24
  it hadn't scored very well. But I had my mind.
• 24:26
  I was doing the One Can Challenge and it would be a lot
• 24:29
  easier for me to be able to cook my pork the day before and then
• 24:32
  just heat it up and grill it off.
• 24:34
  So I turned in these pork steaks and they were amazing and we
• 24:38
  just got murdered from the judges.
• 24:41
  It pretty much threw us out of. We would have been probably in
• 24:43
  the top three with a normal pork score, but we just got murdered.
• 24:48
  Wow. It's just, it's those chances.
• 24:50
  Taking those chances. I just competition BBQ.
• 24:53
  When you've been doing it this many years, you got to find some
• 24:56
  excitement in it. Definitely.
• 24:59
  And you said before an average cook who knows how to cook
• 25:02
  average all the time. What do you mean by that?
• 25:05
  Because consistency, consistency pays.
• 25:09
  So competition, barbecue and people that just start in, they
• 25:12
  don't believe it. They're not.
• 25:14
  It's not about the wow factor at all.
• 25:17
  I'm famous for a saying that says give me salt, pepper and
• 25:20
  ketchup and I'll beat you in tenderness every day because
• 25:24
  that's really what this game has become.
• 25:27
  Because let's face it, all the rubs on the market today, I
• 25:32
  won't say all the rubs. I'm going to say 95% of all the
• 25:35
  rubs out there today are the same thing, right?
• 25:39
  Are they salt, their sugar, paprika, right?
• 25:42
  They're just. And so when we first started,
• 25:45
  there was Smoking Guns Hot and there was Head Country and
• 25:49
  Cimarron Docks. Those were the three commercial
• 25:51
  rubs at that point besides Lowry's right, Lowry's seasoning
• 25:56
  Salt. So those were the three rubs.
• 25:59
  As we've seen over the years, a lot of rubs were copied off
• 26:03
  those combinations and then with a little tweak.
• 26:06
  And so people will say, hey, I put Smoking Guns Hot on it and
• 26:09
  then I put this in this and layered.
• 26:11
  I'm like, you just did the same thing.
• 26:12
  Why didn't you just put the 1st 2:00 on?
• 26:14
  But it's the excitement. People see somebody, they score
• 26:17
  with this rub and I'm going to jump on this rub and or this
• 26:20
  sauce or whatever. I'm here to tell you smoking
• 26:22
  Guns Hot and Simmer on Docks and Blues Hog are still going to
• 26:25
  win, right? They're still going to win.
• 26:28
  Exactly. And at this point, do you use a
• 26:31
  strict timeline every time you cook, or do you just at this
• 26:35
  point know what to do? I don't have a time.
• 26:38
  I've never had a timeline. I've never written.
• 26:41
  I've never written down a timeline.
• 26:43
  Some of my best victories are when I oversleep, overslept last
• 26:47
  year and about an hour and a half and they're like, is Darren
• 26:50
  dead in there? Because I was competing by
• 26:51
  myself and they were wondering, but they didn't wake me up.
• 26:54
  And then finally they come knock.
• 26:55
  I'm like, what do you guys need? They're like, it's damn near
• 26:58
  7:00. I'm like, oh, I guess I better
• 27:00
  get up and cook. I end up winning that day
• 27:03
  because it's no. And to tell you things like
• 27:07
  timelines and things like recipes and whatever.
• 27:12
  That's my biggest problem today is because I preach consistency.
• 27:18
  How many times have I said it already?
• 27:19
  Today I preach consistency, but my wife said that you don't
• 27:23
  follow consistency. You change your crap every week.
• 27:27
  And I think just because I'm just bored doing competition
• 27:32
  BBQ, I'm the guy sitting in the chair most of the time.
• 27:35
  I make the timeline work for me, right?
• 27:39
  So if I'm going to be up doing something, then I'm going to
• 27:42
  change my timeline. So I'm going to do three things
• 27:44
  while I'm up so I can sit in the chair for 20 more minutes.
• 27:48
  I don't want to be, I don't want to be doing something every
• 27:50
  single second. I want time to be able to walk
• 27:52
  around, talk to my friends. I want to hang out in the chair,
• 27:54
  check Facebook. I want to do whatever.
• 27:56
  So I've made the timeline fit me and that's probably and that's
• 28:00
  probably why we're thinking about whether we change our name
• 28:03
  to has been BBQ instead of Smokey D's and she's if you
• 28:07
  would just pick these recipes and cook them, you'd probably do
• 28:12
  a lot better. And that's my goal for this year
• 28:15
  is to pick out some recipes and just cook them and be
• 28:19
  consistency because that really is the most important thing in
• 28:24
  competition BBQ. Once you can find something that
• 28:26
  scores, and I'm sure we can find something that scores somewhere
• 28:30
  along the way, you find something that scores.
• 28:32
  If you just cook the same exact thing the same exact way every
• 28:36
  single time and have a good quality meat and whatever, then
• 28:40
  guess what? You're going to, you're going to
• 28:41
  finish. You're going to finish in the
• 28:43
  top ten. You're not going to win every
• 28:44
  contest. If you're really good, you're
• 28:46
  only going to win 33% of the time.
• 28:49
  Yeah. Or finishing the first, That's
• 28:52
  how I always measure is grand in reserve.
• 28:55
  How many times did I finish grand to reserve out of all
• 28:58
  there? And I think my percentage now is
• 29:00
  falling and falling. But used to be 33% of the time I
• 29:03
  was either going to win or get reserve.
• 29:06
  And but I was going to be in that top ten a good 70 or 80% of
• 29:09
  the time. And that's the key.
• 29:10
  You got to hit the top ten. You got to be consistent.
• 29:12
  Just cook it. When you have a bad cook, you
• 29:15
  don't change your recipe, you go cook again because it's probably
• 29:18
  just the variability in the judging table that you're
• 29:20
  hitting. So it's super important to to
• 29:24
  pick the recipes and just even when things go way far South,
• 29:28
  it's not the recipes fault, it's not your fault, it's just the
• 29:32
  variability in judging. So you just got to cook your way
• 29:35
  through it. But I really probably should
• 29:37
  just prep up all my sauces and injections and everything for
• 29:40
  the entire year so they're done because I've tried that before
• 29:46
  too. It doesn't work.
• 29:47
  I'll because then I just throw it all away.
• 29:48
  But but that's my goal anyway going into the year.
• 29:54
  All right. Now this is the one of the main
• 29:56
  reason I wanted to talk to you because I've been trying to
• 30:00
  argue on your behalf. I had spoke to Rod Gray when I
• 30:03
  interviewed him. My thing is if I wanted to look
• 30:07
  at John Elway's stats or if I wanted to look at Jordan stats,
• 30:11
  second game of the finals, I can research all that.
• 30:14
  But when it comes to people like you and other people that
• 30:19
  preceded you, I'm unable to see those stats except what BBQ data
• 30:25
  has started like on yours. It starts at 2008.
• 30:29
  So I was telling him it's it's not fair that we can't see.
• 30:35
  And I know it's not all his fault, but we're unable to see
• 30:39
  all your stats and everybody else's stats because it's just
• 30:42
  not out there. And like people do the GOAT
• 30:46
  conversation, but we can't see all your stats.
• 30:48
  We can see other people's stats, but we can't see all your stats
• 30:51
  from the when you started or people like Johnny Trigg or if I
• 30:56
  want to see Myra mixing what he's done.
• 30:58
  But we're unable to see that. And it's not fair to throw the
• 31:03
  shorten you in the conversation. Yeah.
• 31:06
  The only and the really the only way I knew that we had 27 state
• 31:11
  championships is when I started the business in 2007.
• 31:15
  I made a power because I was a business guy.
• 31:17
  I made a PowerPoint presentation.
• 31:20
  I had the PowerPoint presentation that that had.
• 31:23
  That's the only way I would have known that because, yeah, the
• 31:26
  electronics weren't there. But you know what?
• 31:29
  It doesn't? We can have the old goat and the
• 31:31
  new goat. And because there's always that
• 31:33
  conversation and we always joke around with it because it
• 31:37
  doesn't really matter to me. You can call whatever.
• 31:39
  You can call me Sal. I don't give a shit.
• 31:43
  It's not being. Am I the greatest BBQ cook of
• 31:48
  all time? Probably not, because I don't
• 31:51
  think you could measure that in just in wins.
• 31:54
  Now, if you want to talk about the most consistent cook of all
• 31:57
  time, I would say that I'm right up there.
• 32:01
  If you want to say who's the luckiest guy in the world, yeah,
• 32:04
  that'd be me. That'd be me.
• 32:07
  We've just we've always risen to the top when it's when we're at
• 32:13
  BBQ contest. I like, and I've tell this story
• 32:15
  a lot. Luke Darnell came over one year,
• 32:18
  2018. He's come over and he said, man,
• 32:20
  I came over to you and you were a different guy.
• 32:23
  He said you were just like laser focused.
• 32:27
  And I'm like, yeah, cooking competition BBQ at the American
• 32:31
  Royal to me is Tiger Woods over the ball at the 18th down by one
• 32:37
  at the Masters, Right? That's the way I look at
• 32:41
  competition BBQ, or that's the way I used to.
• 32:45
  Now I'm just having fun. I don't care right now.
• 32:48
  I don't care whether I win or lose.
• 32:49
  I don't care if I get last or first.
• 32:52
  All's I care is that I have fun doing it and that my friends are
• 32:56
  going to win or I get more enjoyment now out of watching a
• 33:01
  young team that winning their first grant or like at the Jack
• 33:06
  Daniels. I always sit on the aisle at the
• 33:08
  Jack Daniels. I have my kind of spot because
• 33:12
  it's at the back, because I want to be able to greet every team
• 33:15
  when they come by. I don't care if they got a 7th
• 33:18
  place report. They just got a life changing
• 33:20
  call. And especially the winner when
• 33:22
  you win the Jack I you can talk to any one of them that have won
• 33:26
  the Jack in the last 10 years. I'll walk up to him and say hey,
• 33:30
  just clear your mind. Just enjoy.
• 33:32
  Forget about everything. Just listen to the music because
• 33:36
  when they're playing We are the Champions.
• 33:37
  It will just bring chills to Anytime I see the every time I
• 33:41
  hear that song on the radio or it comes up, it just gives me
• 33:44
  chills because I take it right back to that memory.
• 33:46
  Just cherish that memory. Take a 10 minute walk to get
• 33:49
  there. Doesn't matter, just take it all
• 33:51
  in. Yeah, definitely, definitely.
• 33:54
  When you got the call that you were going into the Hall of
• 33:57
  Fame, what went through your mind at that moment?
• 34:00
  I wasn't old enough. I'm like, I'm not old enough.
• 34:03
  And now you guys are trying to get me to quit because, and it's
• 34:08
  funny because now we go to the Hall of Fame banquet that we
• 34:13
  when we go to the banquet, they always have a get together where
• 34:15
  they do it a private deal prior to the big award ceremony at the
• 34:20
  royal. Then So at the royal, they after
• 34:23
  we cook the Invitational, we got to hurry up and get dressed and
• 34:27
  go over to this ceremony, right? And it's just the induction
• 34:30
  ceremony and it's all the past hall of farmers that are there.
• 34:34
  I'm the only one that has to rush because I'm the only one
• 34:37
  cooking competition BBQ. It used to be tough.
• 34:42
  He was there, which he hasn't been cooking much anymore.
• 34:44
  He wasn't even there this year. He was overseas, but Donnie Teal
• 34:48
  got inducted. But he's really cooking the rib
• 34:51
  cook off association. He's not even cooking the KCBS
• 34:54
  circuit so. Definitely, yeah.
• 34:58
  The crazy thing is I interviewed Artie Davis and right after that
• 35:03
  I interviewed him. That night he had invited me to
• 35:05
  go to the ceremony, I guess reception, and I didn't get to
• 35:11
  make it, but I was like, wow. You should, you should have
• 35:16
  because it's the who's who of BBQ old, right?
• 35:21
  So forget about the young people that are that are winning today.
• 35:26
  Tootsie from Texas is there. And I mean, you have famous
• 35:30
  Dave's that you got all just these legends that have been
• 35:34
  around for years and years in the BBQ world are there and it's
• 35:39
  just amazing to be able to just interact and talk with them in a
• 35:43
  social atmosphere. Yeah, I was in Luke trailer the
• 35:47
  whole day. Actually, we're freezing our
• 35:50
  butts off, but. Yeah, it was cool.
• 35:52
  All right, KCBS then back when you started and now, what's
• 35:57
  changed the most? And do you think they're headed
• 36:00
  in a good direction today? I think the problem was back
• 36:04
  then we always blamed that we hit shitty tables, but we never
• 36:09
  knew it, right. So the data wasn't there.
• 36:12
  You didn't know which table you're on.
• 36:13
  You went and you competed, and then you got your placings that
• 36:16
  said, I placed 15th and here's the score I got, and you don't
• 36:20
  know if the score was because you were bad, you hit a bad
• 36:22
  table, whatever. There was no such thing as a bad
• 36:24
  table back. It was just a blame.
• 36:26
  So now the data is there so much and they put this data and it's
• 36:31
  everything's real time and people can analyze this data
• 36:36
  that it really shines a light on KCBS.
• 36:40
  And being the old timer, I have a theory that about the way
• 36:44
  judging works. OK, so when I was, and I'm a
• 36:48
  KCBS judge, I was certified in 2004, I believe when I was
• 36:53
  taught you started with A9 and then you were able to then you'd
• 36:58
  only judge down if there was a reason to judge you down.
• 37:02
  Otherwise everything was perfect, right?
• 37:05
  And then part way through they changed the judging system to
• 37:09
  say, OK, we're going to we're going to start with A7 and we're
• 37:12
  going up or down. OK.
• 37:16
  And then we changed it again a few years later and said, OK,
• 37:21
  we're just going to assign names.
• 37:24
  If this is excellent 9 whatever, we're going to throw a dart.
• 37:28
  I think part of the problem we have today is once you teach it
• 37:32
  older, they say they have the J cup or whatever.
• 37:35
  And I talked to a lot of judges. If I'm a judge, an older judge,
• 37:39
  I give nines. I didn't have any reason not to
• 37:43
  is what they tell me. That's old school judging.
• 37:46
  So now to me, and I'm a mathematics statistical guy, you
• 37:51
  have three different systems running under the same tent.
• 37:56
  Because when we were not, when we were all nines, we started
• 37:59
  getting too many 180's and I was at 1 contest in Omaha, we had
• 38:04
  15180's that day and they're like we need to change this.
• 38:07
  So they changed it. Now you have three different
• 38:10
  systems under the same tent. So you got and so a judge that
• 38:14
  gives you a nine and a judge that gives you a 7 and maybe
• 38:17
  saying the same thing. And so now I think there's a lot
• 38:22
  of pressure for the judges and the organizers putting pressures
• 38:27
  on the judges. You got to score higher.
• 38:28
  You can't be giving out these sixes and sevens and whatever
• 38:31
  you're throwing out. So now of a sudden, what are we
• 38:33
  seeing now? We're seeing the rise to the
• 38:34
  180's again in the 700's and so it's I think the only way you
• 38:40
  solve this is one of two ways. You either scrap the judging
• 38:44
  system and you come up with a new system that you train in the
• 38:47
  tent every day. That's problematic for KCBS
• 38:52
  because that's where part of their revenue comes from is them
• 38:55
  judging classes. So they want to give the judging
• 38:57
  classes. So I understand.
• 39:00
  The other problem is I've always been a believer that a four
• 39:04
  person contest is the number that's the best contest.
• 39:09
  Every time I win our four table contest, I feel like I've really
• 39:12
  beat everybody in the field because everybody hit the same
• 39:15
  table. Now I think they should really
• 39:18
  create some sort of scenario that every contest is A4 table
• 39:23
  contest. It's either A4 table contest or
• 39:25
  an 8 table contest or a 12 table contest.
• 39:28
  It should be a four table and then you'll take your luck of
• 39:31
  what set of judges you hit. But at least for the four
• 39:34
  categories, you're going to be judged against the same amount
• 39:37
  of teams in there. And I think the answers there
• 39:40
  somewhere because you can't just at one time I thought you could
• 39:44
  put some variability in there and enter a 5th, 4th score that
• 39:48
  says judges variability. And when it got done, they look
• 39:51
  at the scores of each table and say, wow, this low scoring
• 39:55
  table, we're going to bring those scores up and hey, this is
• 39:57
  a high scoring table. We're going to bring those
• 39:59
  scores down. The problem is a low scoring
• 40:02
  table could have just been they had shitty food.
• 40:06
  So I think KCBS's problem is really a statistical problem.
• 40:11
  I think it's, I think they could really judge human behavior and
• 40:16
  they could really study that or have somebody study that and
• 40:20
  study the statistics to come up because that's their downfall
• 40:24
  now is that's why you're and the sports gotten way too expensive.
• 40:28
  It's way too expensive and they got to work on that.
• 40:31
  And it's not just the brisket, it's just gotten expensive so
• 40:35
  they got to do things. Are we just going to have two
• 40:37
  categories or we're going to have 4 categories?
• 40:39
  Can you play anyone you want and treat them the same?
• 40:42
  I'm a big believer. Brad posted something a while
• 40:44
  back on Facebook about that whole problem.
• 40:48
  Should I be able to come to a contest and just cook chicken?
• 40:50
  Yeah, there's sometimes that I would mind just showing up to a
• 40:53
  contest Saturday morning at 7:00 AM or 8:00 AM and cooking
• 40:56
  chicken. But there's sometimes I want to
• 40:59
  do all four. And if you're just starting out,
• 41:01
  maybe you have the ability to cook every single week and a
• 41:05
  couple categories, but then you bring a group of guys together
• 41:08
  and cook once a month or once every other month.
• 41:11
  You're able to cook a whole contest.
• 41:13
  That's not backyard, that's not pro, that's just barbecue.
• 41:17
  And now the fact that matter is the backer BBQ cooks, I've had
• 41:21
  their food, it's better than the pro food I eat, right?
• 41:26
  That what they call the backyard cooks.
• 41:28
  They're not backyarders. Backyarders are people that are
• 41:32
  just learning. No, there's so much learning out
• 41:34
  there and so much BBQ with the BBQ league and the classes.
• 41:39
  Everybody's good at cooking. That's what makes it hard today.
• 41:44
  And I think that they need to do a better job at, I guess,
• 41:47
  getting more pit masters in because not speaking race, but
• 41:52
  is a big chunk of African Americans that are not in KCBS.
• 41:58
  And that's from my another reason why I did the podcast to
• 42:02
  intermix everybody because there's other people that don't
• 42:06
  want to pay all the money and they're getting these events,
• 42:09
  but they do want to compete. But everybody ain't balling like
• 42:14
  that and have that type of money to get out here and pay for
• 42:17
  briskets, entries and all that and you're not looking into it
• 42:22
  to try to intermix everybody together.
• 42:25
  So you got contest is over here, contest over here and they
• 42:29
  trying to survive themselves also.
• 42:32
  Yeah, it's a, it's definitely a rich guy sport, right?
• 42:37
  It's definitely a rich guy sport.
• 42:39
  And I'd like to see that change because the quality of the meat,
• 42:43
  you know, for instance, we have a team called the Wannabes, the
• 42:46
  Smokey D's Wannabes. They're a team that used to guys
• 42:49
  that used to work for us, and then they left one off and did
• 42:52
  their own thing, right? But we still help them out.
• 42:55
  So they still come into the restaurant and pick out their
• 42:57
  pork and ribs because we've got a ton of pork and ribs.
• 43:01
  And so I'm a big believer in, yeah, you can cook a brand of
• 43:04
  ribs or a brand of pork, but just because it has the label on
• 43:09
  it doesn't mean it's a great piece of pork.
• 43:11
  Now, I personally, I cook compart butts all the time
• 43:15
  because I love the way they cook.
• 43:17
  They're expensive. I'm not sponsored by them, but I
• 43:20
  cook them ribs. Sometimes I cook them, sometimes
• 43:23
  I cook my restaurant ribs, which are a very fresh rib, right?
• 43:27
  Because I'm going to cook the best thing I can put in the pit.
• 43:31
  And so a lot of times that's really all it takes because you
• 43:35
  can go to Walmart. I go to Walmart all the time and
• 43:37
  I'm almost every day I'm in there and I look through, I'm
• 43:40
  like, oh man, I should pick out this rack of ribs, right?
• 43:43
  I'm like, no, I'm not paying that much for a rack of ribs.
• 43:45
  I can get it for 7:50 at the restaurant, but to cook.
• 43:49
  But it's the quality. But that's an even when it comes
• 43:51
  to chicken, nobody cares about the quality of chicken, even
• 43:54
  though we buy high dollar chicken, right?
• 43:57
  You don't have to, because the best cooks and chicken are the
• 44:02
  ones that are just going to wherever when they show up at
• 44:05
  the contest and buy some chicken.
• 44:07
  But ribs, I think even pork the same way.
• 44:10
  Yeah, Durock's going to give you a higher probability that it's
• 44:14
  going to, but I'm not sure all the judges can differentiate
• 44:18
  that. But I think everybody has a
• 44:21
  chance, right? And you got to give them a
• 44:23
  chance, and you got to have a smaller entry to be able to do
• 44:26
  that, get a lot more people cooking like us in the
• 44:29
  restaurant business, I don't need to make $10 on every meal.
• 44:32
  I try and make a nickel or a dime.
• 44:34
  So I keep my cost really low, but I fill my seats.
• 44:37
  If the contest could fill all their seats all the time because
• 44:41
  they made it economical for a lot of people, it's ultimately
• 44:45
  going to grow. Definitely.
• 44:47
  We'll see it. All right, let's switch over to
• 44:49
  your businesses. Yeah.
• 44:50
  Iowa Smokey D's, It's My Jam Cafe.
• 44:53
  And then you got the virtual kitchens, the crafty Mac and the
• 44:57
  ornery chicken. The Virtual kitchens.
• 44:59
  That was the first time I've heard of that.
• 45:01
  What made you just start virtual kitchens and how'd you come up
• 45:04
  with those two concepts for those?
• 45:07
  Well, Sir, during COVID, as soon as COVID hit, we had a warehouse
• 45:12
  where we were storing our sauces and rubs and for the restaurant
• 45:16
  and paper goods and that type stuff.
• 45:18
  Next door was a high end catering company.
• 45:21
  And one day and the owner, he was a younger guy, but he just
• 45:26
  had some health issues and whatever.
• 45:28
  And when COVID hit, his schedule went from this to virtually
• 45:33
  nothing. It went to 0 and he's I'm done.
• 45:37
  So he went to the landlord who was a friend of mine and said,
• 45:40
  Hey, I'm, I'm giving up my lease.
• 45:42
  I'm going to sell off everything.
• 45:44
  While my landlord called me up right away and said, hey,
• 45:47
  Darren, this guy's got this beautiful kitchen and I had
• 45:50
  never even been in it, but a beautiful kitchen, walk in
• 45:52
  coolers, whatever. He's going to sell all this
• 45:55
  stuff. And so if he sells all this
• 45:57
  stuff, then I'm going to have to remodel it and turn it back into
• 46:01
  a warehouse space and it's going to cost me a lot of money.
• 46:04
  He said, can you try and work out a deal to buy him out?
• 46:08
  And if you could buy him out, then I'll give you rent for as
• 46:12
  free as you need. Rent.
• 46:14
  He goes, I trust you. I'll just give you rent for
• 46:17
  free. I'm like, yeah, I'll go approach
• 46:19
  him. So I went in and I approached
• 46:21
  him and walked around and I'm like, all this equipment,
• 46:24
  whatever he had probably 250, three, $100,000 worth of
• 46:27
  equipment in this kitchen. And I said, I tell you what, I
• 46:31
  just yeah, I'll give you. And he had three vans and
• 46:34
  whatever And it came to, I said, I'll give you, I'll give you
• 46:38
  25,000 for the kitchen equipment.
• 46:40
  It's really not worth much to me.
• 46:42
  Whatever. And I'll give you the price of
• 46:44
  the vans, whatever. And I'll give you a 45,000
• 46:46
  bucks. I'll just, and he goes, would
• 46:49
  you give me 50? And I said, I'll write you a
• 46:52
  check right now. So I wrote him a check.
• 46:55
  He handed over the titles to the three vehicles and he walked out
• 46:58
  the door and it literally gave me the keys.
• 47:02
  His walk in coolers and freezers still were stocked to the guest
• 47:06
  with everything. All the paper goods, every piece
• 47:10
  of equipment you could imagine he had of his own bakery, he had
• 47:13
  his own. He made everything from scratch.
• 47:16
  So here I am, my wife's. What are you going to do with
• 47:18
  this? I'm like, I don't know, but it's
• 47:20
  too good of a deal. Even if I just use it, a prep
• 47:22
  kitchen for competition BBQ, I don't know.
• 47:24
  It's free, right? So then I'm like, I read a lot
• 47:28
  about ghost kitchens and back then ghost kitchens when they
• 47:33
  started in New York and LA, there wasn't anything like that
• 47:35
  in Iowa. They were creating, taking
• 47:39
  regular kitchens and they were selling kind of stuff out the
• 47:41
  back door. Just DoorDash and Grubhub and
• 47:44
  that type stuff. And I said, I want to take it.
• 47:46
  I want to do this. I love fried chicken.
• 47:48
  And then so we opened up that we designed this our own chicken
• 47:52
  batter, our chicken breading and we started creating the ornery
• 47:57
  chicken and we launched it on DoorDash.
• 47:59
  On the first couple weeks and few weeks, there wasn't enough
• 48:02
  business. We weren't getting enough
• 48:03
  business. I said, you know what, let's
• 48:06
  just do curbside pickup too because our systems allowed us
• 48:09
  to do it. And so we started curbside
• 48:12
  pickup and then our business really picked up and we're like,
• 48:16
  we're just going to keep it at that.
• 48:18
  We're not going to allow anybody to walk in the door.
• 48:20
  We're either going to you're going to order everything's
• 48:22
  order online, we're going to bring it to you, or you're going
• 48:24
  to come in the back door as a DoorDash driver and pick it up.
• 48:27
  And so it just started to grow and grow.
• 48:29
  And then we're like, we got people here, what else could we
• 48:32
  do? And I'm like, hey, let's do,
• 48:33
  people were talking about Mac and cheese.
• 48:35
  I'm like, hey, let's do custom Mac and cheeses where we can
• 48:38
  just take noodles. We can park hook the noodles and
• 48:41
  then we can re therm them like a pasta restaurant would do.
• 48:44
  Let's mix it with different cheese sauces.
• 48:46
  And we've got chicken. We got other kinds of thing.
• 48:49
  We can get crab meat and all this stuff.
• 48:51
  And so we started making funky Mac and cheeses and we started
• 48:55
  the crafty Mac and it was really the same kitchen.
• 48:58
  It would doesn't take up much space.
• 49:00
  We have one steam table that pretty much runs that and it's
• 49:04
  just a fun concept. Now what's happened when we open
• 49:08
  it's My Jam Cafe, I use that kitchen.
• 49:10
  Then we make all our cinnamon rolls from scratch, all our jam
• 49:13
  and tarts from scratch, which is a pop tart.
• 49:15
  We sell 4 to 500 pop tarts a week at the breakfast
• 49:18
  restaurant. We only have 68 seeds, but
• 49:21
  they're super popular. And then we took over a school
• 49:24
  lunch program, so now we cater anywhere from 80 to 120 kids a
• 49:28
  day for a private school out of that kitchen.
• 49:31
  So we've got all kinds of stuff happened in the kitchen that we
• 49:35
  really haven't paid much attention anymore to.
• 49:38
  The Ordinary Chicken and the Crafty Mac.
• 49:40
  We haven't. It used to be we were constantly
• 49:42
  changing menu items or whatever. We've been so busy with all this
• 49:45
  other stuff. It just does the same thing
• 49:48
  every week. It's just the cash cow.
• 49:49
  It just does its thing because if I focus on it and grow that,
• 49:54
  then we got to bring more people into the kitchen.
• 49:56
  Whatever. I don't know, it's just a fun
• 49:57
  concept. It was, I love food, but it was
• 50:00
  just something different. So now we got a Mac and cheese
• 50:02
  restaurant and then we got a The Crafty Mac.
• 50:05
  We got 2 BBQ locations and then we're like, breakfast is my
• 50:09
  favorite thing. And so I went to the same
• 50:13
  breakfast restaurant every day for seven years when I was in
• 50:16
  town and a friend of mine became friends with the owner.
• 50:19
  Matter of fact, they're my neighbor right now.
• 50:21
  And so I said, hey, if you ever sell this place, I wouldn't mind
• 50:24
  having it. And she goes, oh, OK, So one
• 50:26
  night we're having beers at her house and she goes, hey, I think
• 50:29
  I'm ready to sell this to you. And my wife looked at me like,
• 50:32
  what? And I'm like, yeah, we're just
• 50:35
  going to buy the breakfast restaurant.
• 50:38
  OK, So we're trying to figure out what's it.
• 50:40
  So we had to end up having to remodel it and just, it was just
• 50:44
  a, there was all kinds of issues with it.
• 50:46
  So we end up having to tear out the floors and reek just new air
• 50:51
  conditioning systems. And we spent nine months and
• 50:53
  750,000 bucks remodeling this damn thing before we got it to
• 50:57
  where we wanted it to be. And so then it's what are we
• 51:01
  going to name this thing? And my daughter goes, dad,
• 51:04
  that's easy. It's my jam and I watch because
• 51:06
  you always say breakfast is your jam.
• 51:09
  So it's my jam. So we we named it, it's my jam.
• 51:12
  And off of that we're like, we got to have if you're it's my
• 51:15
  jam, we got to have homemade jam.
• 51:16
  So then we started making our own jam and it's but it's truly
• 51:20
  a made from scratch kitchen. Nothing really comes out of a
• 51:24
  box there and it's just amazing getting great reviews and it's
• 51:28
  just a small little galley kitchen supported by all our
• 51:32
  other stuff. We have to cut the vegetables at
• 51:34
  Smokey D's because there's not enough room for we've only got 1
• 51:37
  little prep table there. So we cut the vegetables and
• 51:40
  bring them in there. We make all the sausage from
• 51:43
  scratch so we have our own sausage seasonings.
• 51:45
  We got a breakfast at chorizo and Italian sausage that I
• 51:48
  designed that I'm trying to get to market actually.
• 51:51
  But we, we mix that. We we get ground pork and we mix
• 51:55
  our sausages fresh and it's just a lot of fun.
• 51:59
  Definitely. And for those that don't know,
• 52:01
  he did take #1 and sausage at the Royal, so there's that.
• 52:06
  I did, using the It's My Jam breakfast sausage with maybe
• 52:10
  just a little bit of Maple syrup and butter.
• 52:14
  Yeah, funny story about the sausage entry had my mind.
• 52:18
  I said, you know what's really popular at the American Royal?
• 52:21
  If you don't know, if you're not putting Maple syrup in your
• 52:22
  sausage at the American Royal, then you're probably losing,
• 52:26
  right? Because I've had friends that
• 52:28
  went and we talked about this and they talked about Maple
• 52:30
  syrup and the sausage and butter.
• 52:32
  And so I was going to put a salted caramel glaze instead of
• 52:35
  BBQ sauce on my sausage. And my wife said what?
• 52:38
  I'm like, yeah, I'm going to do this salted caramel glaze
• 52:40
  because you're crazy because why would you do that?
• 52:41
  And I've said because they judged dessert yesterday.
• 52:44
  They just had all this BBQ, they're not getting dessert.
• 52:46
  We're giving them dessert today. And she tasted, she goes, that
• 52:50
  tastes like crap. And I'm like, she doesn't like
• 52:52
  salted caramel and I'm like, I made this salted caramel from
• 52:56
  scratch right during right after brisket turn in and she's
• 53:00
  whatever, turn it in. Then I get for she goes, if you
• 53:02
  win sausage, I'll kiss your ass on stage.
• 53:06
  So she if you go back and watch the hey, she kissed my ass.
• 53:09
  She kissed her hand and slapped me on the butt.
• 53:10
  But just one of the crazy wins. But it is the only square trophy
• 53:14
  that we didn't have. We have square trophy.
• 53:17
  We won every category there multiple times and we've but we
• 53:21
  had never won sausage and so now we have the last square trophy.
• 53:27
  All right, let's give her props that y'all joke online that
• 53:30
  you're the trophy acquisition manager and she's up for
• 53:33
  management. How has your wife Sherri been a
• 53:35
  vital part in life? Competition Life in the
• 53:37
  restaurant industry? Sure, she has let me live my
• 53:41
  dream. She has let me do whatever I
• 53:45
  want to do. She has been my #1 whatever.
• 53:48
  And she's still very active. It's every morning.
• 53:52
  We get out of bed at 3:45 in the morning and by 4:30 she's on her
• 53:56
  way. She goes she overseas, she's in
• 53:58
  our accounting office. So now we have 4 people in our
• 54:01
  corporate office in accounting, counting money and doing all
• 54:05
  stuff. She's very much involved
• 54:07
  competition wise. She goes about 30 or 40% of the
• 54:12
  time. We have grandkids now and she's
• 54:13
  got other things that she's, hey, I don't necessarily want to
• 54:16
  go every weekend. I just want to go to the fun
• 54:18
  ones. And so I always say if the
• 54:21
  weather's between 70 and 82 and sunny with a light breeze,
• 54:26
  Sherry will be there. Except for the majors.
• 54:30
  She loves to go to the majors. She loves to go to the fun
• 54:33
  contest. She's our social chair, right?
• 54:36
  She's the vibrant 1 that she's the social chair, she's the, I'm
• 54:40
  just the trophy acquisition manager and in the restaurant,
• 54:43
  you can walk into any one of our restaurants and say, Hey,
• 54:46
  where's up for management? And they're like, ah, Sherry's
• 54:48
  up the street there because Darren is middle management.
• 54:52
  I know my place, I know my place and but she's let me live my
• 54:56
  dream. We've just, we work together.
• 54:59
  We've worked together now for a lot of years.
• 55:02
  And it's not like we're sitting in front of each other, but we
• 55:06
  just restaurant business becomes your life.
• 55:10
  And if you're not willing to work 24/7 at the restaurant
• 55:14
  business, and I'm not talking about rolling up your sleeves
• 55:16
  and cleaning the fryer, but when you wake up in the morning, some
• 55:22
  of our best conversations happen over toothpaste, right?
• 55:26
  We're discussing the day about over toothpaste as we're
• 55:30
  brushing our teeth. We're discussing what needs to
• 55:33
  happen. But like when I come home and I
• 55:35
  make dinner, I sit home to dinner, she'll bring up work and
• 55:39
  I'm like, we're not talking about this.
• 55:41
  And she's what I'm like, no, we're going to enjoy a meal and
• 55:45
  then we can talk about work. We're not.
• 55:47
  At some point you have to separate and say and sometimes
• 55:50
  that makes her mad because she wants to talk about it.
• 55:51
  Now I don't, I want to unplug for just 30 minutes or an hour,
• 55:57
  but but it's our life. I love it.
• 56:00
  I love her. It's just, it's amazing.
• 56:03
  It's been amazing ride. We're very successful and just
• 56:07
  because we love it, we think about the customer more than we
• 56:10
  do anybody else. But we've got a long, lots of
• 56:13
  long tenured employees. They just make it happen.
• 56:16
  Our staff is crazy good. We pay them a lot of money and
• 56:21
  they do a lot of work. They just own it.
• 56:23
  They pretend like it's theirs. So we're not traditional
• 56:27
  restaurateurs. Yeah, and outside the trophies,
• 56:31
  what's 1 personal moment, handshake, customer story or
• 56:35
  time with Sherry that reminds you why you do this?
• 56:38
  A time with Sherry of why you do it.
• 56:41
  Or a customer. Yeah, every year it's always
• 56:47
  special. Like this last week, pinky swear
• 56:51
  has become a huge source of it's a 'cause we donate to and it's
• 56:57
  children's with pediatric cancer and they, this pinky swear goes
• 57:02
  in and they help people with their bills.
• 57:04
  So if you have a kid that gets cancer and you're stuck in the
• 57:07
  hospital, whatever, going through all these treatments,
• 57:09
  they help you pay your bills. And so it's become a big source
• 57:13
  of. And so last week we were able to
• 57:15
  donate almost $23,000 to Pinky Square.
• 57:19
  And so we're sitting there with the Pinky Square people and we
• 57:22
  did the Pinky Square and took a picture or whatever.
• 57:24
  And it's things like that that it's just like the ability to be
• 57:29
  able to give back in those proportions and be able to
• 57:33
  donate virtually everything we want in competition barbecue.
• 57:37
  And I think that's probably true.
• 57:38
  Every year is every dime we've ever won has gotten given away
• 57:43
  back to charity. And so we just, we love to give.
• 57:46
  We love to give our employees. We just had bonus.
• 57:49
  We just had bonuses this week. We gave $150,000 out in bonuses
• 57:53
  to our employees. And so you don't see that for
• 57:56
  restaurants. We don't know.
• 57:59
  They just don't do that. And I think that's why we just
• 58:02
  have this great team with very little turnover.
• 58:05
  That's their vested, their part owners to me and just by taking
• 58:09
  that mentality, but just it's usually the giving back that
• 58:13
  when Sherry and I are together and being able to give back to
• 58:16
  the community and say this is that we built this Kingdom, but
• 58:19
  be able to give a lot of it back to charity, it's really good.
• 58:23
  All right, you accomplished nearly everything.
• 58:25
  What still excites you today and what's on your bucket list that
• 58:28
  you haven't checked off yet? That's my problem is I don't
• 58:32
  really have a lot. I really don't have a bucket
• 58:35
  list anymore. I want to open more restaurants,
• 58:37
  but Sherry told me no, which is a big bone of contention.
• 58:41
  We're going to give her a little chilling off period for about 6
• 58:44
  months because I like to be on the run all the time.
• 58:47
  I like to work 20 hours a day. I that's my blood I love.
• 58:51
  That's what I was in the transportation business and
• 58:54
  that's in the restaurant business.
• 58:55
  They're very much alike. They're very suck.
• 58:58
  You all in right now? I am bored shitless normally.
• 59:04
  So it's things are going through.
• 59:06
  We're really busy, but we're I'm still bored shitless.
• 59:08
  So we're trying to figure out how do we, what's next?
• 59:12
  We're going to go cook San Antonio.
• 59:13
  I'm going to cook up with, hook up with Gabe Trevino.
• 59:16
  We're going to cook San Antonio Rodeo this year.
• 59:18
  Just something different. I'd like to do more CBA events
• 59:22
  down outside. We're going to go cook the rib
• 59:24
  cook off Association national championship.
• 59:26
  I want a rib cook off. Somebody say enter this.
• 59:28
  I'm like, I don't want to. And they're like just enter and
• 59:30
  they're like, OK, so I entered it and then I won.
• 59:33
  And so we're like, now we're going to the rib cook off.
• 59:36
  So just doing different things. I'm probably going to cook a lot
• 59:40
  this year. If I can't open restaurants, I'm
• 59:43
  going to cook because I am not going to sit at home.
• 59:46
  I'm not that guy. So I wouldn't be surprised if I
• 59:49
  don't cook 35 or 40 times this year.
• 59:52
  Just different things. I'm just going to go cook.
• 59:54
  I don't know where I'm going to cook.
• 59:55
  Don't care. I love flying in to stuff.
• 1:00:00
  I love doing the one can challenge or you're just cooking
• 1:00:03
  the whole contest on one drum. I've got that down to a science
• 1:00:08
  that I really like to do that and it's a lot of fun and be
• 1:00:12
  minimalistic. But it's either that or I need
• 1:00:15
  to keep my recipes the same and just practice what I preach and
• 1:00:19
  say here. Just go cook your cook.
• 1:00:21
  And I'm going to put this out and some people might see it,
• 1:00:25
  some people not. But before it's over and done
• 1:00:28
  with, Gabe Trevino, he going to be up there.
• 1:00:31
  He got he might not be in the goat conversation, but he going
• 1:00:35
  to be near the that boy been on. He, I tell you what, and I've
• 1:00:40
  cooked a lot next to Gabe this year and Gabe has what it takes
• 1:00:46
  to be a championship caliber guy because he's first.
• 1:00:50
  He's all in. He's super all in.
• 1:00:54
  He loves the sport, he loves every.
• 1:00:56
  He reminds me of me in 2013. He just loves every bit of the
• 1:01:01
  process. And he's very detail oriented.
• 1:01:05
  And back when that, it was like automatic, even though I never
• 1:01:08
  really had a timeline, it was the same every week.
• 1:01:11
  It was down to a science. And that's if you're going to,
• 1:01:15
  if you look at any great cook over the same period of time,
• 1:01:19
  they're cooking the same recipes and they're being very
• 1:01:22
  consistent and they're hitting the tenderness.
• 1:01:24
  Mark and Gabe, he, I always give him shit because he always, he
• 1:01:28
  babies his brisket like it's a newborn.
• 1:01:32
  I'm like, hey, dude, are you going to pay attention to any of
• 1:01:35
  your other meats? But his brisket is just like his
• 1:01:39
  baby. And we have so much fun because
• 1:01:41
  he has the he buys these briskets and he gets the most
• 1:01:45
  amazing briskets. He sends me texts of what his
• 1:01:48
  brisket look like. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to
• 1:01:50
  bring her. I'm going to bring a crappy one
• 1:01:52
  to beat you with. And about the last four times
• 1:01:55
  I've done that because it's like, I'm bringing a crappy
• 1:01:57
  brisket because that's way too good.
• 1:01:59
  You're giving those judges way too much credit.
• 1:02:01
  There's way too much marbling in there.
• 1:02:03
  I got to cook something like and I've always scored with a thin
• 1:02:06
  brisket that isn't as marbled. And that's where I've always
• 1:02:09
  scored. I never scored.
• 1:02:10
  You give me a big old. What do they call them now?
• 1:02:12
  Toads. Everybody's got a toad.
• 1:02:15
  Every brisket. Check out this toad.
• 1:02:17
  Check out this toad. And I'm like, yeah, I don't want
• 1:02:19
  a toad. I even matter of fact, when we
• 1:02:21
  went to the Jack and the Royal, I had these beautiful briskets
• 1:02:25
  marked American Round like last minute.
• 1:02:26
  I'm not cooking those. Wow.
• 1:02:31
  All right, I'm going to ask you one more question and play 2
• 1:02:34
  quick games and get you out of here.
• 1:02:35
  If you had to pick a All Star team, you and three other pit
• 1:02:39
  masters, who would you pick and what meat are each of you?
• 1:02:43
  Cooking wow, I think I'm going to cook pork right now because
• 1:02:50
  I'm the pork. I'm going to I'm going to cook,
• 1:02:53
  I'm going to take. Let's see in in in chicken.
• 1:03:00
  I'm taking Brad from getting basted in ribs.
• 1:03:05
  I'm going with Reuters and tutors.
• 1:03:08
  They we've been joking, man. They're they are rib cooking
• 1:03:11
  mofos all year long and in brisket.
• 1:03:15
  Why I'm trying to think if I can pick up with if I'm cook with
• 1:03:19
  Gabe watching that brisket. But as long as he he's on there,
• 1:03:23
  he's a great brisket cook, pizza and I appreciate a great brisket
• 1:03:26
  cook. Yeah, I think I'm, I think I'm
• 1:03:28
  going to cook. I think I'm going to take Gabe
• 1:03:30
  there. Even though Joe, there's so many
• 1:03:34
  teams in there that it's like Joe Pierce could be in the rib
• 1:03:37
  category too. It's just a rib cooking.
• 1:03:41
  There's people that are hot now, but then there's people that
• 1:03:46
  have done the over the years that consistently.
• 1:03:51
  I mean, Travis Clark, he was hell of a cook.
• 1:03:54
  Doesn't cook my doesn't cook at all anymore, but hell of a cook.
• 1:03:57
  Very anal to very anal. Used way too many ingredients,
• 1:04:02
  way too many ingredients. He had to pretty much own a BBQ
• 1:04:06
  store, I think to run his program.
• 1:04:08
  And that's The funny thing about me is I've never been to a BBQ
• 1:04:11
  class, right? Never been to a BBQ class.
• 1:04:15
  I went to Rod Gray and Johnny Trigg, put on a class.
• 1:04:19
  I was in the back screwing around.
• 1:04:20
  I never really went to the class.
• 1:04:21
  I wasn't invited to like, hey, you want to come hang out?
• 1:04:24
  So I went and hung out and didn't pay attention.
• 1:04:26
  But I just never been to a class.
• 1:04:30
  And people like, why don't you? Why don't you have your own BBQ
• 1:04:32
  class? I'm like, just ask my wife.
• 1:04:34
  I have no class. Yeah, I did an interview with
• 1:04:37
  Travis Clark. He like he reminds me of the
• 1:04:40
  Kobe Bryant competition BBQ. That's it.
• 1:04:45
  Yeah. We've talked a lot to like
• 1:04:47
  anybody getting into the restaurant business, they're
• 1:04:49
  like, hey, talk to me about the restaurant business.
• 1:04:51
  And I'm like, my first advice is don't, don't.
• 1:04:56
  There's a lot easier ways to make money once you can scale.
• 1:05:00
  But that's the whole key to that business is you got to scale.
• 1:05:03
  And Travis is now scaled, right? And he's enjoying the fruits of
• 1:05:07
  his labor, even though I think he's working his ass off.
• 1:05:12
  But I said there still is something to be said for that
• 1:05:14
  guy that hasn't scaled. But if you're not going to scale
• 1:05:19
  up, then you're going to be married to that bitch.
• 1:05:21
  You're going to you. Or it's going to be, it's like
• 1:05:23
  being a dairy farmer, right? Dairy farmer, you got to milk
• 1:05:27
  the cows twice a day. If you're going to own a BBQ
• 1:05:29
  restaurant and not scale, guess what?
• 1:05:31
  Get used to cooking BBQ because you're going to be doing it for
• 1:05:33
  a long time. That's true.
• 1:05:38
  All right, I got 2 quick games for you and I'll get you out of
• 1:05:40
  here. In college basketball, they had
• 1:05:42
  the tournament bracket, so the first bracket I have is 16 meats
• 1:05:46
  that you cook on the grill and just tell me which one you
• 1:05:48
  prefer to eat. We'll see which one is the
• 1:05:50
  winner. All right, first matchup, hot
• 1:05:52
  dog versus smoked Bologna. Oh, smoked baloney all.
• 1:05:57
  Right next match up, smoked ham versus hamburger.
• 1:06:01
  Smoked ham. OK, next match up, beef ribs
• 1:06:05
  versus lamb. Oh.
• 1:06:08
  Wow, I had to go beef rib even though I'm not a real big beef
• 1:06:12
  guy. I'm going to have to go beef rib
• 1:06:14
  there. All right, smoked Turkey versus
• 1:06:16
  steak. Smoked Turkey all day.
• 1:06:20
  OK. Brisket versus pork ribs.
• 1:06:24
  Brisket. OK, next matchup, smoked chicken
• 1:06:27
  versus burnt ends. Am I eating this?
• 1:06:31
  Yes. Oh yeah, OK, then I'm doing
• 1:06:35
  smoked chicken. OK, next matchup, Pork chop
• 1:06:39
  versus BBQ shrimp. Pork chop versus anything wins.
• 1:06:44
  My man, I love pork chops. Sausage versus pork belly.
• 1:06:49
  Sausage. All right, next round, Bologna
• 1:06:55
  versus Ham. Bologna versus ham Bologna
• 1:06:59
  still. OK, beef ribs versus Turkey.
• 1:07:04
  Turkey. All right, brisket versus
• 1:07:08
  chicken. Chicken.
• 1:07:12
  OK. And pork chop versus sausage.
• 1:07:15
  Pork chop. OK, I had the pork chop at the
• 1:07:19
  Burnt bean. Oh my goodness.
• 1:07:23
  I didn't get the pork chop there, but his burger was life
• 1:07:26
  changing. And I told him, I said Ernie.
• 1:07:28
  I said, and Ernie and I go way back, right?
• 1:07:31
  And we've I remember sitting next to the BBQ pits and I was
• 1:07:34
  in the restaurant business and he wanted to be in the
• 1:07:36
  restaurant business. And I'm like, dude, you don't
• 1:07:38
  want to be in the restaurant business.
• 1:07:39
  But he's look at him now. But it was like one of those
• 1:07:42
  things that he's just his love. But that burger that he served
• 1:07:48
  me, I and I was on this diet. I was only eating 1400 calories
• 1:07:51
  a day and I ate a burger and a half.
• 1:07:54
  And I told him, I said, you know what's really weird is your
• 1:07:59
  briskets the weakest thing on your menu and it's still better
• 1:08:05
  than it virtually any other brisket I've had.
• 1:08:07
  But it was the weakest thing on the menu.
• 1:08:10
  His menu is just oh. He has a gift.
• 1:08:13
  I'm. Glad for his success, it's
• 1:08:15
  amazing. Yeah, I went like a couple weeks
• 1:08:17
  ago and I was like, I've made a trip specifically just to go out
• 1:08:20
  there and try his restaurant. We keep talking about because
• 1:08:24
  he's got a verbo right above the restaurant that he rents out.
• 1:08:29
  And so we're like, we're going to make a trip and as part of
• 1:08:33
  the verbo, they'll cater in one of his meals into the verbo and
• 1:08:37
  then put you and then you can get a table reserved at the at
• 1:08:41
  the brunch on Sunday. So we keep trying to figure out,
• 1:08:44
  OK, how are we going to go down there, spend the weekend, do
• 1:08:47
  Friday at the restaurant, but then actually do the brunch.
• 1:08:51
  And it's so I've never done the brunch.
• 1:08:53
  It's on my bucket list though. Yeah, I went there.
• 1:08:55
  I waited 3 hours in line and I got there, I was #10 in line and
• 1:09:01
  by the time it opened by the people bringing a family and
• 1:09:04
  relatives and hopping in line. So I was like #20 by the time
• 1:09:07
  they opened. You should have called because I
• 1:09:09
  because I showed up 5 minutes before it opened and took the
• 1:09:13
  quick tour in the back door. They do have a back door.
• 1:09:17
  All right, the next Final Four, baloney versus Turkey.
• 1:09:22
  Turkey. All right, chicken versus pork
• 1:09:25
  chop. Pork chop's winning.
• 1:09:27
  Just mark it over pork chop. I'm a pork chop guy.
• 1:09:30
  That's just pork chop is my one thing that I'm making prime rib
• 1:09:36
  for the family at Christmas because I had this Wagyu prime
• 1:09:40
  rib. They're getting prime rib.
• 1:09:42
  I don't want any part of that, man.
• 1:09:43
  I'm going to go find me the best bone in pork chop.
• 1:09:46
  Money can bone in pork loin that money can buy.
• 1:09:49
  Definitely, I love pork chop myself and definitely you feel
• 1:09:53
  like expanding, come to Georgia and open up a restaurant.
• 1:10:00
  I've only competed there once. I competed at the Royal Oak
• 1:10:02
  Invitational. I actually did really well.
• 1:10:04
  I was surprised being I'm not sure what flavors are different,
• 1:10:09
  whatever. There's certain people that
• 1:10:11
  score really well there and certain people that don't.
• 1:10:14
  So it was, I don't know, it's interesting.
• 1:10:16
  I want to go there. I wonder if they can give me a
• 1:10:18
  media pass because it's down the street or something so.
• 1:10:23
  I get you get you in. I get you in.
• 1:10:26
  I would definitely reach out to somebody, one of y'all.
• 1:10:28
  So, yeah, All right, I got another bracket.
• 1:10:32
  The greatest athletes of all time.
• 1:10:34
  All right, you got Tom Brady versus Lionel Messi, soccer
• 1:10:38
  player Tom Brady, All right. I'm not a sports guy, by the
• 1:10:43
  way, so don't take in. I don't watch TVI don't listen
• 1:10:47
  to the radio. I don't.
• 1:10:50
  I yeah. Is Tom Brady still playing?
• 1:10:54
  No, actually. Newscaster, broadcaster.
• 1:11:00
  All right, we're going to switch it up on the fly then.
• 1:11:04
  All right, another bracket. I got 16 competitions in a
• 1:11:09
  tournament bracket. All right, matchup #1 Jack
• 1:11:12
  Daniels versus Lakeland Pig Fest.
• 1:11:14
  The Jack. The Jack.
• 1:11:16
  All right, next match up, Smoke on the Falls versus Pig Beach
• 1:11:21
  BBQ War. Smoke on the Falls I.
• 1:11:26
  Don't think that's in Alabama. I think that's in Gadsden, AL.
• 1:11:30
  I'm going to, I'm going to pick, I'm going to go Pig Beach.
• 1:11:32
  I know something about Pig Beach.
• 1:11:33
  All right, Houston Livestock versus Real Fest in Chicago.
• 1:11:38
  Oh, Houston all. Right.
• 1:11:41
  And I just put Poos the queue and then I put SCA World State
• 1:11:47
  Championship. Pussy queue is no longer so, but
• 1:11:52
  I would go pussy queue. I've done the SCA worlds a
• 1:11:55
  couple times but. All right, the Royal versus
• 1:11:58
  smoke on the shore. Royal.
• 1:12:02
  Yeah. Man, bad match up there.
• 1:12:04
  Yeah. That's like #1 and #2 in the
• 1:12:09
  first round. All right, Big Pig Jig and New
• 1:12:12
  York State BBQ Championship. I'm not a Memphis guy.
• 1:12:16
  I'm going to go New York. All right, Memphis and may or
• 1:12:21
  praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
• 1:12:24
  All right, Rib Cook Off Association World Championship
• 1:12:28
  or Atlanta BBQ Store Classic. I'm going to rib cook off all
• 1:12:33
  right. And we got the Jack versus Pig
• 1:12:37
  Beach, the Jack, All right, Houston versus who's the Q?
• 1:12:44
  Houston. All right, America royal versus
• 1:12:48
  New York State, American royal. All right, praise the Lord
• 1:12:53
  versus the rib Cook off Association World.
• 1:12:56
  I'm going praise the Lord. All right.
• 1:12:59
  That's where you get a little harder Houston livestock versus
• 1:13:01
  the Jack. I'm going to Houston.
• 1:13:05
  I've been to, I've been to, I've only been to Houston five times.
• 1:13:08
  I've been to the Jack 15, so I'm going to Houston.
• 1:13:12
  Right. And the royal versus praise the
• 1:13:14
  Lord. That that's really conflicting
• 1:13:18
  because praise the Lord is by far one of our favorite contests
• 1:13:22
  of the year. But the American royal is the
• 1:13:24
  American royal. It's the biggest family.
• 1:13:25
  I'm going to the royal. Right and final is Last Thought
• 1:13:30
  Rodeo versus the American Royal. Oh, I think I I just, it'd have
• 1:13:37
  to be the royal. All right, Even though that was
• 1:13:41
  tough. Houston is Houston.
• 1:13:43
  If you ever get a chance to go to Houston, Rodeo is wow crazy.
• 1:13:49
  Oh, wow. I'm about to check that out
• 1:13:51
  because I usually go to, this is my first time at the Royal, but
• 1:13:54
  I usually go to Memphis in May and then I usually just go to
• 1:13:58
  classes to meet people because I went to let me see Robbie Royal
• 1:14:03
  Mixing. I went to Luke's Chris Shaffer,
• 1:14:06
  I went to Joe Pierce's class and wow.
• 1:14:09
  Geez, Hey dude, why don't you want to come compete?
• 1:14:12
  We could just bring your notebook.
• 1:14:15
  I can't compete like that, so I go to classes to meet people and
• 1:14:19
  meet them, so that's why. Wow, yeah, that's crazy.
• 1:14:25
  I've thought about sending people to.
• 1:14:26
  I'm not very good guy that's just going to sit in the class
• 1:14:29
  and I don't take good notes. So I thought about, hey, how
• 1:14:33
  about I send you the class? I'll pay for it if you took
• 1:14:35
  bring me the notes. Yeah, Luke told myself.
• 1:14:40
  Write down. I was like, I don't want to
• 1:14:42
  write down. I'm going to miss something if I
• 1:14:43
  want to pay attention. That's, that's exactly.
• 1:14:46
  And the one thing about BBQ, I see this all the time.
• 1:14:48
  It's I love when crap goes wrong in a contest.
• 1:14:51
  I love when that thunderstorm shows up at 10:30 or the high
• 1:14:54
  winds or whatever. I want something to go wrong
• 1:14:57
  because or hey, because most people like, hey, my chickens
• 1:15:01
  not done. They're going to turn in raw
• 1:15:03
  chicken. No, I'm not.
• 1:15:05
  I'm going to. I've shoved it in the firebox.
• 1:15:07
  I've had it on the microwave shelf.
• 1:15:09
  You just have to adapt and they don't teach you that in the
• 1:15:12
  class. And if you're just a textbook
• 1:15:15
  cook, when shit goes wrong you ain't going to be able to handle
• 1:15:19
  it. I'm the best at handling it.
• 1:15:21
  I can figure out a way. I've triple stack ribs on top of
• 1:15:24
  pork butts in one can to get them done and won the contest.
• 1:15:28
  Just what it takes. Have you ever did a class?
• 1:15:32
  I've thrown a class. No, my wife hasn't.
• 1:15:34
  My wife says I have no class. No, I I tell you what, instead
• 1:15:38
  of classes, I just try and give every way everything away for
• 1:15:41
  free every week on cue the mic. That's what I try and do.
• 1:15:45
  I love giving back. And not that I want my phone
• 1:15:48
  ringing off the hook, but I do answer a ton of questions.
• 1:15:51
  Both restaurant catering, competition, I do answer people
• 1:15:56
  reach out and they'll say, hey, I got a problem here and I'll
• 1:15:58
  say hell, let me see if I can help you.
• 1:16:00
  I just try and do that. I don't need I don't need to get
• 1:16:02
  paid for that. I've been paid many times over.
• 1:16:04
  So yeah, I don't yeah, I don't think I always said that years
• 1:16:08
  ago when we were coming up 2018 and I'm like, I should put on a
• 1:16:14
  class limited to 20 people and charge 25,000 bucks a person.
• 1:16:20
  Guarantee it sold out. And with a guarantee that I'll
• 1:16:24
  never ever teach a class again. Just a one time deal, but then
• 1:16:32
  I'm like, no, I don't have a class.
• 1:16:35
  I just I don't have any class. No, I at my class would be more
• 1:16:39
  mentality versus cooking skills about what the shit that gets
• 1:16:44
  turned in today is horrible. Back when I was back when I was
• 1:16:47
  at my prime. We actually cook stuff.
• 1:16:50
  We actually there was texture to our food.
• 1:16:54
  Today, there's no texture. It's just mush.
• 1:16:56
  It's all, everybody brings me stuff.
• 1:16:58
  I'm like, yeah, that's mush. Back then we used to cook pork
• 1:17:01
  to 185° and it had a bite in it. We used to cook our chicken to
• 1:17:05
  165 and score like crazy with it.
• 1:17:09
  And if you think about that, everything had a rib was almost
• 1:17:13
  like biting a pork chop, but just a little bit more tender.
• 1:17:17
  There was texture back then. Now there's no texture.
• 1:17:20
  Now it's how far can I push it? How far can I push it so that
• 1:17:25
  it's mushy, not mealy. But a virtual class would be
• 1:17:28
  good on mentality, so you ain't got to leave.
• 1:17:33
  Nobody had to come in, just log on and you teach them.
• 1:17:37
  Just log on and teach them and talk about competition BBQ
• 1:17:40
  answer questions. Not a bad idea.
• 1:17:45
  Yeah, I tried to come up with an idea.
• 1:17:47
  I told Luke he need to come up with a class where I've never
• 1:17:50
  cooked a steak before. I would love to cook a steak,
• 1:17:52
  but some there's certain meats that people in the backyard want
• 1:17:55
  to cook. Just gather those meats together
• 1:17:58
  like salmon or steak or any little things like that and make
• 1:18:03
  a class out of it. Everything ain't got to be
• 1:18:04
  competition wise. Just regular meats, people in
• 1:18:07
  the backyard, yeah. They want to be the king of the
• 1:18:10
  they want to be the king of the backyard and give them the
• 1:18:12
  instructional video instead of competition based.
• 1:18:16
  Kind of the BBQ league did, but do it on a backyard basis.
• 1:18:20
  Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, because there's a lot of
• 1:18:23
  great backyard cooks out there. Leave a cue out of Florida.
• 1:18:27
  Amazing. Amazing Traeger backyard cook.
• 1:18:31
  I follow her stuff. I just want to eat her screen
• 1:18:34
  every day. It's just, it's crazy.
• 1:18:38
  Does that sound good? Janice from Smelacu, All of
• 1:18:42
  these women are great cooks, but they just, just, the stuff
• 1:18:45
  they're producing is just, it's like crazy.
• 1:18:48
  Yeah. But on that note, I don't have
• 1:18:51
  any more questions, but I definitely appreciate you for
• 1:18:53
  coming on and like I said, giving your time and giving your
• 1:18:56
  advice and stuff like that. And Vincent, I want to have you
• 1:18:59
  back on and probably do like a business master class, just ask
• 1:19:02
  business questions and let you go for it.
• 1:19:04
  But I'd love to do that. I love talking.
• 1:19:07
  I love talking competition BBQ, but I really love talking
• 1:19:10
  business. Yeah, so I get that together,
• 1:19:13
  but I definitely appreciate you. And if you want to shout out or
• 1:19:16
  give websites or anything like that, you can definitely do that
• 1:19:19
  at this time. But yeah, it's just
• 1:19:21
  smokeydsbbq.com. We got to It's My Jam, cafe.com,
• 1:19:25
  theornerychicken.com, the craftym-ac.com.
• 1:19:29
  And if you ever want to listen to me bullshit like we bullshit
• 1:19:32
  today, then check Cue the Mic Pod, our podcast.
• 1:19:36
  We do Me and Randy Twyford, a long time friend that owns a
• 1:19:41
  catering and food truck business in Illinois.
• 1:19:43
  And then Emma Derflinger, who used to be my social media gal.
• 1:19:46
  Her mom works for me now, but but Emma, she's our she's the
• 1:19:50
  referee between us 2 and we just have a lot of fun every week
• 1:19:54
  talking about barbecue and anything between from A-Z.
• 1:19:58
  Talk about. Definitely.
• 1:20:00
  Just anything. It's just sometimes it's fun,
• 1:20:03
  sometimes it's not, but you can always hit Fast forward if we're
• 1:20:06
  boring, but most of the time we're not.
• 1:20:08
  We always got a few little tidbits of surprise and we're
• 1:20:11
  hoping in the back of our mind to be able to teach people and
• 1:20:14
  shorten their learning curve when it comes to the BBQ
• 1:20:17
  business or the food truck business or the catering
• 1:20:19
  business. There's a little gems in there
• 1:20:22
  through a lot of bullshit too, but there's a lot of there's a
• 1:20:24
  lot of gems in there. Yeah, tell that Randy.
• 1:20:26
  I will be reaching out to him because he seemed like he's very
• 1:20:30
  interesting too. Oh yeah, he is.
• 1:20:33
  He's a great guy. I'll go put in a good word.
• 1:20:36
  All right. I definitely appreciate that and
• 1:20:38
  you enjoy your day. Are you at a restaurant
• 1:20:40
  background or are you home? No, I'm at my home because
• 1:20:43
  there's no quiet place at the restaurant.
• 1:20:45
  I don't have an office. My office is normally the end of
• 1:20:48
  the bar at 5:00 in the morning. That's where I get almost all my
• 1:20:52
  work for the day done is between 5:00 and 7:00 before I have to
• 1:20:55
  go to breakfast. Yeah, there's no.
• 1:20:58
  There would be no quiet place in the world.
• 1:21:01
  We would have been interrupted 15 times.
• 1:21:03
  So anytime I have to do anything that matters, I got a couple of
• 1:21:06
  meetings today are all going to happen from home and then I'll
• 1:21:09
  be back at the restaurant. I definitely appreciate your
• 1:21:11
  time and I'll give you some time back while you prepare for your
• 1:21:14
  next meeting, but sounds good. Look forward to seeing you out
• 1:21:18
  there again. You have a good day.
• 1:21:20
  OK. Thank you.
• 1:21:21
  I built something onto my podcast that every BBQ brand
• 1:21:25
  should be a part of. It's called the BBQ Therapy
• 1:21:28
  Smoke showdown bracket 16 meats you cook on the grill go head to
• 1:21:32
  head and every guest picks their winner.
• 1:21:35
  It's one of the most engaging parts of the show.
• 1:21:38
  Every guest plays and every listener loves it Because No2
• 1:21:41
  brackets are the same. Now I'm opening it up for a
• 1:21:44
  presenting sponsor, meaning your brand becomes part of the
• 1:21:48
  segment. Every single show.
• 1:21:50
  This isn't just an ad. This becomes part of the show.
• 1:21:55
  And if you're interested, reach out to Tavis Bryant at
• 1:21:57
  barbecuetherapypodcast@gmail.com. Thank you.
• 1:22:02
  Thank you for joining us for another therapy session.
• 1:22:05
  And remember, like, follow and subscribe to help the BBQ
• 1:22:09
  Therapy community and also visit our website at
• 1:22:12
  www.barbecuetherapypodcast.com.