Latest / BBQ Therapy / Chris Joyner aka The Dapper Pitmaster - Blessed and Highly Flavored

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Chris Joyner aka The Dapper Pitmaster - Blessed and Highly Flavored · BBQ Therapy

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  And sometimes when you're walking by face, sometimes you
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  just got to stop walking and trusting God.
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  So I had to 1st go downstairs and tell my wife I ain't working
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  no more. I hadn't lost my job.
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  But the first thing she told me he said, Chris, I already know
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  you told me you displays you weren't going back.
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  Go ahead and follow. Go and do what God tell you to
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  do. Let go ham, BBQ, let go ham,
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  BBQ, let go ham, BBQ, let go ham, BBQ, BBQ.
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  Get your BBQ off. Get your BBQ off.
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  Welcome to the BBQ Therapy Podcast.
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  My name is Tavis Bryant of Yago Ham BBQ.
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  Have you ever stood around a smoker or a grill?
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  Felt the world fade away? Now that's BBQ Therapy.
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  Welcome to the BBQ Therapy podcast.
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  My name is Tavis Bryant and today we have Chris Joyner AKA
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  The Dapper Pitmaster, founder of C JS Barbecue and more in
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  Charlotte, NC. From 20 plus year banking career
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  to full time pitmaster, signature crack wings, smoke ox
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  tails and a preferred vendor for the Carolina Panthers and
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  Formula Drift, Chris combines faith, family and fierce flavor.
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  Let's dive in. Welcome to the show.
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  I got one rule, make yourself at home, speak freely.
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  I have 0 sponsors. Absolutely.
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  I appreciate you having me on. I was excited about it and
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  anytime there's an opportunity to talk barbecue and smoking and
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  being a pit mass and what it's all about and being able to
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  share and help people, that's what I'm all about.
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  So I want to have some fun along with it.
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  I like to say putting a purpose with the party.
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  Yes, definitely. And I appreciate you coming on.
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  And I try to do things different, ask different
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  questions that most people don't ask that usually people ask the
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  generic questions. But I've tried to formulate
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  questions to help people and educate people as well as
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  promote the people that come on here for the hard work.
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  And you definitely, based on your credentials and all that
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  you've done it. The proof is in the pudding.
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  The hard work does pay off. We're going to take it back.
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  Take us back to your upbringing. Was BBQ part of your childhood
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  or how did the grilling weave into your life growing up?
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  Barbecue was definitely part of my childhood, but I didn't know
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  it at the time. It was most is it was always
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  like I was surrounded by key things that kind of inspired me.
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  But when I was young kid, you don't think about that kind of
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  stuff. I'm going to tell you where I It
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  was first where I noticed the beginning of the interest and it
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  was through a family friend, Joyce and Benny Jenkins, Mr.
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  Jenkins. We would always go over to their
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  house and Mr. Jenkins had a Weber grill in the back and he,
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  I noticed every time we would go over there, rain, sleet of snow,
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  This man was barbecuing every weekend.
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  And we went over there every weekend.
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  But it's almost like every time we'd be over there, he would be
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  barbecuing. But as a kid, we were just over
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  there playing with their kids. I didn't think anything of it.
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  But I grew up where my mother and grandmother, Rosa Joyner and
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  Georgia Scott taught me how to cook, just taught me how to cook
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  Southern cuisines and everything.
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  And that's why I got my foundation for cooking and my
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  love for cooking. And as I matriculated, I
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  graduated out of high school and I graduated from South Carolina
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  State with ABS and marketing degree.
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  And I went on and got my masters from Webster University and
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  matriculated into banking. I always had the love of
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  cooking. But then I would probably say in
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  year 2010, that's when God, basically, he basically said,
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  OK, I'm going to, you're going to do this thing full time, but
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  I need you to do a couple things.
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  And I had to get my confidence up.
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  I was like, man, how am I going to do this for a living?
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  But he placed me in a certain situation to where I had to
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  practice cooking for free for people.
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  So my, my kids grew up, they were in their activities and
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  stuff. I would do the concession stands
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  all the time. I would cook and then I have my
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  ears to the ground listening. And then as I was involved in
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  church, I was very involved in cooking just about everything at
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  church and I just didn't listen to what people would say.
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  And they would always give free you need to open up a restaurant
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  you need. And I did that for close about
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  15 years until 2018 is when as I was still working at Wells
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  Fargo, I had my smoker which I affectionately called Zelroy.
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  And I named that after two very important people in my life.
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  My my grandfather, which his name was Zelle Scott and my
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  deceased father-in-law, Mr. Leroy Lipsy.
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  Mr. Lipsy was probably he had the best barbecue I've ever
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  eaten. Still to this day, he's still
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  better than mine. I'm just going to give him that
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  love. He barbecued all the time and I
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  used to love eating his barbecue and I just love.
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  I loved it. And my grandfather always
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  inspired me. Listen, go after your dreams,
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  get whatever you want, as long as you can afford it and don't
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  worry about what everybody thinks.
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  Step out on faith. And I just combined it.
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  So I wanted to honor them. And I named my, my, my smoker
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  affectionately, call it Zelroy. So they're both names.
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  And so I started basically doing catering on the side, started
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  with families grinding out there, hustling.
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  And it kept growing and growing. And I was like, man, this thing
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  is getting pretty big. And so in 2022, my plan was to
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  work that whole year, save up enough money and buy me a food
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  truck. I didn't know anything about
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  food trucks. I said I was going to buy it and
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  then I was going to plan me an exit strategy out of working in
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  the bank. But little that I know, back in
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  March of 2022, I was displaced from my job.
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  I could have found a way to go back.
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  But when I hung up the phone with my manager, and I'll never
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  forget this and I tell the story all the time, soon as I hung up
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  the phone, God told me. He said you will never work for
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  anybody else in your life. Go get your food truck.
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  And I'm sitting there saying I'm upstairs in my office.
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  I'm like, how I'm going to do that?
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  How I'm going to do that. And sometimes when you walking
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  by face, sometimes you just got to start walking and trust in
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  God. So I had to 1st go downstairs
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  and tell my wife, I ain't working no more.
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  I hadn't lost my job. But the first thing she told me,
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  she said, Chris, I already know and you told me you displays you
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  weren't going back. Go ahead and follow it.
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  Go and do what God tell you to do.
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  And so we sit down thinking, how do we do this?
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  How do we do this? And so we started, we looked at
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  our resources and I was able to get the money from resources we
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  already had and actually had to do a lot of research.
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  Now keep in mind, I didn't know anything about professionally
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  catering. I didn't know anything about a
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  food truck, not anything. And I literally, this was in
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  March. And so I had to do, I tapped
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  into my current resources, who do I know that's in the business
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  right now? So I started asking them
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  questions, doing research. I had to decide, OK, what type
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  of pickup truck I was going to get, What's the towing capacity,
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  what size of a trailer I'm going to get?
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  What do I need in it? And after I've done all the
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  research, I was blessed to be able to find this guy.
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  He lived in El Paso, TX and I met him on Facebook and one of
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  the chat room and they had they do have some scammers up there
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  in in in in Texas that they sometime will you'll get taken
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  for your money. But I put out there in search of
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  I put out on one of the chat rooms.
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  I said in search of 18 foot trailer someone in the building.
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  So a lot of people responded. A lot of them were iffy, but
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  this one guy responded say hey, I could do it for you And he
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  said he reached out to me. He said a matter of fact, and he
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  said, let me give you my number. I called him, talked to him.
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  I told him my expectation. He said, I'll tell you what, I
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  just built the same trailer that you're looking for a business in
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  Raleigh, and I live in Charlotte, so Raleigh's not that
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  far away. So he said.
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  And so the first thing the Lord told me, he said, why don't you
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  just pick up the phone, call them and ask them are they
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  pleased with the trailer? I didn't know these people, so I
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  did that. I reached out.
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  They had the exact same trailer that I wanted and said hey we
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  love it, we love it, no issues. They told me.
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  I said OK, that might be confirmation to God this way I
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  need to go. So I told this guy, never met
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  him before. I told this guy I said this is
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  how it's going to work. I said if you do this for me, I
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  need for you to send me pictures and short video reels every two
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  days of the bill every two days because I said I can't keep
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  going back and forth to El Paso, TX.
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  That's like from here in Charlotte.
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  I think that's almost 20 plus hours.
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  So I said that's how this is going to work.
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  But before I did that, I took my specs and I started searching
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  other companies and man, they were talking astronomical price
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  for what I wanted. They were talking, I mean 50-60
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  something $1000. I was able to this guy made me
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  and I almost I didn't believe him, but this guy said that he
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  could build my exact food trailer, the one that I sent you
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  the picture of with everything that I wanted in it for $26,000.
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  And I was like man, ain't no way, ain't no way.
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  And he said no, I can do it. And then he even I'm I'm be
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  honest with you, he did something that just I'm this
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  type of person. I am, if a person that I'm
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  getting to know volunteers truthful information that it
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  didn't have to share, I'm more an apt to trust you more.
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  So he said, Hey, I want to earn your business.
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  He was a new business and he made a couple trucks.
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  He said, listen, I'll build the trailer.
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  He didn't even he didn't even require that I have a deposit.
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  Oh wow, didn't even require that I have AI said, Lord, is this
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  you? He just said, just keep
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  following me. I said, OK, so this guy was
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  building my trailer and I told I'd already had play.
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  I said, listen, I can't pay for it to be delivered, so I'm have
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  to drive up there, which I really did not want to do.
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  I did not want to drive. That's a long way.
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  So he said he could have it for me in 45 days, which is really
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  fast to be on a trailer, but he committed to it, but it took him
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  a little longer. It actually took him 60 days,
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  which is still fast. So he felt so bad.
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  I didn't feel bad at all. He felt so bad.
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  He said, I tell you what, I'll deliver it to you.
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  I like I said, listen. I said, listen, I don't have any
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  money. I got just enough money to pay
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  you. I said I don't have any money.
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  I said I'm gonna have to come get.
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  He said, no, I'll deliver it for free.
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  I say what I'm sending this and all I can do is Alex, God,
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  listen, I'm a man of faith. I hold my faith on my sleeve.
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  So I have no shame. You can't tell me God is not
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  good. So I'm God is moving things out
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  of the way, putting people. So he finally said, hey, I'm, I
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  got it done. This trailer, this man built my
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  trailer with logos on it and everything.
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  It was built in Mexico, driven across the border to El Paso,
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  TX, then driven for El Paso, TX, El Paso, TX to my front doorstep
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  and I didn't have to pay this man until he got to my front
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  door. Now, part of calculated risk is
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  trusting. Now I did a lot of trust
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  exercises in my journey. So now I'm able to help people
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  so they don't have to do that. So when someone calls me and
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  say, hey Chris, we follow you and we just want to pick your
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  brain and hear back, can you tell us how to?
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  I'm more willing. And what I tell them is don't do
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  this because I had a lot of hiccups in the States along the
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  way. But Long story short, I got my
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  trailer in August. I got it registered.
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  I wasn't able to put it in use until 2023, but it has taken off
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  and I hadn't looked back. That's great.
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  That's great. It's definitely stepping out
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  there like that is not for everybody.
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  So you got to definitely make sure that God is telling you to
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  do that. So I'm telling you the
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  disclaimer, your story right now.
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  That's right. People need to understand God
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  gives one person a vision. He gives multiple people dreams.
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  But the dream is the engine that pushes your vision.
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  So you can't get upset if someone is not feeling the
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  excitement for your vision and they're not excited about it
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  because that's not their vision. And don't worry about who's not
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  rocking with you. Be happy and thankful for the
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  people that are rocking with you.
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  Exactly, exactly. And everybody got their own
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  individual journey and favor ain't fair.
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  Favor ain't fair, but exactly, be happy, be happy.
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  So when you're happy for somebody else, when your turn
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  come, people be happy for you. That's right.
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  And you and when you making a living, doing what you love to
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  do is not work. Exactly.
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  I do a lot of people looking like man how you do it, but this
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  is what I love to do. This is what I love to do and
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  when people see your passion they can taste it in your food
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  and your service. You don't have to say a word.
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  I tell people all the time I have 0 competition and that's
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  not because I'm cocky, I think I'm better than that.
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  But I understand that there are lanes to this thing called in
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  smoking. There are lanes to it.
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  What I suggest people find your lane and stay in it.
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  You go as fast as you want in one lane.
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  You go as fast as you want to slow.
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  I have no competition. I want everybody knows my model.
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  I want everybody to win. If I can help you, I'll help
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  you. I don't believe if you do
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  something copying off of me, I don't care.
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  One thing, God bless me. I got a plethora of ideas up
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  here. I release a few every month.
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  I do something different every month.
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  But you got to find what you do best and master it.
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  Mastery. Don't worry about what everybody
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  else is doing. You master what you know how to
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  do. Even if you only know how to do
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  one thing, be the best at everyone thing that's.
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  It you got you, whatever your business is, you got to have a
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  specialty. You can have six products, but
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  out of those six products, one or two of those things got to be
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  a specialty. And for me it's my smoke oxidis
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  and my crack wings. Those are the 2 main things that
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  bring business in. And then they see all the rest
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  of the stuff and then they oh, OK, so he can do this.
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  Yeah, yeah, definitely. Describe for me, you said you
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  got a custom built smoker and trailer.
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  Describe that set up, your smoker and the trailer that you
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  have. My smoker, and I say this
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  strongly and with pride. My smoker is designed to work
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  for me. Now it's not a custom offset
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  smoker. It's I smoke on my smoker
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  indirectly. It didn't have a smoker box on
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  it, but I do it indirectly. But I also had my custom smoker
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  made in a way that I knew I was going to be catering.
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  So my smoker is a that's probably like a 400 gallon
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  smoker, but I I could it has a long galvanized tray in the
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  bottom of where you can put coal and wood in it.
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  And as long as they do it indirect and then I also have a
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  gas line running in to it. So a lot of times when I go on
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  sites, I do some cooking on site, but a lot of times I do
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  cooking off site and I bring it there.
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  But I only, I don't cook with gas at all.
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  I don't cook with gas at all. I use that gas line as a big
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  warmer box. So that way I can do, I've done
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  catering as small as 25 and as large as 1200 big tailgates.
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  And so when I do that, when I had the food sitting there, all
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  of it can get on my smoke and it can sit there.
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  I turn the gas on and it keeps it warm.
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  But see I have other smoking apparatuses that I use to cook
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  it. But when I'm on site I'm
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  efficient and I'm ready to go. And that's how I had my smoker
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  set up. Now I got some a typical offset
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  smoker. My guys going to be making for
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  me here within the next 8 months.
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  But I want to have an official offset smoker as well.
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  But as far as my food trailer, I have an 18 foot food trailer
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  with a six foot porch and basically my smoker is on the
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  back of my 6 foot porch. And so that means I got like a
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  12 foot box. So inside I got everything.
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  I got a food warmer, 2 refrigerators, 2 deep fryers,
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  three base sink with a hand wash.
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  I have electric warmers I have inside of it.
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  I have an AC. A vent is quite comfortable for
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  me is more than what I need. I also have a generator and 100
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  gallon gas tank on it. Now I don't do The funny thing
• 15:44
  about it. I don't do a whole lot of
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  cooking in my trailer. It's usually once I cook it and
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  get everything done, I load it into the warmers, go to my site
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  and I'm able to the my lines. I can kick out food probably in
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  about two to three minutes per order because my food is already
• 15:59
  ready. So it's like you tell me what
• 16:00
  you need, take your payment, bam, it's out of the window,
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  it's gone. And that's how I keep getting
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  more requests to come because I can kick my food out.
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  A lot of food trucks they have to cook, but is there.
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  So the only thing if I do cook in it, I might cook French
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  fries, fish or chicken, but that's rare at certain.
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  That's just rare. But it's 18 foot.
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  I think it's 18 foot by 8 feet, so it's 8 foot wide, 18 foot
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  long. OK.
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  OK. That's a nice size.
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  So like when you talk about the learning the catering logistics
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  and the menu plan and the event coordination was a trial and
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  error or did you get with somebody to teach you the basics
• 16:37
  of running a business or running catering or anything like that?
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  Both. It was both One thing about me.
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  I'm not afraid to step out on faith and try something.
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  When I first started just doing it on the side, I did a family
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  reunion for my wife's side of the family.
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  I was and it was in Charleston. So I had to drive down to
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  Charleston and I overdid everything.
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  I overestimated. I overdid everything.
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  But the good thing was I knew I wasn't going to fail and I knew
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  I wasn't going to not have enough food.
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  I had too much food and I was very successful.
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  But see, I was learning after each event because I started off
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  real slow. It was a process of elimination
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  for me. I said, OK, this time I had
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  during 15 slabs of ribs leftover, which is way too many.
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  I thought, how can I cut that down?
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  And then I started looking at the intricacies of it.
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  OK, if you got 50 people and the menu, you got three meats and
• 17:29
  three sides, you're not going to need 10 slabs.
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  You're not going to need 10 or 15 slabs of ribs because you got
• 17:36
  two other meat options. So I would say in a, in an
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  average, if a person comes up there and say, hey, I want to
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  sample one of everything, that means they're getting three
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  meats on their plate, which is a lot and three sides.
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  So that tells me I probably don't need 2 bones of rib.
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  That tells me I just need one rib per person.
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  So in that situation, I could feed 50 people with three meats
• 17:56
  with just five slams of ribs. And then if I'm having lead
• 17:59
  quarters, I can get one case of lead quarters because most 40 LB
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  lead quarters have 35 in them, 40.
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  And then if I'm serving pool 4:00, I could probably get away
• 18:09
  with two Boston butts, 2, probably 12 LB Boston butts and
• 18:14
  that could feed. That's more than enough.
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  So it was a process of elimination.
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  And then also I had other friends that was in the business
• 18:21
  that were like really fancy catering.
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  I don't want to get into the fancy stuff.
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  I'm BBQ. But they basically sent me down
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  and said, OK, this is how you really want to look at it.
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  And so I combined some of the professional suggestions with my
• 18:36
  trial and error to where I got it down to a science.
• 18:39
  One of my main goals is, and I still have yet to mess this up,
• 18:44
  I've never not have enough food for an event.
• 18:48
  I've never not. I always make sure that this is
• 18:51
  me. I always make sure I have 10%
• 18:53
  more than what I need. Some people won't go that far,
• 18:57
  but I'm like, I want to make sure my customers have enough.
• 19:01
  And then I want a few people to take some plates home because
• 19:04
  then they take that plate home and give it to somebody that
• 19:07
  went in there and they taste the food.
• 19:08
  Next thing I know I'm getting more business, but see I put
• 19:12
  that cost back into the overall cost at 10% so that I'm not
• 19:17
  losing anything if that makes sure.
• 19:19
  So I would rather earn my customers business and lose a
• 19:24
  little bit of profit on the front end if I know I'm going to
• 19:28
  get additional business on the back end.
• 19:31
  So that's how I approach it this.
• 19:32
  Works. So how long did it take you into
• 19:36
  starting the catering, the food truck to realize that, OK, I'm
• 19:40
  getting good at this and finding your groove?
• 19:44
  I found my groove in my second year.
• 19:48
  This is my third year doing it full time.
• 19:49
  I found my groove last. I was like groove like right now
• 19:53
  I'm cruising. It's it's like I am to a point
• 19:57
  now, and it's funny that you mention this.
• 19:59
  I have a food trailer and I cater.
• 20:01
  But my caterings over the past 14 months have been outpacing my
• 20:07
  food trailer pull ups. To give you a good example, I
• 20:10
  have not had my food truck out in two months.
• 20:14
  I didn't know, I didn't see. I still learn a lot of stuff.
• 20:17
  So now I'm really going to have to go back and look at my
• 20:18
  business model. I still going to have my truck,
• 20:22
  but it's I got to find a way to get it out there more because
• 20:25
  it's like most of my catering gigs on the weekend.
• 20:27
  So what I'm planning to do when things slow down, which I don't
• 20:30
  know when they're going to slow down, I'm going to look at
• 20:32
  trying to do my food truck events either at just do big
• 20:36
  festivals or try to get maybe 1 gig during the week and try to
• 20:41
  deal. But right now it's just sitting.
• 20:43
  It's sitting. But I'm doing really good with
• 20:45
  the catering. I've, I'm actually doing a lot
• 20:47
  of repeat, like right now I'm in family reunion season.
• 20:50
  I do a lot of family. I do about, I'm doing about four
• 20:52
  or five family reunions. I'm in that season right now.
• 20:55
  Then right after that, before then I was doing college and
• 20:58
  high school graduations. I did about six of those from
• 21:03
  the span of, I'll probably say from May and June, May and June,
• 21:07
  I did about 6-6 of them, maybe maybe 8, probably 6 to 8 of
• 21:10
  them. Then I'm in the phantom reunion
• 21:12
  season. So I got about four or five of
• 21:14
  those. Then right after that, I start
• 21:17
  college homecoming tailgates and I do big tailgate.
• 21:21
  I think the smallest one I got is 150.
• 21:23
  The largest is going to be 800. And but these are repeat type
• 21:29
  things. So like the family reunions I
• 21:31
  did two years ago, because often, sometimes they do them
• 21:33
  once a year or twice a year. I'm starting to now have the
• 21:36
  family reunions that I did two years ago.
• 21:37
  Call me back. Hey, we got another federal
• 21:40
  union. Mr. CJ, we want you to do it.
• 21:42
  No, I said oh cool. I got 5 College Ferry College
• 21:47
  Homecomers. I'm doing University of South
• 21:49
  Carolina in Columbia for probably about 150.
• 21:52
  I'm doing North Carolina A&T. They call that GO the greatest
• 21:55
  homecoming on earth. I'm doing that 1.
• 21:58
  I did that last year and they love me and they booked me
• 22:00
  again. I'm doing Johnson C Smith.
• 22:03
  I'll probably be doing Livingstone College.
• 22:05
  I'm doing University of North Carolina Charlotte.
• 22:07
  So I got 5 big ones. They started in September and
• 22:11
  the end of November, so that's closing out my year.
• 22:14
  And then after that I started doing holiday stuff and then I'm
• 22:18
  revamping and getting ready to go into the next year.
• 22:21
  So it's like I got to figure out a way to get my trailer up and
• 22:24
  running because I'm leaving money on the table.
• 22:25
  Technically that's guaranteed money with the catering and the
• 22:30
  food truck, you don't know what's going to happen.
• 22:32
  So that's the money that you are getting is good because it's
• 22:35
  guaranteed versus you don't know what's going on.
• 22:38
  So that's. But see, now I can be very
• 22:40
  selective with my truck just like I just got invited to
• 22:44
  something called Soul Fence here.
• 22:45
  I've never been, but they say it's going to be like 5000
• 22:47
  people there and they're only inviting 5 trucks.
• 22:50
  I just got an e-mail like today, but I've been working all day
• 22:53
  today. I'm just, I'm going to bed.
• 22:54
  I'm going to start fresh in the morning because I've just, I've
• 22:57
  been on the phone all day. I picked up two new caterings,
• 23:04
  one is in two, one is in two weeks, 1 is in three weeks, so
• 23:07
  that's additional ones I'm adding for this month.
• 23:10
  September's already booked September, October, November and
• 23:13
  December are booked all the way out with caterings.
• 23:17
  And so now what I'm trying to do is squeeze the truck in there.
• 23:20
  I'm choosing big events, festivals and stuff like that so
• 23:24
  that I'm trying to end the year strong because there is a slow
• 23:27
  period that if you don't have a lot enough business going,
• 23:30
  there's a slow period that usually starts in December and
• 23:33
  it goes all the way through March.
• 23:35
  But I'm hoping I don't. Each year gets better for me,
• 23:38
  each year gets better for me. So it won't be as slow this
• 23:41
  year, but it'll pick back up. But it's a grind, a constant
• 23:45
  grind. That's that's the way to do it.
• 23:48
  Get it while it's available because you never know when it
• 23:51
  is going to shift like you see it.
• 23:53
  How did your marketing degree fit in when it comes to running
• 23:56
  a business? Oh my God, it's so interesting
• 24:00
  you asked that and I tell this story all the time.
• 24:04
  I graduated with a marketing degree in Stockholm State in
• 24:06
  1992. Never used the degree once in
• 24:13
  banking and my entire professional career.
• 24:15
  Never used it once. Went back and got my master's in
• 24:21
  business administration for Webster University.
• 24:24
  Never used anything with my BS and marketing or my MBA while I
• 24:31
  was working in banking. Never.
• 24:34
  I didn't start using it until I started my business.
• 24:38
  And I'm sitting there thinking, what the heck?
• 24:39
  I went to college. And then as I started my
• 24:42
  business and I'm doing all the marketing, you see everything on
• 24:45
  Facebook. And I'm not a professional.
• 24:46
  I just learned everything myself.
• 24:48
  So you go out. It's gotten better from the very
• 24:50
  first year I started, but everything on social media,
• 24:53
  that's all the real, the pictures, all that I do, all of
• 24:56
  that, all the marketing, all that kind of stuff.
• 24:58
  I do all that myself. I was like, where am I learning
• 25:00
  that? And once again, I told you I'm a
• 25:02
  man of faith. That's when God said, well, I
• 25:03
  gave you this vision 20 years ago, I had all this planned.
• 25:08
  He said you were going to get everything you need from your
• 25:11
  marketing degree, from your MBA, and I don't want you to apply it
• 25:16
  to the jobs where you working for somebody else.
• 25:19
  I want you to apply it working for yourself.
• 25:23
  And everything that I learned in South Carolina State and
• 25:26
  Webster, I am using in my own Business Today.
• 25:30
  I didn't see it until now. I was like, wow, that is deep.
• 25:34
  That is deep. So that's where I get all of my
• 25:36
  creativity from and I do it all in.
• 25:39
  I'm not. I've never built a website in my
• 25:41
  life. I built my own website, but they
• 25:42
  make it so easy now. They got tutorials on.
• 25:46
  I'm like, OK, I'm going to build this thing and it's not the most
• 25:49
  professional, but if you go out there it looks pretty nice.
• 25:51
  But I just want to get it started.
• 25:53
  I'll say I'm a tweak it as I go along.
• 25:55
  But I learned all of that from then and I didn't apply it until
• 25:59
  now. And I was like, wow, I said this
• 26:01
  is really something. This is really something.
• 26:03
  Yeah, most stuff I'm learning how to do this is from YouTube.
• 26:07
  I'm in the Since I have a 15 month old I'm in the room with
• 26:10
  her most of the time so YouTube be on and I'm just learning.
• 26:14
  I'm just. Learning.
• 26:15
  I call it YouTube University. Exactly.
• 26:17
  Exactly. That's what I call I learned,
• 26:19
  man. I learned how to put an
• 26:20
  alternator in my car. Going to YouTube.
• 26:24
  How do when things get tight when you're young, you got
• 26:26
  little kids, you got an old car that's paid for.
• 26:28
  Like, man, I can't put this in the shop.
• 26:30
  I sat down and went to YouTube University.
• 26:33
  Next thing I know I cranked that bad baby up and she was running.
• 26:36
  I was like, Oh yeah. I tell my wife on YouTube,
• 26:39
  anything you want to learn, YouTube has it.
• 26:42
  You'll be super. Has it?
• 26:43
  I'm telling you, I'm telling, but you got to be ready.
• 26:45
  It's that calculated risk is so important.
• 26:48
  I know it's scary, but I'm telling you how deep I am.
• 26:50
  I'm so deep into this now. I can't turn around.
• 26:53
  I cannot. I can't literally and physically
• 26:56
  I can't. I can't go back into banging if
• 26:58
  I wanted to. Even though I had an
• 27:00
  opportunity, I said no, I'm not going to be happy because I like
• 27:04
  working for myself. And this may sound funny, it
• 27:08
  might sound arrogant, but I don't.
• 27:10
  I'm 56 years old. I don't want nobody telling me
• 27:13
  ever again what to do. I just, I'm at that point.
• 27:17
  You can't tell me I won't work for nobody else.
• 27:19
  Don't tell me I'm running my own business so that I can be my own
• 27:25
  boss and then I want the people that work for me.
• 27:27
  I want you to be able to enjoy yourself and have fun because I
• 27:31
  worked in environments where it was stressful.
• 27:33
  I'm like, if you come work for me, it's not going to be
• 27:35
  stressful. That's one thing I can promise
• 27:36
  you may work a little bit, but it ain't going to be stressful.
• 27:40
  It's not going to say I want to make sure you have fun.
• 27:42
  I want you to laugh, but I want you to do your job.
• 27:45
  Now one thing I don't allow anybody to tell me what to do,
• 27:49
  but you can suggest or ask, but this is my vision, this is my
• 27:54
  baby I got, I have every time I go out to do a catering, I have
• 27:59
  a front plan and a backup plan. So I got I am prepared for
• 28:04
  anything and everything to happen.
• 28:07
  I'm prepared. Now my people that work for me,
• 28:09
  they might not see it, but I always get to my events 2 to 3
• 28:12
  hours early and otherwise you get in there early.
• 28:15
  I said you got to prepare for the what ifs.
• 28:17
  I'm prepared when I go there, but there's always one or two
• 28:19
  things like OK, what if I got to go buy some ice or I break a
• 28:23
  spoon or something. I got to go and go get a spoon,
• 28:26
  but I prepare for that. Just a little stuff.
• 28:29
  And my success besides my food, my people telling me that my
• 28:33
  food is great, but my success truly comes in my prep work
• 28:37
  because I can get to a catering, be there two hours and if I'm
• 28:41
  catering for 200 people, they'll look at me.
• 28:43
  And I said, OK, you want if I get there 10, the food is
• 28:45
  supposed to be ready to serve at 12.
• 28:47
  And I get there at 10 and the food is ready at 12.
• 28:49
  The first thing that my contact with him was like, how would you
• 28:51
  get all this food done? And I'll never tell him I prep a
• 28:54
  lot of stuff. So when I get there, all I'm
• 28:56
  doing is warming it up on my big smoker with the gas line through
• 28:59
  it. But it makes me look like a
• 29:01
  champ. And he's like, wow, your food.
• 29:03
  And they always say your food and your service is exemplary.
• 29:08
  Like the model of my business is all of my food is blessed and
• 29:11
  highly flavored and I go by that and that I take pride in that in
• 29:16
  in getting positive feedback and hearing my customers say, hey,
• 29:20
  we definitely locking you in. Yeah.
• 29:23
  That's definitely, you're earning the reputation now,
• 29:26
  which is good. And it's funny that I work in
• 29:29
  banking. I work for in the fraud
• 29:31
  department for Bank of America and I've been doing it for 18
• 29:35
  years now. So I understand that banking.
• 29:37
  Yeah, that's. What about total?
• 29:40
  Maybe about three years at Bank of America.
• 29:43
  I spent about maybe 17 or 18 years at Wells Fargo, yeah.
• 29:46
  Yeah, definitely. But I'm legacy first union.
• 29:50
  Oh OK, yeah, but what advice would you give someone wanting
• 29:54
  to start their own food truck or catering business?
• 29:57
  Just a few tips for them. I will say anybody that wants to
• 30:02
  start that they had this dream several years ago, but they
• 30:11
  never acted on it. They just kept dismissing it.
• 30:14
  I'll get to it. I'll get to it.
• 30:16
  One of the most painful things in the world is regret.
• 30:20
  And what I tell my kids now I'm 56, but I don't have any regrets
• 30:23
  about my life. But if I could do anything over,
• 30:26
  I would have started this business when I was in my 20s.
• 30:28
  And the reason why I said that is because the mistakes I made
• 30:31
  along the line when I started this business in my 50s is that
• 30:35
  when I fall down, it's harder for me to get up and recover
• 30:40
  because I'm older. I tell this story all the time.
• 30:43
  I said young people stumble, old people fall.
• 30:46
  So what happens is it's harder for me to recover from mistakes
• 30:50
  now that I'm in my 50s because I know I'm closer to retirement.
• 30:53
  But if you're young, if you fall down, make a big mistake, you
• 30:56
  can get back up quicker, start swinging earlier.
• 31:00
  So whatever your dream is, as soon as it hits you start
• 31:04
  putting your plan together and working your plan.
• 31:06
  Then don't be afraid to step out on faith.
• 31:10
  Don't just and stop worrying about what other people will say
• 31:18
  when you do this. Your job is not to worry about
• 31:22
  what other people will say. The vision that God gives you,
• 31:25
  remember is only for you. You're the only person that's
• 31:27
  going to understand it. And never share your vision with
• 31:32
  anybody that are dream killers. That's including your family.
• 31:38
  You can have a vision and your family might not even
• 31:41
  understand. And sometimes you could be just
• 31:43
  so high motivated and excited, man, I'm, I thought about this.
• 31:47
  I talked to this person. They said they'll do this.
• 31:49
  All I got to do is this. And then you're so excited.
• 31:51
  You want to tell somebody like man, I'm getting ready to start
• 31:53
  my food truck. All they got to say is what the
• 31:56
  heck you gonna do that for? And that crushes you.
• 32:00
  So now you got to put up a protective wall, a protective,
• 32:03
  like I said, a protective and a respective wall.
• 32:07
  You want to be protective, keep people out of it.
• 32:10
  That's not going to lift you up. But do you want to be respectful
• 32:12
  when you exclude people? Because people you may have to
• 32:15
  exclude would be your closest family members.
• 32:18
  Sometimes your choosing your mother, your father, your wife,
• 32:21
  it might be any though, but you got to respectfully block them
• 32:23
  out from stealing your energy because your energy can be
• 32:28
  stolen if you allow it to be stolen.
• 32:31
  Definitely. But if you're going to be an
• 32:32
  entrepreneur, I don't care what you're selling.
• 32:36
  Whether you're selling BBQ pencils, shoelaces, tennis shoes
• 32:41
  or dreams, there is one thing that I learned in banking that
• 32:46
  if you're in sales, a lot of people make the same mistake.
• 32:50
  They will go out and make a do a sales pitch and sell that
• 32:52
  pencil, tell you all the things that pencil can do, how cheap it
• 32:56
  can be and all that kind of stuff.
• 32:58
  And then they'll leave that customer with the sales pitch
• 33:01
  and walk away with the hope that customer will call them.
• 33:04
  But they forgot to do 1 simple thing.
• 33:07
  And that's what every salesman 50% the time forget.
• 33:10
  And that's to simply ask for the business.
• 33:15
  You have to ask for the business.
• 33:17
  So for me, everybody that I come encounter with, in the back of
• 33:21
  my mind, they are potential customer.
• 33:23
  Now I don't always, I don't want to be that person that every
• 33:26
  time you see me, I'm trying to get business from you.
• 33:28
  But in the back of my mind, if I meet you, if I'm talking to you,
• 33:31
  I'm thinking, OK, is this a customer?
• 33:34
  And then God always reminds me, he'll let me know if that person
• 33:38
  could be a potential customer. And when I need to do a sales
• 33:40
  pitch and so when I do a sales pitch, I start talking about,
• 33:44
  Oh, I heard you mentioned such and such.
• 33:46
  And then I'll talk about instead of selling your product to that
• 33:50
  individual, talk about what problem you can solve for that
• 33:55
  individual using your product. So like in my case, if I talk to
• 34:01
  somebody, we just shooting the breeze.
• 34:02
  We say, hey, you know this that that I got this family reunion
• 34:05
  coming up, man. And we're trying to get this
• 34:07
  thing pulled together. I say, oh, you got a family
• 34:09
  reunion coming up. I said I cater.
• 34:12
  So I said one of the things that I do and I'm thinking from their
• 34:15
  perspective is I can do full service catering.
• 34:18
  I say I know a lot of times you're doing these family
• 34:20
  reunions, You have Uncle Ray there, he's doing all the
• 34:23
  cooking, but he misses out every year on the family function
• 34:26
  because he's back there cooking. I said every now and then you
• 34:29
  got to give Uncle Ray a break. I know it may cost a little bit
• 34:31
  more, but what I can do is take all that away, give Uncle Ray a
• 34:35
  break and let me take that trouble from you and let me do
• 34:39
  the full service catering. I give you everything that you
• 34:41
  need. You won't have to do anything
• 34:43
  but pay me. I do the clean up, I do the
• 34:46
  serving, I do the cooking, I do everything.
• 34:48
  Give Uncle Ria a chance to fellowship with the family.
• 34:50
  I say because at phantom reunions, the people that's
• 34:52
  there in 2025 might not be there in 2026.
• 34:55
  So why don't you let me take that off the plate.
• 34:57
  What I did was lay a platform, lay it out on the table and told
• 35:01
  them what problem I could solve for them.
• 35:04
  They, they don't look at it as a cash transaction.
• 35:06
  They look at this man just made a good point.
• 35:09
  Now what they're going to do is go back to the family.
• 35:11
  Hey, I met this guy CJ. He said he can do this.
• 35:14
  And Ray said he really didn't want to cook on the grill this
• 35:17
  year, but he'd do it if you have to.
• 35:19
  Now you can go back and tell Aubrey, guess what?
• 35:21
  You don't have to do that this year.
• 35:22
  We found somebody to take care of that.
• 35:25
  So you got to describe to them what problem you're going to
• 35:28
  solve selling your product to them.
• 35:33
  That's good, that's good. I like the way you put that too.
• 35:37
  Oh yeah, it's good advice that for people out there.
• 35:40
  So make sure y'all listening to that.
• 35:42
  There was a excellent pro tips and business tips.
• 35:45
  All right, we're going to switch over and talk about your
• 35:48
  signature flavors. Let's start off with the crack
• 35:50
  wings. How did that recipe come to
• 35:52
  life? Did you plan it or did you?
• 35:55
  Were you experimenting and stumbled upon the recipe or how
• 35:58
  did it come about? All of the above.
• 36:02
  This is, it's funny because that is the menu item that I first
• 36:07
  started cooking. I started cooking that over 20
• 36:09
  years ago. I was just doing it for the heck
• 36:12
  of it. It didn't even have a name.
• 36:13
  I was just always cook the wings and it was a process of
• 36:16
  elimination thing. And then as I started cooking
• 36:18
  for concession stand in my kids events at the church, people
• 36:22
  with trimes like Manny's wings are delicious.
• 36:24
  They like crack. They like crack and I used to
• 36:27
  hear that from multiple people who didn't even know each other.
• 36:30
  So for years, at least 10 years, people were saying the same
• 36:33
  thing. I said, you know what, when I
• 36:35
  started my business, I'm just going to call them crack wings.
• 36:38
  That's what I'm going to call because that's what everybody
• 36:41
  else says. So what makes those special is I
• 36:45
  marinate those for 24 hours. I grill them, then I smoke them.
• 36:50
  So it's how can I put it? They're not.
• 36:52
  I know a lot of people when they putting wings on the grill, they
• 36:54
  always mention, OK, they're crispy.
• 36:57
  My they're, they are sweet and savory and they're tender and
• 37:02
  that they have a light smoke taste to it because I don't like
• 37:04
  to over smoke my meat. They have a light smoke taste.
• 37:06
  And then when I put my because I make all my sauces and rubs
• 37:09
  homemade. So when I came up with the sauce
• 37:12
  that I'm put on it, it just capitalized and it literally
• 37:16
  took off. It took off.
• 37:18
  I didn't start competing in BBQ competition until 2019 and I
• 37:24
  didn't start winning competitions until October of
• 37:26
  last year. And I won my first competition
• 37:30
  with my crack wings this year at the country style cook off and
• 37:34
  that just blew my. That's where you have that
• 37:36
  place. It had over 10,000 people in it.
• 37:38
  It was 50 participants and I beat them all.
• 37:41
  I beat them all with my crack wings.
• 37:43
  But that's one of my signature meats that I do.
• 37:47
  I sell probably, on average, probably at least.
• 37:54
  Probably anywhere from 1000 to 2000 pieces of wings a week.
• 37:57
  Oh. Wow.
• 38:00
  At least that's and that's just catering.
• 38:03
  I remember mind you now I haven't had my food truck out.
• 38:05
  Now when I do my food truck it triple.
• 38:07
  If I pull my food truck out this weekend, I would have a huge
• 38:12
  crowd out there because actually me not being out there creates a
• 38:16
  demand. It creates it like I have my
• 38:18
  cousin when you coming back, when you coming back to the
• 38:20
  spot, I said I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying.
• 38:22
  And so I'm trying to set a date in August for me to come back.
• 38:25
  But every time when I come back, I always have a great day.
• 38:28
  Parking lot was filled because they know, oh, hey, Chris ain't
• 38:31
  going to be here. So we'll buy.
• 38:32
  We got to buy some extra food to put some in the freezer.
• 38:35
  So I love that. So that's why I cook triple the
• 38:37
  food. But my crack wings have some of
• 38:39
  my best sellers. My customers love them.
• 38:42
  They're a little different than most people's wings and I try to
• 38:45
  be different. That's one of the most important
• 38:47
  things to me. I try to be different in
• 38:48
  everything. The way I cook, the way I
• 38:49
  present myself, the way I speak, the way I market.
• 38:52
  I try to be different. If you notice, I'm a little
• 38:54
  different than most pit masters. I'm a little bit different, but
• 38:56
  I love that. I love being unique because
• 38:58
  there are millions of people out here doing, not doing.
• 39:00
  So I got to be unique as I'm staying in my lane.
• 39:03
  Exactly, and it makes you stand out because most if everybody
• 39:07
  doing the same thing, they're going to blend in together.
• 39:10
  So there's no, if you see that one person, OK, he's more
• 39:14
  professional, he got his business in order, He talks
• 39:18
  professionally, he's respectful. He's respectful of my time and
• 39:22
  other people's time. And it goes a long way with
• 39:26
  people. People don't realize that,
• 39:28
  especially when it comes to time management.
• 39:30
  That's a big thing when it comes to people that what you're doing
• 39:34
  is a you got a blueprint going on because you may want to think
• 39:38
  about doing a business class on the offseason way down.
• 39:42
  Well, I am. My sister talks my sister down
• 39:44
  is one of my biggest supporters and she's always talking about
• 39:47
  she's a Chris. You are a plethora of
• 39:49
  information. Not that you know everything,
• 39:50
  but from what you've learned and gone through, you can be able to
• 39:53
  help other people and actually monetize that.
• 39:56
  That's my that's not my whole. That's not my goal is to make
• 39:59
  money off of my ideas. But this is a business.
• 40:02
  And so I'm looking at I'm definitely going to be starting
• 40:04
  my own podcast. My, my issue is time.
• 40:07
  I want to start my podcast. I want to be able to sell my
• 40:09
  sauces and rubs. Get that on the market.
• 40:12
  There are a lot of different things that I want to do.
• 40:14
  I want to be able to sell T-shirts and all that kind of
• 40:16
  stuff and then just be a blessing to people and try to
• 40:19
  help them. But my second one of the you
• 40:21
  mentioned the other one. I know I talked about my crack
• 40:23
  wings but. My oxtails are my main signature
• 40:28
  dish that I do now this. I have to be careful how I say
• 40:31
  this because everybody knows LES BBQ let's BBQ BBQ.
• 40:35
  That's the guy who made the mainstream.
• 40:37
  Now I'm older than this, I think less is around 45, whatever, 46
• 40:42
  I don't know but I'm 56 and now he has made oxtail smoking
• 40:45
  oxtails mainstream. Never met him before.
• 40:48
  I wish this guy nothing but success.
• 40:50
  I love what he's doing. He is one of the guys that I
• 40:54
  follow and I respect. And then since I've been doing
• 40:58
  it, there's been a lot of other people coming out and doing it,
• 41:01
  which I'm cool with. But as I tell everybody, I'm
• 41:05
  known as the Southeast Smoke Fork, Tinder, Oxtail King.
• 41:08
  Now, what I tell people is, to my knowledge, there has been no
• 41:13
  one out there in the game smoking and selling oxtails
• 41:17
  longer than I have. I've been doing it for 14 plus
• 41:21
  years, smoking and selling them. Now I'm not the perfect guys for
• 41:26
  us to get all these followers and all social media because I
• 41:30
  don't have, I got probably like 2000, maybe 3000 followers.
• 41:33
  It's not that many. But one thing that I learned by
• 41:36
  social media, you can have a ton of follow, but I doubt seriously
• 41:44
  you're more financially successful than I am because I
• 41:49
  move in silence a lot. I'm moving silence and I do
• 41:52
  different things. Like when I got, I'm a preferred
• 41:55
  vendor for the Carolina Panthers three years in a row, I found
• 41:59
  that deal. I didn't, nobody came and asked
• 42:01
  me. I found that deal.
• 42:03
  And then I'm also a preferred vendor for RTR vehicles.
• 42:06
  There's a big race team. They win the points championship
• 42:08
  every year. I'm now close to being a
• 42:11
  preferred food vendor for the bank.
• 42:13
  I used to work for Wells Fargo. So it's a lot of opportunities
• 42:18
  that I get that I'm just amazed at.
• 42:22
  A lot of people don't realize this, but have you seen this
• 42:25
  show on Netflix called American BBQ Showdown?
• 42:29
  OK. I was the alternate on season 2.
• 42:34
  I was one, one of the alternate CDC.
• 42:36
  They have eight. I was #10 I didn't make it to
• 42:39
  the show, but I beat out over 5000 people just to get to that
• 42:42
  point. But because of contractor
• 42:44
  obligations, I couldn't say anything for a couple years, but
• 42:47
  I was very close to being on that show back in 2022.
• 42:50
  I got some other opportunities that's coming up this year.
• 42:53
  I'm not at liberty to say, but they are, they are TV related.
• 42:59
  I will say that. So I'm looking at whatever God
• 43:04
  has for me, is for me, how that's how I see things,
• 43:07
  whatever he has for me. And I tell people all the time,
• 43:09
  I have no idea what God wants to take C JS BBQ more, but I tell
• 43:13
  people, hey, I look at God as being the offensive lineman and
• 43:17
  I'm just a running back. I'm running behind.
• 43:20
  Exactly how long did it take you to perfect the osteo recipe?
• 43:26
  Oh man, I it process of elimination.
• 43:29
  I was cooking it for my family and then started selling the
• 43:31
  family members and it kept growing and growing until I
• 43:34
  perfected how I do it. A lot of people do it different
• 43:38
  ways, but I believe in being consistent.
• 43:42
  You one thing you will never hear me say, you will never hear
• 43:44
  me say that my food is the best. If my customers feel that way,
• 43:49
  they're free to say that. If you want to say my food's the
• 43:53
  best, bless your heart. Thank you.
• 43:55
  Amen. I received that.
• 43:57
  I received that. And I also tell people I am not
• 44:00
  Burger King, so you can't have it your way.
• 44:02
  I cook my food and this with my full chest stuck out.
• 44:07
  I cook everything that I cook is the way I like it and if you
• 44:13
  trust me and you like my food then you'll buy the way I cook
• 44:17
  it. Now I'll make some alterations
• 44:19
  if I'm doing a catering or somebody say hey we don't want
• 44:21
  the BBQ sauce too spicy. OK, I'll back off on the spice
• 44:25
  or say, hey, I want to, can you cook the chicken for this
• 44:28
  catering low sodium? I'll back off on the salt.
• 44:31
  But if you asked me to cook a different BBQ sauce, hey, I want
• 44:34
  that mustard baked. Got a no ma'am, that's not me,
• 44:37
  that's not me. You're welcome to try mine
• 44:39
  'cause mine is different, but I cook it the way I like it.
• 44:43
  I cook it the way I like it, and some people take that the wrong
• 44:46
  way, but I don't like mine that way.
• 44:47
  I'm sorry, but that's just how I roll right now.
• 44:52
  I don't believe in sharing my recipes either.
• 44:57
  I don't think people are saying, do you know how long it took me
• 44:59
  to get to this point exactly to get to, to build these recipes?
• 45:03
  I can't just give that away. I just, I'm, I'm on some of
• 45:07
  these social media pages and they were like, I don't
• 45:08
  understand why you don't give the recipe.
• 45:10
  I don't understand why you keep asking me this question.
• 45:14
  Common sense there. I mean, you have no idea what it
• 45:17
  took. It took me 20 years to figure
• 45:19
  out this BBQ sauce. It took me 15 years to figure
• 45:22
  out this rub. I can't just give that away.
• 45:25
  Correction, I'm not. You can buy it.
• 45:30
  Doesn't even make any sense. I was born at night, not last
• 45:34
  night. No, yeah, and definitely when
• 45:38
  you spoke about the Instagram and all that stuff, you can have
• 45:41
  a million followers and half of them will support you online.
• 45:44
  But when it comes to real life, only 1%, if that.
• 45:50
  I had to learn that too. When I first started, I was
• 45:52
  wearing out my family, loved ones and friends.
• 45:55
  But then God told me, I said, listen, they can't eat your BBQ
• 45:58
  every six days. They can't.
• 46:01
  And I was like, you right, God, you right.
• 46:04
  So that's when I said, OK, I'm going to start broadening out my
• 46:08
  marketing and try to include other people in because what
• 46:10
  happens is your family's still going to support you, but you
• 46:12
  can't expect them to eat your food every other day.
• 46:16
  They're not. Do you eat a hamburger every
• 46:17
  other day? You might eat a hamburger this
• 46:19
  week, next week, you might want to sub then you might not want
• 46:23
  to come back to that hamburger for another two weeks.
• 46:25
  So you have to keep that in mind.
• 46:26
  So I had to respect my family, loved ones and friends.
• 46:29
  Now with me not having my food trailer out all the time, if I
• 46:32
  say, OK, hey, CJS BBQ pulling up at the cycle gear on this
• 46:36
  Saturday, boom, my, my phone is blowing off the hook.
• 46:39
  We going to be there. We going to be there.
• 46:41
  And the next thing I know the parking lot is full.
• 46:43
  So really, I didn't even think about it till now.
• 46:46
  Thank you, Lord. It could be the Lord's way of
• 46:48
  telling me, hey, you don't need to have your food truck out
• 46:50
  every day, but when you go out, you're going to do more than
• 46:54
  sell out. You're going to attract a crowd
• 46:57
  and they're going to stop buying your food and they're going to
• 46:59
  say we better get more of it because we don't know when he
• 47:02
  going to be back. Exactly.
• 47:03
  It's like a limited. I got some guy that's out every
• 47:06
  week and it's all according to your business model.
• 47:09
  I got one good friend, his name is Ben Rogers of Metro Smoke
• 47:13
  Out. That's another guy you need to
• 47:14
  have on your show. He's out of Columbia, SC.
• 47:17
  He is the closest guy that actually understands my business
• 47:21
  model. When I tell you this brother's
• 47:22
  got a strong business model, he's probably, he runs this food
• 47:26
  truck better than mine. I'm not in the game to be shamed
• 47:28
  about. I got number love and respect
• 47:30
  for being Rod, that brother. When he pulls up in his food
• 47:33
  truck, his lines are down the street because he's excellent at
• 47:37
  his marketing. His food is great, his
• 47:40
  presentation is great, and I got a lot of other friends that's in
• 47:43
  the game, but I respect the ones that are most closest to me.
• 47:48
  And then there's another one, Wes Wesley Wilson, a Wild West
• 47:51
  Fuse and he's out of Greenville, SC.
• 47:52
  He's got a nice business model, but there are a lot of other pit
• 47:57
  masters out there that do well that I met through competitions,
• 48:01
  that these guys are great. We are all friends and we all
• 48:04
  support each other. Yeah, that's how you got to be
• 48:06
  coming in. Like I said, it's like an
• 48:08
  Expressway. There's six lanes of Expressway.
• 48:10
  Everybody just pick one and go. There's money out there for
• 48:13
  everybody, so. Oh yeah.
• 48:15
  Oh yeah, definitely. There's no competition out
• 48:18
  there. We're going to switch over to
• 48:20
  your faith. Faith plays a big role in your
• 48:22
  business. How does that manifest in your
• 48:24
  daily operations and your mindset?
• 48:27
  I credit my mother. See, I grew up in the projects.
• 48:30
  I grew up. We didn't have a whole lot of
• 48:32
  stuff. But I'm not saying that to be
• 48:34
  ashamed or I'm not saying that to be disappointed.
• 48:37
  If I had to do my life all over again, I want to do it the same
• 48:41
  way I did it. But the one thing that my mother
• 48:43
  and God bless her, so she's still living.
• 48:45
  My mother is 81 years old, The sweetest, I'm going to tell you,
• 48:48
  that was my first girlfriend, still my girlfriend.
• 48:51
  And this woman, the most important thing this lady ever
• 48:55
  gave me was she when she introduced me to Christ.
• 48:59
  And when I learned that at some point in your life, you's going
• 49:03
  to be the only thing besides God that you can rely on.
• 49:06
  And it's going to be some of the loved ones that you have that
• 49:09
  are not going to be here. So you got to learn how to step,
• 49:12
  stand on your own 2 feet and walk by faith and not by sight.
• 49:15
  My mother taught me that. And so that's why I'm not afraid
• 49:19
  to try anything. I'm not afraid of any man.
• 49:24
  I fear God. I have a loving fear of God, but
• 49:26
  I trust the process. I trust God's word, I trust all
• 49:30
  his many promises. And I have no shame in saying
• 49:34
  God is the head of my life. And if that offends anybody, I
• 49:39
  don't care. I really don't let my grandma
• 49:42
  had an old saying in her house, if you don't want to serve God,
• 49:45
  don't hinder me. But As for me and my house, I'm
• 49:48
  going to serve the Lord and that's how it's going to be.
• 49:51
  And that's one of the many ways that reason why I'm so
• 49:55
  successful in my business, because I'm not ashamed to talk
• 49:59
  to my customers and let them know my customers know I love
• 50:01
  God. I don't, and I do that and I do
• 50:03
  that because it's important to acknowledge that you're not
• 50:08
  successful by yourself. Your source.
• 50:12
  You've got a source and my source coming from the Lord,
• 50:15
  That's where I take no credit for anything I've ever
• 50:18
  accomplished in my life. I am here because God has
• 50:22
  blessed me. And I say this all the time.
• 50:24
  If He doesn't do anything else for Harold Christopher Joyner,
• 50:28
  he's done enough. He's done enough if he push the
• 50:32
  button and say, all right, Chris, I want you to come a
• 50:34
  little high and come on home, I'm ready, but I always tell God
• 50:37
  I'm ready, but I ain't in a rush.
• 50:39
  Now if somebody else, I'm ready, but I ain't in a rush.
• 50:45
  But. God is the center of my life and
• 50:48
  the reason why I'm here, and I thank my mother, Rose Joyner for
• 50:51
  that. All right.
• 50:52
  And you've been married 30 plus years and have three adult
• 50:55
  children. How have they been involved in
• 50:57
  the business and what legacy do you hope to leave for?
• 51:00
  Oh man, I have been married to my beautiful queen.
• 51:04
  I affectionately call her my black coffee, no sugar, no
• 51:06
  cream. I know for a fact I get on my
• 51:08
  wife's nerves. I know she drives me cry.
• 51:12
  I had to check the warranty policy on her every now and
• 51:14
  then, but I know. But I love my wife.
• 51:18
  I'm in love, my wife. I stay in trouble.
• 51:21
  I stay in trouble. And this has been a journey for
• 51:24
  me because as I said, the calculated risk in the very
• 51:28
  beginning, when you start, you got to do a lot of things you
• 51:29
  didn't want to do it doing a lot of things out of your house,
• 51:32
  taking over the kitchen. So I know that bothers her.
• 51:34
  I do and I'm working on that. And but my wife supports me now.
• 51:41
  My wife and my children. My youngest son, he's more
• 51:44
  involved with, I just had to actually take him back to
• 51:46
  college to school because he plays football.
• 51:48
  But my older two kids, they're out of the house.
• 51:50
  One, my daughter is a nurse in another state.
• 51:53
  My son lives in Charlotte, but he's on his own.
• 51:55
  But I just, we just took our youngest back this year.
• 51:58
  So my youngest worked with me more in the business than
• 52:01
  anything else. But my other two, they all
• 52:02
  support me, but they've never really been like physically
• 52:05
  involved. But they pray for me and if I
• 52:07
  need them, they're there for me. My main goal, I want my children
• 52:14
  to see me at age 56, still working hard, and even at age
• 52:21
  56, going after the dream that God instilled in me so that when
• 52:27
  I'm dead and gone, they can have no excuse for not being able to
• 52:33
  chase their dreams. That's my goal.
• 52:37
  I want my children and my wife to be proud of me.
• 52:40
  I do. That's very important.
• 52:42
  I've worked hard for somebody else all my life.
• 52:45
  I make mistakes all along. I'm not the perfect husband.
• 52:47
  I'm not the perfect father, but the one thing about being a
• 52:51
  Christian is that when you make a mistake or you sin, you just
• 52:53
  ask for forgiveness and God cleans the sleep.
• 52:56
  But my family has supported me. I love my family and I just hope
• 52:59
  that they're proud of me and I hope to leave of legacy of hard
• 53:05
  work never stops. And then if you want to be
• 53:11
  successful at anything in life, you have to be willing to
• 53:17
  sacrifice something. I've never met a great anybody
• 53:22
  that was great than anything that didn't sacrifice something.
• 53:27
  Exactly. And I sacrifice a lot.
• 53:28
  I get in trouble, but I know my wife loves me.
• 53:31
  I know my family loves me. But whenever I do my absolute
• 53:37
  best and I give my absolute best, I'm comfortable and laying
• 53:43
  my head on the pillow because I did my best.
• 53:47
  And I don't worry about who don't like it because I know
• 53:51
  that my place in this life is pure.
• 53:53
  What I'm doing is pure. And whenever anybody asks me to
• 53:56
  help him, I'm always willing to help.
• 53:58
  I get calls from all over the United States.
• 54:00
  People call, hey, man, I follow you.
• 54:02
  Can you just show me and I'll stop what I'm doing.
• 54:03
  I said, OK, let's schedule some time.
• 54:05
  Let me answer all your questions.
• 54:06
  I don't know everything. I'm not the best in the world.
• 54:08
  I'm not. I'm not.
• 54:09
  I don't even think I'm anybody, but I know that I'm somebody.
• 54:13
  I know that there are a lot of people that know about C JS
• 54:17
  barbecuing more. There are a lot of people that
• 54:18
  know about the Dapper Pit Masters.
• 54:20
  I'm good. I don't care if it one or two
• 54:22
  people know about it, but I know that I've done my best.
• 54:25
  I've left my mark and I want people to know that Chris is a
• 54:28
  hard worker. He loved what he's doing and
• 54:30
  he's willing to help somebody. Exactly as long as you're
• 54:34
  satisfied with yourself. You might not be perfect to
• 54:36
  people, but you're perfect for your family.
• 54:38
  You're perfect for your wife. I try to be.
• 54:41
  Yes, I try to be. Hey, I understand that I got I'm
• 54:45
  49 and I'll be 50 next year and in February and I got a nine
• 54:49
  year old and a 15 month old. So I'm at the beginning.
• 54:52
  So did. You say 15 month old.
• 54:55
  Yes, I just got married. It'd be my 2 year anniversary in
• 55:00
  a couple weeks so I just got. Recently.
• 55:02
  OK, yeah. You, you still have them kind of
• 55:06
  late. It's still all good.
• 55:07
  It's still all good. Yeah, she keep me young so I'm
• 55:11
  not mad. Definitely going to keep.
• 55:13
  You young, that's a great thing. That's a great thing.
• 55:15
  Exactly. That makes me work harder, not
• 55:19
  be reckless, but be smarter and take risk, but take smart risk
• 55:23
  because I I have to keep them in mind and keep my wife in mind.
• 55:27
  So I definitely got to have a legacy for them and everything I
• 55:31
  do. Share with us.
• 55:33
  You said you mentioned about the preferred vendor and for the
• 55:36
  Panthers and the race car. Share some tips with us on if
• 55:42
  someone is going to pitch to be A to try to be somebody's
• 55:47
  preferred vendor. OK, with the Panthers, I sought
• 55:52
  that opportunity out with RTR racing vehicles, with RTR
• 55:56
  vehicles, they sought me out for the first opportunity.
• 55:59
  Now, what I did was, and people might not believe this story,
• 56:03
  but pretty much every day that I wake up, God tells me something
• 56:07
  to do. He'll tell you.
• 56:09
  And he literally told me when I woke up, he said, OK, I want you
• 56:13
  to find some way to get in contact with Carolina Palace.
• 56:15
  I was like, yeah, how am I going to do that?
• 56:17
  I don't know anybody. He said, just listen to me.
• 56:19
  And then when I thought about it, when I just took a deep
• 56:21
  breath, I had a friend that I went to college with that's a
• 56:24
  retired that retired, a retired police officer.
• 56:28
  He drives the golf court for the Carolina Panthers.
• 56:31
  He's just driving folk around. And so I said, let me just reach
• 56:35
  out to him. I told him, I said, listen.
• 56:36
  I said, I'm trying to get some opportunity with Carolina
• 56:37
  Panthers. Do you know anybody that deals
• 56:41
  with the food trucks and catering?
• 56:42
  He said, I don't know. He said, but let me check
• 56:44
  around. So that was on a Monday.
• 56:46
  He called me back. He said, hey, I found somebody
• 56:50
  and the she's a nutritionist for the team, She said, but she
• 56:54
  handles the catering and the food.
• 56:56
  I said, OK, I told her about you and she said to give you her
• 57:01
  e-mail address. So I got her e-mail address and
• 57:04
  I got this sales pitch that I do in e-mail.
• 57:06
  I can, we can talk through that, but it's a way that I introduce
• 57:10
  myself basically, and I'm paraphrasing.
• 57:12
  I introduce myself, tell her some of the things that I've
• 57:14
  done, tell her what I can do, like I said, what problem I can
• 57:17
  solve with them. Then I sent her a couple of
• 57:20
  pictures of my actual food. I sent her some reels and clips
• 57:24
  of stuff on social media and I told her who I've done catering
• 57:30
  for. And then I gave her a list of
• 57:32
  references. And I thought, OK, I did all I
• 57:34
  can do. The very next day she emailed me
• 57:37
  back. She said, oh wow, this looks
• 57:38
  great. Do you have time next week so
• 57:40
  that we can have a conference call?
• 57:42
  And I was like, wait a minute. I said, OK, OK, So we set up a
• 57:47
  conference call. I talked to this lady for about
• 57:49
  45 minutes on the phone telling her about what I did and
• 57:55
  everything. She said, hey, this looks great.
• 57:56
  She said we have a annual event that we do at the end of the
• 58:01
  year is for all the players, the coaches, management, everybody.
• 58:04
  It's probably about 452 hundred, 200 people.
• 58:08
  And I was like, oh Jesus. I said it's going to be pretty
• 58:10
  big. So I was like, do you know what
• 58:12
  you want? And she said, well, can you help
• 58:13
  with the menu? So I helped craft out the menu
• 58:16
  and I didn't financially hit him over the head too hard because I
• 58:21
  was like, I'm looking down the line.
• 58:22
  I said there gonna be some other opportunities here.
• 58:24
  But I set it up to where I gave him a great menu and I set the
• 58:29
  price where I was going to make a comfortable profit.
• 58:32
  But it wasn't what I couldn't make because I said I want to
• 58:35
  earn a business and I want to make sure they like it.
• 58:37
  So I basically put together menu and it was like a Christmas
• 58:42
  celebration. I went down there, went on to
• 58:43
  the headquarters and they did. It's like an act of Congress
• 58:47
  getting on. It's almost like getting at TSA
• 58:49
  at the airport. You had to, you couldn't just
• 58:50
  drive it to the press. They had a private area, but it
• 58:53
  was great. And the first time they said no
• 58:55
  pictures, no videos. I said, OK, cool, no problem.
• 58:58
  So I went in and I prayed. I said, Lord, please let this
• 59:00
  go. Please let it go.
• 59:01
  I went in there and I said, I rolled out the red carpet.
• 59:03
  I had my servers, I had my warmers, I served that food.
• 59:06
  She called me back that next day.
• 59:08
  She said, Chris, you knocked this thing out of the park.
• 59:12
  She said the players, the coaches, management, they all
• 59:15
  love you. And next thing I know it was
• 59:20
  that was in December. She called me back for the next
• 59:22
  big event. It was June and I did another
• 59:25
  big event, but I brought my trailer out.
• 59:27
  That was for like 100 and 5200 people.
• 59:29
  I did that for him and the next thing I know December ran around
• 59:32
  again and next thing I know I'm a preferred vendor for the
• 59:36
  Carolina Panthers. They call me every time they
• 59:39
  need catering for big event. And so that's how I got locked
• 59:45
  in with them. I got their phone number.
• 59:47
  She is one time she called me like 7:00 in the morning.
• 59:50
  And hey, I know this is short notice.
• 59:53
  Can you do something yet? Next?
• 59:54
  Yes ma'am, yes I can and will. And so they know that they can
• 59:59
  rely. On me to actually do that so
• 1:00:02
  that's how in that relationship just formed to where she picks
• 1:00:04
  up phone call me I call her. Hey you got anything going on?
• 1:00:07
  Hey give me a few days I'll let you know.
• 1:00:09
  So I'm looking to hear from a real soon but I used to do about
• 1:00:11
  3 events with them now with RTR vehicles.
• 1:00:14
  They are a formula drift one racing team, national team.
• 1:00:18
  I don't know nothing about racing I don't know but this man
• 1:00:21
  found me on social media. He just saw me at first thought
• 1:00:25
  it was just like a junk e-mail that he was playing around and I
• 1:00:28
  emailed him back. I like this for real.
• 1:00:30
  Don't waste my time. No, this is hey, give me a call
• 1:00:33
  and I spoke to the guy He said hey, this is where we look.
• 1:00:35
  We just won the points championship.
• 1:00:37
  The headquarters is in Concord, NC and he said we want to do a
• 1:00:40
  big celebration. People come from all over the
• 1:00:42
  United States to celebrate our guy win the points championship.
• 1:00:45
  Imagine I don't know nothing about racing.
• 1:00:47
  So he invites me down to tour the place and I'm just like,
• 1:00:50
  good gracious. And they, I may be saying this
• 1:00:53
  wrong, but I know that they're tied with the Ford Motor Company
• 1:00:57
  and they like the, the limited edition of the Ford Mustang.
• 1:01:01
  They, I think Ford sends that Mustang to RTR and they revamp
• 1:01:08
  it and then Ford sells it. So it's like they do they, it's
• 1:01:13
  almost like a Pimp My Ride type thing.
• 1:01:14
  A lot of people don't even know they exist.
• 1:01:16
  But I was like, why? He took me into the studio,
• 1:01:18
  their shop. I was like, whoa.
• 1:01:19
  And then he showed, he was basically showing me some 2026
• 1:01:23
  Model 4. She said this hadn't even
• 1:01:26
  brought out yet. So I'm sitting there saying he
• 1:01:27
  said you can't take a picture. I said I can take a picture out.
• 1:01:30
  I said trust me, I won't do anything.
• 1:01:31
  She said we can't release this in today.
• 1:01:33
  But what we want to do, we want to have a big spread with all of
• 1:01:38
  the top BBQ you sell for 250 people.
• 1:01:41
  I was like 250. He said we want you to bring
• 1:01:43
  everything you got, your food trailer, all your smokers and
• 1:01:47
  everything. He said we wanted to block, be
• 1:01:48
  lit up with smoke and everything.
• 1:01:50
  So I went and did. I was like, Lord, I need your
• 1:01:52
  help on this. I did.
• 1:01:53
  I knocked that thing out of the park so bad.
• 1:01:56
  They were this guy calls me for every big, big every year they
• 1:02:01
  win the points championship. I did that same catering for
• 1:02:04
  them again at the end of the year because they won the points
• 1:02:06
  championship the second year right now, he said they're tied
• 1:02:09
  for first right now. So if they win the points
• 1:02:12
  championship, they always call me to do the national
• 1:02:16
  championship catering. So it's like, I love that, I
• 1:02:21
  love that they trust, he said. Man, we don't want, we used to
• 1:02:24
  deal with this other BBQ cover and then off that before we even
• 1:02:28
  close the deal. He wanted to try the food.
• 1:02:30
  So I said yeah, I do a taste testing.
• 1:02:32
  So I went and I laid out the red carpet when normally I do my
• 1:02:35
  taste test. I do charge a fee, but it's not
• 1:02:36
  to make any money. It's just a couple of calls.
• 1:02:38
  So he said, I said, how many people?
• 1:02:40
  He said about 10. I came in there at lunchtime and
• 1:02:42
  I had everything professionally I had in containers everything
• 1:02:45
  wrong. I bought brisket, ribs, pulled
• 1:02:47
  pork, magazine. I bought everything, fed the
• 1:02:49
  whole shop. That man, he said you got your
• 1:02:53
  card read. I said, yeah.
• 1:02:54
  He said we're going to pay you right now.
• 1:02:57
  He said, I said, you for real? He said we can give you a
• 1:02:59
  deposit right now. He said this food is ridiculous.
• 1:03:02
  I said wow. I was like I'm only something
• 1:03:05
  here, I'm only something here. But I said that to say this,
• 1:03:12
  when you get a catering, when you do a corporate catering,
• 1:03:16
  don't just do it and say hey, I'm glad I got that opportunity.
• 1:03:19
  You got to take down the line even past getting the next
• 1:03:22
  opportunity. I came up with the term
• 1:03:25
  preferred vendor because when I deal with the Carolina Panthers,
• 1:03:28
  I just came out and told her I said listen, what I got to do
• 1:03:30
  preferred vendor. She said you already won.
• 1:03:32
  We calling you all the time. So when they give me that
• 1:03:35
  permission to say that I like can I say that?
• 1:03:38
  Yes, you can say that. So that's why I say preferred
• 1:03:41
  food vendor for the Carolina panel and I did the same thing
• 1:03:43
  for RTR race team. They took listen, we're going to
• 1:03:46
  call you all the time. I said, can I say that I'm a
• 1:03:49
  preferred vendor for you guys? You can say that.
• 1:03:51
  And both of them said if you ever need a professional
• 1:03:54
  corporate referral for the Carolina Panthers or RTR
• 1:04:00
  vehicles is nothing but a word. So I've, I haven't had to use
• 1:04:04
  that yet, but I have that in my repertoire.
• 1:04:07
  So if I get another bigger company and they need to have
• 1:04:09
  proof that I'm connected with the Panthers, I'm connected with
• 1:04:12
  RTR, I got somebody just on phone calls.
• 1:04:15
  I can call both contacts no matter what time of the night it
• 1:04:18
  is. That's how close our
• 1:04:20
  relationship is. I built that relationship
• 1:04:23
  regards help, and that's how I want to keep it every 30 to 45
• 1:04:27
  days I pick up the phone to call or you guys send them a text.
• 1:04:30
  Hey y'all good you straight anything coming on the pipeline
• 1:04:33
  because I'll do that so I don't have to wait till the last
• 1:04:34
  minute, but hey they got to get. I had one time the rooter called
• 1:04:39
  me and I couldn't do to get it was a big gig too.
• 1:04:43
  It was and I had to refer it out.
• 1:04:46
  That crushed me because I couldn't do it, but it was
• 1:04:49
  because I was at the country style cook off.
• 1:04:54
  I was already at a big event. I was booked see, I compete down
• 1:04:58
  there and I said and I was like I can't get.
• 1:05:00
  He said yeah, I know you competed.
• 1:05:01
  I said we're going to see we can find you somebody.
• 1:05:03
  But I was like, Lord, please don't let this man ask me to do
• 1:05:07
  a cat. I can't do it again.
• 1:05:09
  It was big, it was big. It was like a 5 figure deal.
• 1:05:13
  It was big, it was big, it was big.
• 1:05:17
  But that year I was at Countryside Cookie.
• 1:05:20
  I didn't. We were, they allowed us to sell
• 1:05:22
  stuff down there, so I still made money down there.
• 1:05:25
  But it's like the Countryside cook off.
• 1:05:30
  Man, listen, yeah, y'all do that, dude.
• 1:05:32
  There's a lot of people coming through there and it's the same
• 1:05:34
  time. Bro, brother, listen, I'm
• 1:05:37
  telling you, you have got to find a way to get down to the
• 1:05:40
  countryside. Cook where?
• 1:05:40
  Where you reside at where? You.
• 1:05:42
  I'm in Atlanta. I'm in Atlanta.
• 1:05:43
  You. Are man please.
• 1:05:44
  There's so many countryside pick yards in Atlanta.
• 1:05:47
  Oh my God, you, you got to come. It's always the Saturday before
• 1:05:53
  Father's Day. That's an event that I'll put
• 1:05:59
  you this way. I got to be dead and gone.
• 1:06:00
  For me to miss that event. I got to be dead and gone.
• 1:06:03
  I don't care nothing about a Memphis and May.
• 1:06:06
  It ain't got nothing on country style.
• 1:06:09
  And I said when you have 10,000 people coming from all over
• 1:06:12
  United States, it might not be advertised nationally, but I'm
• 1:06:16
  trust me when I tell you over 10,000 plus people come to that
• 1:06:20
  event every year. And this is my first time.
• 1:06:24
  I started competing in 2019 when it probably had maybe 1000
• 1:06:28
  people there and now it's over 10,000.
• 1:06:32
  This year was the first year because they cover ribs,
• 1:06:35
  chicken, sauce and rope. But I ruined the whole thing for
• 1:06:38
  chicken this year. I won, my crack wings won.
• 1:06:41
  I hit him in the head and that was the first time boy I Boo Hoo
• 1:06:44
  cried and I was like man, it took me 6 years but country
• 1:06:49
  styles shoot boy that's. Like watching it on YouTube and
• 1:06:53
  I was watching people do it and stuff like that.
• 1:06:56
  I've been watching it for the past, I guess when he started
• 1:06:59
  doing more social media and stuff like that when they took
• 1:07:02
  off, which was a good move because I've been watching it
• 1:07:05
  for the past few years and stuff he do around his house and all
• 1:07:09
  that, the little family and stuff like that.
• 1:07:12
  It's a lifestyle. You got to come to it, man.
• 1:07:15
  I'm tell you, if you, if I'm telling a lot of people
• 1:07:18
  somebody's backyard barbecues, I get it.
• 1:07:20
  Everybody tell you, hey, your food is good.
• 1:07:22
  You want to really find out how good your food is, You got to
• 1:07:25
  compete. You got to compete.
• 1:07:26
  You got to stop being scared because that's why I'm not
• 1:07:28
  impressed with all these backyard barbecues.
• 1:07:31
  My food's the bad out here. OK, OK, come over here.
• 1:07:33
  Come to this content. Let's see what you got.
• 1:07:35
  Because until you compete, you're not going to really find
• 1:07:37
  out how good you are. Exactly.
• 1:07:39
  You know, and the country style you got, they picked the best
• 1:07:42
  50. It's predominantly black.
• 1:07:46
  I ain't gonna lie. It's predominantly black, but
• 1:07:48
  they do have other ethnicity ethnicities in it, but it's
• 1:07:52
  predominantly black. But it's the best from all over
• 1:07:55
  the United States. So I've never, there's never
• 1:07:57
  been a repeat winner in any category because it's just like
• 1:08:01
  they always have new people in it every year.
• 1:08:03
  But country style, shut ups, man.
• 1:08:06
  That's a way of life. That's a real life.
• 1:08:08
  I wouldn't miss it for the world.
• 1:08:09
  I always promote country style. Definitely, I'm definitely
• 1:08:13
  trying to get him on so I can talk to him because he's one of
• 1:08:16
  those people that needs to be heard from because a lot of
• 1:08:19
  people don't know that this is happening.
• 1:08:21
  Even though so many people there.
• 1:08:23
  I know this needs to be advertised like these other
• 1:08:27
  Memphis and May, American Royal, Jack Daniels and all that stuff
• 1:08:31
  because the amount of people that he brings there and also
• 1:08:36
  doing the scholarships and stuff like that.
• 1:08:38
  People that needs to know that because other places ain't doing
• 1:08:42
  that stuff. They just go in there and just
• 1:08:46
  gaining for themselves. But he's putting back into his
• 1:08:49
  community the scholarships and bringing all the people
• 1:08:53
  together. You don't hear about no crimes
• 1:08:55
  or anything else occurring during that thing, so.
• 1:08:58
  I've been going six years in a row.
• 1:09:00
  There's never, there hasn't been one incident, not one incident.
• 1:09:03
  It's not even about that. But I do believe I'm hearing
• 1:09:06
  some rumblings about they're going to be advertising it
• 1:09:08
  nationally next year because next year is the 10 year
• 1:09:11
  anniversary. Oh.
• 1:09:13
  Yeah, people don't know. We've been rocking and doing
• 1:09:14
  this for 10 years. I started doing it in my first
• 1:09:18
  one was 2019 and I wouldn't man, country style is it is where you
• 1:09:24
  want to be. That's an event, that's a
• 1:09:26
  culture down there. So man, I hope and pray you can
• 1:09:29
  make it next year, man. You can, man, bring such a part.
• 1:09:32
  Man, there's so many podcasters that come to that thing and they
• 1:09:34
  set up the stations down there, man, go down there and say, and
• 1:09:36
  you can interview. That'll be your opportunity to
• 1:09:39
  interview some of the best black pit masters across the United
• 1:09:45
  States. That's the one time we'll all be
• 1:09:47
  in. One place exactly.
• 1:09:49
  In one place and they got some heavy hitters down there, they
• 1:09:53
  got some heavy hitters. Yeah, I definitely want to get
• 1:09:56
  out more. An artist, definitely someone
• 1:09:58
  you want on your show. You definitely wanted that.
• 1:10:00
  Let me know if you need some help with that.
• 1:10:01
  I do. Getting him on the show.
• 1:10:03
  I do. You do.
• 1:10:05
  I do. We can make that happen.
• 1:10:08
  I got you. We'll talk off loud.
• 1:10:09
  I got you. OK, OK, definitely.
• 1:10:11
  And before we get out here, I got one quick game I usually
• 1:10:14
  play with everybody, the tournament bracket 16 grilled
• 1:10:18
  meats. I got them just randomly mixed
• 1:10:21
  up and just tell me which one you prefer to eat.
• 1:10:24
  Match up #1 Hot dog versus baloney.
• 1:10:27
  Baloney. All right.
• 1:10:29
  Fried hard and split the edges. They don't know about that.
• 1:10:35
  Smoke hamburger, smoke ham. All right, And beef ribs versus
• 1:10:42
  lamb? Beef ribs, OK.
• 1:10:47
  Next match up is smoked Turkey versus steak.
• 1:10:53
  Steak. OK, I'm more of a Turkey wing
• 1:10:59
  guy. OK brisket versus pork ribs.
• 1:11:04
  Pork ribs OK smoked chicken versus burnt ends, smoked
• 1:11:10
  chicken. OK pork chop versus BBQ shrimp,
• 1:11:15
  Pork chop sausage versus pork belly.
• 1:11:23
  Sausage versus pork belly. OK.
• 1:11:26
  And Bologna versus Ham. Ham.
• 1:11:32
  Beef Rio versus steak. Steak.
• 1:11:37
  OK, pork Rio versus smoked chicken, pork Rio OK and pork
• 1:11:44
  chop versus pork belly. Pork chop.
• 1:11:49
  OK. And final four, ham versus
• 1:11:53
  steak. Steak.
• 1:11:56
  OK, pork ribs versus pork belly pork ribs, OK.
• 1:12:03
  And the final match up is steak versus pork ribs.
• 1:12:08
  Steak. OK, all right, Steak is the
• 1:12:12
  winner. All right, that's the end of the
• 1:12:14
  episode. If you have any shout outs,
• 1:12:16
  promote your business, anything you got going on, definitely do
• 1:12:19
  that now. Yeah, I anybody that's
• 1:12:22
  interested in booking C JS Barbecue and more for catering,
• 1:12:28
  the best way that I'm trying to point everybody to my website,
• 1:12:30
  which is www.cjbbqmore.com, www.cjbbqmore.com.
• 1:12:39
  If you go there and click on the little hamburger that's at the
• 1:12:41
  top left, you click on that and click on catering and you'll be
• 1:12:45
  able to go and fill out some basic detailed information and
• 1:12:49
  then I'll be able to call you back within 48 hours.
• 1:12:52
  Also, please go to my social media platforms.
• 1:12:55
  I'm on Facebook at C JS Barbecue and more.
• 1:12:58
  That's CJBBQ the and sign and more dot com.
• 1:13:03
  I'm also on Instagram at CJBBQ more and I'm also I also have a
• 1:13:08
  YouTube page under C JS barbecue and more.
• 1:13:12
  So C JS BBQ, the and sign and more.
• 1:13:15
  You can find me there as well. But make sure you follow me on
• 1:13:18
  Facebook and Instagram, because whenever I have my next pop ups
• 1:13:22
  with my food trailer, if you follow me, it automatically pops
• 1:13:25
  up in your feed. And so you'll find out where I'm
• 1:13:28
  going to be all the time and the menus.
• 1:13:30
  And then that's the best way to kind of keep me there to get in
• 1:13:34
  contact with there to try some great blessed and highly
• 1:13:36
  flavored food. And one of the things I want, I
• 1:13:39
  want to say this real quick, one of the pet peeves that I have
• 1:13:42
  that I hear a lot of people say in some of these pages is that I
• 1:13:47
  don't like when people say all you need when it's coming to
• 1:13:50
  cooking. All you need is this and all you
• 1:13:54
  need is salt and pepper. Or if you put a one on a steak,
• 1:13:59
  then you messing up the steak. Or if you put BBQ sauce on the
• 1:14:01
  ribs, you messing up the BBQ sauce.
• 1:14:03
  What I want people to understand is it's just a personal
• 1:14:08
  preference. There is no mistake.
• 1:14:12
  There's more than one way to cook food.
• 1:14:14
  There's more than one way to eat food.
• 1:14:15
  So I am of that that that suggestion is that broaden your
• 1:14:19
  horizons. It's OK if you like sauce on
• 1:14:22
  your ribs. It's OK if you like to season
• 1:14:24
  your ribs in more than just salt and pepper.
• 1:14:26
  Or they call it SPG. Might be like my grandma.
• 1:14:29
  My grandma was born. She said salt and pepper, not
• 1:14:31
  seasoning. But it's a personal preference.
• 1:14:34
  So I want people to really think about personal preferences.
• 1:14:38
  Think about what your palate likes and don't be so offended
• 1:14:41
  if someone doesn't like what you like.
• 1:14:43
  I cook very unorthodox. I don't consider myself
• 1:14:46
  associated with a particular region, Lexington BBQ,
• 1:14:49
  Tennessee, Memphis. Now I take a from a little bit
• 1:14:52
  of each regions and I put some Asian and some cultural flares
• 1:14:55
  in there. So when you taste my sauce,
• 1:14:56
  they're like that's good, but I can't put my finger on it.
• 1:14:58
  That's exactly what I want you to say.
• 1:15:00
  I can't put my finger on it. So that sets me apart from
• 1:15:03
  everybody else. I don't want to be like anybody
• 1:15:05
  in Texas. I ain't born, I ain't never been
• 1:15:07
  to Texas. I was never born in Texas and I
• 1:15:10
  put more than salt and pimple on whatever I cook.
• 1:15:13
  That's how C JS barbecue and more rolls.
• 1:15:15
  And always remember, all of my food is blessed and highly
• 1:15:18
  flaked. All right, on that note, thank
• 1:15:22
  you for that episode. Thank you for joining us on
• 1:15:25
  another episode of the BBQ Therapy Podcast.
• 1:15:28
  My name is Tavis Bryant. Please tune in to YouTube,
• 1:15:32
  Apple, Spotify, Amazon, in any streaming platform near you.
• 1:15:38
  Please pay the secretary on your way out and we'll see you next
• 1:15:41
  episode.