Latest / BBQ Therapy / Travis Clark — Clark Crew BBQ | 5XL Mentality

Transcript

Travis Clark — Clark Crew BBQ | 5XL Mentality · BBQ Therapy

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  I left my house always thinking I was going to win.
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  I was always telling myself, you're going to win this thing.
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  And when I didn't, I was always mad because I expected to win.
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  I'm thinking if you outwork everybody, you win.
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  And that was always my thing. I always wanted to make sure I
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  outwork everybody because there's, I think there's way
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  better cooks and people with way better palates than me.
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  But I don't think anybody's ever outworked me.
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  There you go. And that when I always, when I
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  was a kid, my grandpa always told me the harder you work, the
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  luckier you get. And as I've gotten older in
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  life, and that's what it is, if you're that guy that'll just get
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  out and work, you make your own luck, good things happen.
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  Exactly, that's awesome. So winning the Jack and the
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  Royal, How did that change your trajectory for you personally?
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  As well as Clark Crew BBQ, winning those big contests, did
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  you get more popularity? Lego.
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  Ham BBQ, Lego Ham BBQ, Lego Ham BBQ Lego Ham BBQ.
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  Ever notice how the sound of sizzling meat and the smell of
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  smoke can silence the noise of the world?
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  Now that's BBQ therapy. If the fire moves you, like,
• 1:07
  subscribe, share and help spread the message.
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  Because growth, like good BBQ, takes time and patience.
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  Welcome to your therapy session. Welcome to the BBQ Therapy
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  podcast. My name is Tavis Bryant and
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  today on BBQ Therapy we're joined by a name that needs no
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  smoke singles to be recognized, Travis Clark of Clark Crew BBQ.
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  From a humble start in 2012 to winning 60 Grand Championships
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  in 258 competitions, two Team of the Year titles, and claiming
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  trophies at both the American Royal and the Jack, Travis has
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  built one of the most dominant careers in BBQ history.
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  He maxed out KCBS points by July, earned over 800 awards,
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  and later bought that same intensity into the restaurant
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  world. Partner with Favors Dave to open
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  his flagship Clark crew barbecue in Oklahoma City and now
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  expanded to Tulsa today we're digging into what drove the rise
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  to the top, what kept him there and what the smoke revealed
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  along the way welcome to the show I got one rule just make
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  yourself at home and have fun I. Appreciate that.
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  Thanks for. Having me all right, no problem.
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  I'm going to start off from doing my research and listening
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  to different podcast stuff about you, but you started just
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  walking around the American Roll and when you did that, what
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  caught your attention that drew you into getting into BBQ?
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  I loved eating BBQ. The smell was what took me
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  there. We were literally walking around
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  Kansas City on a Saturday pulling them my kids in a wagon
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  because a good friend of mine had.
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  I had to have a kidney transplant so we were up there
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  doing a kidney walk for. After all that was done, I
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  smelled the BBQ, went to the Rolls, started walking around
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  and I wanted to eat there. And then I started seeing all
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  the really cool Jambos and good looking pits and I've always
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  liked cars, hot rods, Harleys, and I was like, man, I need one
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  of those. When I left that thing, I
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  decided I was going to start a team and we were driving home
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  from Kansas City. Hours down the road, my mom
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  called and it's ours. That's nice.
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  So who's that? Family members that that they
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  were there. It was me, my ex-wife Kimberly,
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  which we did it for years and years together, and then our
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  oldest daughter Jennifer, then Madison and then Brooklyn and
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  then Cooper. We had all four kids up there.
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  OK, OK. Yeah, I plan on going to
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  American World to walk around this year, so I look forward to
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  it. That's cool.
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  I haven't cooked it the last two years, which is weird because
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  I've always cooked it and they I almost thought about it this
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  year they sent me the thing. And you're still qualified to
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  cook it from when? The two years that when I won my
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  last one, I'm not doing it. Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
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  I stay in Georgia, so it's I already got my plane ticket and
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  everything else so. You'll have fun.
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  I hope so. When you first started, did you
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  have the jambo before you started or did you get it?
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  No I when it whenever I started the only smoker I had was a
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  propane start that you put wood chips in like a master built to
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  deal with like a cabinet smoker. I used to do support coins and
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  stuff in it all the time when I was a kid.
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  We grew up cooking hogs and things like that, but I didn't
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  have my own pet. And so I when I decided I wanted
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  one of those, I wanted a jambo right off.
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  And then I priced them and I'm like, holy cow, I can't afford
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  that. You know what, I'm like, this
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  ain't happening. It was like, OK, I'm not going
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  to be able to do that. So I actually, I bought what was
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  called a smoke master out of Texas on a trailer and I wanted
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  to make it like a jambo. So I made it look as close as I
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  could, cut the firebox off, built an insulated firebox for
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  it and did all the things and made an agreement with Kim, my
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  ex-wife. I made an agreement with her.
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  I said hey all right when I win my first grand championship I
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  can get me a Jambo and she says deal.
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  Well we won like our third contest ever.
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  So we and I got a jambo and I couldn't afford both so I sold.
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  I ended up selling that pit, my first one, and actually just
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  about a month ago I got it back. So I actually have my original
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  pit now. It is good.
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  So when you did it, did you take any classes at the beginning?
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  I did. I did whenever I first got into
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  it, I had took in two classes. I took one and it really wasn't
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  about competition BBQ. Kim's grandma lived in Great
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  Bend, KS. We went up here to do some work
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  at her house for her husband had passed away.
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  So we went up there and I don't know what I did work on toilet
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  in the sink or something. There wasn't a lot to do in that
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  town and we wouldn't ate barbecue and on the side on the
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  wall in there. They used Kelly Wirtz's places
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  when he had his restaurant 4 legs up, which Kelly's a legend.
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  It was on a wall and it said rib class out here in town like $75.
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  And I was like, I'm not going to do that.
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  And she's that's fine. I'm going to stay with kids.
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  We're going to do this and this and I think she took the kids go
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  pool or splash pad or something. I went out to that class and I
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  remember thinking that is the best damn ribs I ever.
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  They were so good and I didn't know who Kelly was or nothing
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  then. So I took that class and then a
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  couple months later is when all this started and I wanted to get
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  into the cooking. And then after I did that, that
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  next, I would say it's probably six months later, I took Rod
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  Gray's class after I went through the Royal.
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  Rod was the first one I really talked to at the Royal and he
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  was like, you need to walk up this aisle.
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  Johnny Trigg's there. And I was like, who's Johnny
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  Trigg? You go on down this aisle and
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  you'll see another Jambo there. It's true buds.
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  And I was like, I love their pit.
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  I was like, man, that thing is cool.
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  So we went and looked at a bunch and that's what we did it.
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  Well, I took his class after talking to him.
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  He's like, if you want to get into it, I got a class.
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  I went and took his class and I wrote down everything I could
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  think of. But I'm down to how many paper
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  towels this guy tore off when he was getting ready.
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  I had notes for miles and miles and when I went and did my first
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  contest, my very first one, I just built that pit and got it
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  out of the paint shop like 2 days before.
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  I'd never even had a fire in that pit.
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  First fire I lit in it was at the contest.
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  I was following his book to a tee.
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  You know how this is how I do? This is how I do.
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  I undercooked my rib or my pork in my brisket because I that pit
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  just didn't cook hot enough the way it was designed.
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  And I did really good in ribs. I had the 1st place ribs for I
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  think it was maybe second place ribs and a first place perfect
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  score 180 bison category they had.
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  And I got a chicken call also. And then my I was just underdone
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  on my other ones. I was like, oh, this stuff ain't
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  hard. It was just, it just hooked me
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  on it. It was, it went good and it went
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  pretty good. Then we just got a little
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  better. We end up winning like our third
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  contest and then that's when we got our jam.
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  Over and in between that, were you practicing a lot?
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  Never. I was working so much back then.
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  I this is terrible. I've never practiced cooked in
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  my life. I've never, we don't cook ever.
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  I hear everybody doing it. And I always had it in my head.
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  I'm a, I'm an overthinker. So I sit there and said, if
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  you're, is it a practice cook if I step out in my driveway and
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  cook ribs, If I'm just going to cook ribs, is it a practice
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  cook? To me, the answer is no.
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  If you're cooking on a jambo. I have my pork here, I have my
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  brisket here and my chicken here and I got ribs here.
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  If I just put ribs here, you know how that air is not flowing
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  the same. So to me, if you're not doing a
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  entire contest, it's not a practice.
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  And I said, if I'm going to freaking cook all the meat to
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  practice, why not just cook a contest?
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  So I just never, I've never done it.
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  We I cook at home all the time. I've done a couple pork butts at
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  home and I've done a pastrami and a couple briskets at home,
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  but I've never competition cooked.
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  Usually those are on my FEC 100 or something.
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  I mean, I just do it on the cook shack or something, but I've
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  cooked a few deals on Jambo at home and we've ran some flavor
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  profiles like I'll do stuff for some of these kidney foundation
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  or one of these walks or something.
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  Walk America or these youth foundations are like you can you
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  do us a bunch of ribs? So I might cook 20 slabs of ribs
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  and I'd try 5 different flavor profiles.
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  I'd be like, what did that one do?
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  I'd I'd get one off and I'd try them all.
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  I'd test some flavors. But as a true practice cook,
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  never in my life. Never.
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  Wow, my first brisket, the first pork butt I ever cooked in my
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  life, was out of contest. Wow.
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  So bad, wouldn't recommend it. Yeah, everybody out there,
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  you're not Travis Clark, so I'll try that at home.
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  You and it was bad. When I lit that fire in that pit
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  at that contest, it smelled like paint in the entire place.
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  I was like, oh shit, you can walk around.
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  You can walk around it. And I burned it that Friday
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  night and you could just smell it everywhere.
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  I was like, oh, this is bad. This is not good.
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  So what kind of kicked in like around the 2014 season that you
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  felt like? I guess it like you caught your
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  groove. It really happened at the Royal.
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  I I felt like I cooked good food at the Royal.
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  That year is my first year of cooking and we'd won our GC and
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  I thought I was cooking good food and I was seeing my scores
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  go up every time and I was trying other people's stuff and
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  I was thinking in my head, I was like, I think mine's better, I
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  think mine's better when I was just getting there.
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  And then we went to the Royal and that was the first big
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  contest I'd done. And I had a lot of friends and
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  stuff and guys that I'd met, they'd come over and tried it
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  and I remember them guys trying my brisket and going, dude, like
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  that's insane. And I was like, it's pretty
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  good. I think I've done better.
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  And they're like, no, that's like the best damn brisket we
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  ever had. And I'm like, I just think it's
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  OK. I thought it was OK.
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  And we won 80. We won 80 at the Royal.
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  First time I ever cooked that thing.
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  Reserved The Royal right behind Darren is Darren's here winning
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  it. We had a chicken call also.
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  And I just remember going back going I made this mistake, I
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  made this mistake, I did this wrong.
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  I remember everyone's just celebrating and I'm thinking,
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  shit, I got a whole list of shit.
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  I need to do different, all this, I need to do this
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  different. And I just kept.
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  But I worked on Brisk and I'm like, OK, but what about this?
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  What about this? And I just kept tweaking it and
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  that was really about the last thing I cooked was the Royal
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  that year. So going into 14, I had saved up
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  my vacation time from work so I could cook a little more.
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  And going in, I felt like I had a target on my back, but not
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  really just I felt like not a target, but I felt like everyone
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  was thinking, is this guy a one hit wander reserving the Royal
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  and winning brisket or is he decent?
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  And if you look at my 2014 stats, how the 1st 710 contests
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  were all grains and reserves almost.
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  I was just out of the gate, 1st and 2nd, 1st and 2nd, we were
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  just killing it. And I was and I had to stop
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  because I ran out of vacation time.
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  So we didn't cook that many of the year, I think, or 1415
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  contests, something like that. But hell, we'd had seven several
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  grams and several reserves. And I remember looking at that
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  and I was looking at my stats and I was looking at that year
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  was the year that Donnie Bray and True Bud.
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  And then we're going head and head on points.
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  And I remember looking at that and saying per contest, I kicked
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  the crap out of everybody. When I was looking at stats, I
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  was like, it's not even comparable.
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  I was like, if you look at the stats and I was a numbers guy,
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  I'm like, if you break it down, I was like, we were by far the
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  best team in the country is how I looked at it.
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  And I was like, I just have to cook more to get to the mount.
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  I said, if you're going to hit it at this many times, I have to
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  cook more. So we got the invite to King of
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  the Smoke and we were out there and we're driving home my Xbox.
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  She's were you happy with your ear?
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  I was like, not at all. And she's are you serious?
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  And I was like, no, but she's what are you not happy about?
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  I'm like, and I told her that I was like, if you do the numbers,
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  I set up the whole 9 out there and I was like, we'd have a shot
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  at team of the year if we just cook more.
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  I said these guys cook twice as many and only won a couple more
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  grands. I said they'd do the math and I
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  was like, and we need to cool cook against those people even
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  more head to heads because we did good when we did.
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  And she's like swinging the next year.
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  And I was like, I want to chase team of the year and she's are
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  you serious? I was like, yeah, 100%.
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  I said I want to go chase team of the year.
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  I was like, I want to try to cook 40 if I can cook as much as
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  I can, save my vacation time. I work 40 hours a week and get
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  that done Monday to Thursday, work four 10s.
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  I can get some Friday, Saturdays off.
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  I could trade some days. I was figuring it all out with
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  everybody I work with. And I was like, I think I got a
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  shot. So then I come out.
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  I mean, I got on a couple podcasts.
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  They were asking. I was like, I'm going to go run,
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  try to win Team of the year this year.
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  That is probably not the smartest thing to say.
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  You know, I just did it and it was battle, but we did exactly
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  what we said that we went out in one team of the year that year
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  and we had thought about doing it again in 2016.
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  I tore my knee out New Year's Day.
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  So that pretty much just wiped that out and I still cooked
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  quite a few that year. Then that year fueled me for 17
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  because then I was banged up trying to work but didn't have
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  any vacation time because I spent the year before and I had
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  a 2 knee surgery. Got all that done, got all that
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  stuff done and then everybody's oh man, a down year for you.
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  And I thought a down year. I still want more than you ever
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  have. You know, I was, for me, it
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  frustrated me. I was like.
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  What are you? Talking about, you know, as
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  though it made me mad. So then in 17 I just I told my
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  ex-wife, we talked about it and I told her I was like, I'm going
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  to go out. I said I'm not going to have it
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  down in 15. We got down to needing a couple
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  points here and there and you're running all over the country to
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  just try to replace a win to get one or two more points.
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  It was silly. And the guy that I had cooked
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  against that year, David Qualls, head to head, I beat him all the
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  time, but he had cooked some bigger contests and got more
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  points and I'm like, I need to follow him and just keep
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  beating. And that's what I said.
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  So in 17, I was like, I am never ever getting in that position
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  again. I tried not to cook anything
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  that wasn't 35 teams. You know, I tried to always.
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  There was a couple, but when I left to go to them, they told me
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  they were full and they were Max point and they weren't.
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  So we wound up winning 14 GCS in that one year, 12 of them were
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  Max points. We maxed out in July.
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  It was nuts. We just we just kept going out
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  and then I just kept cooking. I'm like, I don't care.
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  I'm just going to keep going because Tim was cooking super
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  hard. Also, Tim finished I think one
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  point shy of Max points, but I ended up having three more Max
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  point wins over him. So he had to win four more to
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  beat me. Max point.
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  Wow. So it was crazy.
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  And I don't think Tim gets enough credit for that as any
• 14:58
  other year, what he did is the best year in the history of BBQ.
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  One point shy of Max points. It's insane.
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  These guys can win Team of the Year now on five GCS.
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  The dude had, he had 9 Max point GCS and I think he wound up with
• 15:13
  11 or 12 GCS that year. It's an unbelievable season.
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  Any other time he'd have been team of the year any anywhere.
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  But it was fun doing it with him.
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  We cooked head to head a bunch of times.
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  It was just, it was super fun doing it.
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  And then for us that year, the crowning moment, I knew I had a
• 15:29
  team of the year locked up by then.
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  But when the royal come around, then we won the royal that year,
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  that was just just got the crown of it all for us.
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  But. That's the big feat.
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  But back then, were you using your own seasoning back then, or
• 15:39
  are you using somebody else's roar?
• 15:41
  No, I used a lot of used a lot of Cimarron docks and a little
• 15:45
  bit of Smoking Guns Hot, but mostly rods 0 to hero and eat
• 15:49
  barbecues. Most powerful stuff.
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  I used a lot of rod stuff. I used a little bit of Cosmos.
• 15:54
  I had started making my own stuff that went around with it,
• 15:57
  just not for sale. I was, I was always tweaking
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  one. I'd cook 4 racks of ribs at a
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  contest and one would have a test rub on it.
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  I was always doing, that's how I did all my practice cooking was
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  at a contest. I'd always have, I'd cut one
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  rack of ribs, you know, one bone shorter or something.
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  So I do which one it was all the time.
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  It did have a different rub or a different sauce or two different
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  rubs. That's.
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  Smart. OK, when you were chasing scores
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  and globetrotting with the crew, did you the competition stop
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  being fun? Did it become an addiction or
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  did was it fun all the way through or?
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  I had fun in my own way. Me and my wife talk about this
• 16:35
  all the time is my fun involves work, but it's fun for me to
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  stay busy. A down day for me, like on a
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  weekend, I don't know what to do.
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  I like to go to the restaurant, stay busy or work in my
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  warehouse or work at my farm. I like to work.
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  I can't stand sitting around. So for me it didn't look like I
• 16:53
  was having fun as hard as we went, but that was fun to me.
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  I love the competition side of it.
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  I loved that going against good teams and doing all that.
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  I really loved and I had fun and I had fun when I could take my
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  kids. We could go do stuff that was
• 17:07
  fun. But then it got to the point
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  like in 17, I did most of them myself.
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  They were, they were all burned out.
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  They were doing it super hard. And as they got older, school
• 17:15
  things came up. We just did it.
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  And I really, that's why I really knew 17 was going to be
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  my last year of doing a bunch. It was just just the kids take
• 17:24
  over priorities, but we always made sure we had fun when we
• 17:27
  went somewhere. We religiously always go to
• 17:29
  Frisco, Co for Father's Day and stay a couple days in Colorado.
• 17:32
  We'd we'd always try to stay somewhere and enjoy the trip on
• 17:35
  the way if we could. We did King of the Smoker, we
• 17:38
  did Disneyland. We spent an extra week out
• 17:40
  there. It was just we always tried to
• 17:42
  make sure we had fun. I never was the partying kind of
• 17:45
  guy and go out and drink and I'd stand up there and talk to those
• 17:48
  guys. I just never drank there.
• 17:50
  Handful of people that ever seen me drink anything in a contest
• 17:53
  ever. I just never did it.
• 17:54
  To me, it was a business. I was always there with a goal.
• 17:57
  I left my house always thinking I was going to win.
• 18:00
  I was always telling myself you're going to win this thing.
• 18:02
  And when I didn't, I was always mad because I expected to win.
• 18:06
  I'm thinking if you outwork everybody, you win.
• 18:09
  And that was always my thing. I always wanted to make sure I
• 18:11
  outwork everybody because there's, I think there's way
• 18:14
  better cooks and people with way better palates than me.
• 18:17
  But I don't think anybody's ever outworked me.
• 18:19
  There you go. And that when I always, when I
• 18:22
  was a kid, my grandpa always told me the harder you work, the
• 18:24
  luckier you get. And as I've gotten older in
• 18:27
  life, and that's what it is. If you're that guy that'll just
• 18:29
  get out and work, you make your own luck.
• 18:31
  Good things happen. Exactly.
• 18:33
  Yes. Awesome.
• 18:36
  So winning the Jack and the Royal, how did that change your
• 18:38
  trajectory for you personally as well as Clark Crew BBQ winning
• 18:44
  those big contests? Did you get your popularity or
• 18:47
  did? Winning the Royal changed
• 18:49
  everything for me. Winning the American Royal,
• 18:52
  that's when that happened to be the same year that Dave Anderson
• 18:55
  with Famous Dave's was getting inducted into the Hall of Fame.
• 18:58
  So he gets in the Hall of Fame and 30 minutes later we win the
• 19:01
  thing. And Dave introduced me to a
• 19:03
  bunch of people and said at the time, I didn't know Dave that
• 19:06
  well just through Facebook. And I'd ate at his restaurants
• 19:09
  over the years. And I was just like, I was like,
• 19:11
  holy shit, Famous Dave was over here congratulating me.
• 19:13
  I was like, that's super cool. It's like, and then I got a call
• 19:16
  from their CEO and they're like interested in selling Clark
• 19:19
  Crew. We're doing this or doing that
• 19:21
  or something. I was like, no, I don't think
• 19:24
  so. And I didn't know what.
• 19:25
  And by the time we were all done figuring out we were going to
• 19:28
  partner on a restaurant together, they were going to
• 19:30
  show me how to do a restaurant and all the things that go in it
• 19:33
  and do everything and join. So it was a great opportunity
• 19:36
  for me and I'll be thankful for Dave until the day I died.
• 19:39
  But it changed my life the way Dave did.
• 19:42
  I parted ways from them about a year and a half in or so.
• 19:45
  It just wasn't for me being partners of the big company like
• 19:48
  that. It just wasn't.
• 19:50
  It just wasn't for me. So I bought their percentage out
• 19:52
  and partnered with my other friend and it just worked
• 19:55
  better. It just when they sold Famous
• 19:57
  Dave's to that bigger company, I just had a fear of being owned
• 20:00
  by a company that has 2000 deals and then having 20% of my
• 20:05
  business. I was just like, it just scared
• 20:07
  me. I just, I got a little gun shy,
• 20:10
  did my own thing and it's really been the best thing I've ever
• 20:12
  done in my life now. But I'll always be thankful for
• 20:15
  the opportunity. You know that they that they did
• 20:17
  for me. OK, so at All your cooks, which
• 20:20
  cook tested you emotionally more than physically?
• 20:24
  And what did that teach about yourself?
• 20:26
  I can tell you it it didn't wind out well.
• 20:29
  The 2016 Jack Daniels we missed chicken turning.
• 20:33
  That was my next question. You want to talk about emotional
• 20:38
  that's the one I I said every cuss word under the sun.
• 20:42
  The two things happened. My ex-wife was ruined the box
• 20:45
  and she was going so slow and I was so furious.
• 20:48
  What the hell is she doing? I'm watching her walk and you
• 20:51
  couldn't walk any slower and I'm yelling at her and I'm so mad at
• 20:55
  her. I'm like, what the hell were you
• 20:56
  doing? And she's I just couldn't walk.
• 20:58
  And I was like, what do you mean you couldn't walk?
• 21:01
  She was going so slow. She's I just couldn't make my
• 21:03
  stuff work, you know? So she missed it by three
• 21:06
  seconds and it was a bad ass chicken box.
• 21:08
  All I had to do was score like a 164 and I win the Jack.
• 21:12
  But I was furious. Later on, we come to find out it
• 21:16
  was the start of her lupus. She had a medical problem.
• 21:20
  We literally started, I'm like, you better get the doctor and
• 21:23
  figure this crap out. I was like, that's bullshit.
• 21:25
  I was. So mad so.
• 21:27
  Who knows if we would have ever figured out what was wrong with
• 21:29
  her if it wasn't for that. So we're glad we figured out
• 21:33
  what was wrong with her. It was a good deal.
• 21:35
  But I was just watching it like, is she purposely walking slow?
• 21:38
  What is going on here? It just wasn't meant to be.
• 21:40
  And then so I threw everybody out of my trailer.
• 21:43
  I was like, just get the hell away.
• 21:44
  Leave me alone. I'll do this myself.
• 21:46
  And we wound up with calls the rest of the day.
• 21:49
  So the point that the cameras over there thinking I won this
• 21:52
  thing and I'm like, you need to go stand by Tuffy Stone.
• 21:54
  It's like he's the only other guy with a couple calls and
• 21:57
  they're like, oh, you got 3 or whatever.
• 21:59
  And I'm like, trust me, it ain't me.
• 22:01
  I got to. It'd be Tuffy want it, but
• 22:03
  everybody there thought that I did.
• 22:05
  You know, I'm like, you know, it was like I just did it myself.
• 22:07
  But emotionally that told me that you just failed at a world
• 22:11
  championship and you can still get calls at that thing
• 22:14
  afterwards. After your first meet.
• 22:16
  To me personally, it told me I was a bad ass.
• 22:19
  That's how I viewed it to myself.
• 22:21
  I'm like, I'm the baddest man on the planet.
• 22:24
  You did a zero and you still came through by yourself and
• 22:27
  finished it all. So I was, it changed how I
• 22:30
  looked at it. I thought that was my
• 22:32
  opportunity to win the Jack. I was just like, man, I had it.
• 22:35
  I had it right there. I was so hurt by that.
• 22:37
  You know how it went and me and Kim fought about that.
• 22:40
  I'm like, he didn't even try. I was like, all you had to do
• 22:42
  was just walk at a normal pace and it would have been there.
• 22:46
  But the other things to that fault is my OCD on how I wanted
• 22:51
  the box to look. I pushed the clock thinking that
• 22:54
  she would make it. We timed to walk.
• 22:56
  She should have had enough time when it would.
• 22:58
  This didn't work out that way. It was just the first box she
• 23:01
  ran and she's I don't know why I just couldn't walk quicker.
• 23:03
  And it was just come to find out that that is the start of her
• 23:06
  lupus year or when it was affecting things.
• 23:09
  So it was I was like, now we know, but I was furious and it
• 23:12
  crushed me because I I wanted to win the win that so bad.
• 23:16
  So the next year I think that kind of motivated me even more
• 23:19
  for that 2017 season to go hard. And after that, I just truly had
• 23:23
  the feeling that I couldn't be beat.
• 23:25
  I just didn't think I could ever be beat.
• 23:26
  And I was like, man, I'm better and better.
• 23:28
  I just have to do it. I went out and I told my boss
• 23:31
  that year I was like, when I worked, I still worked in the
• 23:33
  oil field. I'm like, look, I'm going to
• 23:35
  cook a bunch. There's going to be days I had
• 23:37
  to take. I had five weeks of vacation,
• 23:39
  but I'm like on this Friday I made my schedule out.
• 23:42
  I was like on the 12th, I have to leave at 3:45.
• 23:45
  If I leave at 3:45, I knew I could be home and on the road by
• 23:49
  5:20, which would get me there at 10:30 at night.
• 23:51
  I had it figured out just to stretch everything out that I
• 23:54
  possibly could. And then I knew in 2018 it would
• 23:57
  kill me because I didn't have vacation time.
• 23:59
  If I burned it all up, I wouldn't get a carry over any
• 24:02
  time. I carried over time from 2016 to
• 24:05
  do it again in 17, but emotionally, by far the most
• 24:08
  emotional thing that I've ever had to go through is just
• 24:11
  missing that turn in at a world championship.
• 24:13
  Just it killed me. I knew it had to be something
• 24:15
  because I was looking at it. I was like, OK, he came in last,
• 24:18
  but what's what's going on here? I knew, like, something had to
• 24:21
  happen for that, yeah. Oh yeah, it was bad.
• 24:24
  And then you look at the rest of the scores, all I needed was
• 24:27
  like a 164 chicken, which would have been like 10 points under
• 24:32
  my average in chicken to win the thing.
• 24:35
  Yeah, so I'm going to read some of your stats just so people can
• 24:39
  get an idea of what's going on. Read 14 through 17, 2014.
• 24:44
  BBQ Data had 21 contests, 7 Grand Championships, 5 Reserve
• 24:51
  Grand Championships, 2015. You want to let me tell you
• 24:55
  about 14? OK, I.
• 24:57
  Quit cooking that year. I was going to keep cooking, but
• 25:00
  I had 7 grand, so I thought I was honored to the Jack.
• 25:05
  So the contest I cooked in Texas didn't get their paperwork
• 25:08
  filled out to be a state championship.
• 25:12
  I quit cooking. Butcher BBQ ended up getting the
• 25:16
  draw that year to go cook it with one grand championship that
• 25:19
  was another. I was kissed that year.
• 25:21
  I would have kept going. I could have won more.
• 25:23
  I was just trying to save vacation time because we knew we
• 25:25
  were going to go to King of the Smoker and we knew we were
• 25:28
  going. I knew I was wanting to cook
• 25:29
  more the next year. Yeah, 7 grand.
• 25:31
  So I thought I was autoed in and everyone was like, Congrats on
• 25:35
  the auto, Congrats on the auto. I didn't understand how it
• 25:37
  worked. I'm like, yeah.
• 25:38
  And then you find out. One of them.
• 25:40
  Didn't get your paperwork turned in?
• 25:41
  You're like. Oh wow, 2015 Forty contest, 13
• 25:50
  grand championships, 4 reserve grand championships and then 16.
• 25:56
  You have 40 and 6 grand championships and four reserve
• 26:01
  grand championships and then 2017, yeah, 47 contests, 14
• 26:07
  grand championships and six reserve grand championships.
• 26:10
  That's nuts. Exactly.
• 26:12
  And, and I can officially say ain't nobody going, I don't care
• 26:16
  how they winning today, they're not winning that one in every
• 26:19
  three contests, one in every seven contests.
• 26:21
  It's it's not happening like that.
• 26:25
  Now our career, we finished that.
• 26:26
  It's just a little over one in every four contests.
• 26:29
  We cooked for our career. It was a win.
• 26:31
  That's. It's crazy.
• 26:33
  So you walked away at your peak 60 grand championship 258 comps
• 26:37
  as Jordan level dominance. Was it hard to step away or you
• 26:41
  were just like, OK, I got the restaurant, now it.
• 26:44
  Was I had finally got my dream BBQ trailer and finally got
• 26:49
  everything I wanted and then I only cooked out of it like 18
• 26:52
  times or whatever, 16. Wow, that was tough.
• 26:55
  The trailer was the toughest thing is just like, man, I
• 26:58
  finally got to where we could live in it and go on the road if
• 27:01
  we wanted to. And that was our plan.
• 27:03
  I really thought we'd go out and cook about 30 a year, you know,
• 27:07
  and, and just do many vacations, just spend some time and cook
• 27:10
  and then go to the next contest and come home for a couple
• 27:12
  weeks. It I thought that was a plan and
• 27:15
  the restaurants just take so much more time than I ever
• 27:18
  dreamed they would. And and I was pushing it where I
• 27:22
  was not at the restaurant that last couple years as much as I
• 27:25
  needed to be. And I just told Jamie I was
• 27:28
  like, this is good. My partner loved us going out
• 27:30
  and cooking and he was very supportive of it.
• 27:32
  And I just thought I was just like, I can do better for our
• 27:35
  business if I'm here more and I focus on the business more and
• 27:39
  my competition for me to do it, it's a week long deal.
• 27:42
  We did something every single night.
• 27:43
  Monday night you make sauce, Tuesday night you turn brisket.
• 27:46
  Wednesday night I did ribs and pork.
• 27:48
  Thursday we did injections and sauces.
• 27:50
  We did different stuff every night and I just needed to focus
• 27:53
  on the business more. And it's like when I when this
• 27:55
  is all said and done, my kids, my kids aren't going to care
• 27:58
  about the trophies and all that. But if there are names on a
• 28:01
  building and a successful business is something that can
• 28:04
  change their lives and their kids lives if we do it right.
• 28:07
  It's just we put so much passion into the restaurant and I had to
• 28:10
  just sit back and say what's the most, what's the most important
• 28:13
  thing. When I ended exactly to us, it
• 28:16
  was unanimous to focus on the restaurants more.
• 28:18
  That was hard to step away from it because, and it's hard for me
• 28:22
  today when I see people post these boxes that they're winning
• 28:25
  and I see it and I'm like, Oh my God, I was like, I looked at my
• 28:28
  first rib box I ever did ever in a competition.
• 28:32
  It's better than some of the stuff going out there today when
• 28:35
  people winning contests and I think, Oh my God, I'd be
• 28:37
  embarrassed if I turn that in. And just when I talk to my
• 28:40
  friends that are cooking like bread and them and they're like,
• 28:42
  it ain't like it used to be. And to me, that's hard because I
• 28:46
  felt like we worked really hard at it.
• 28:48
  So it's hard to see some of that that, but it's, I don't know,
• 28:52
  it's bittersweet. Like, move on from it too.
• 28:54
  But having the restaurant kind of sues that urge for me to do
• 28:59
  it. We compete, but there's
• 29:01
  different awards you win in restaurants and that shit means
• 29:03
  nothing to me. I usually throw when I drop the
• 29:05
  readers twitch and work in the trash.
• 29:07
  About two seconds after the guy handed it to me, he's.
• 29:10
  Did you mean to throw that away? I was like, yeah, care less
• 29:12
  about a vote. I don't care what people vote.
• 29:15
  I didn't win. It's a vote.
• 29:16
  I was like, I don't care. I'm not hanging that thing up in
• 29:19
  here. I don't care about this.
• 29:21
  But what I care about for me is what we how much we sell.
• 29:25
  As I look at it and I'm like, do you hear other restaurants that
• 29:27
  are slow and you can drive by and there's six cars out there
• 29:30
  and we're on an hour and a half wait?
• 29:31
  To me, that's winning. That's how I've been able to
• 29:34
  curve that to myself. That's calling that winning.
• 29:36
  If you can make people happy, people enjoy it.
• 29:40
  To me, I get as much satisfaction out of that as
• 29:42
  winning a contest. And it's good and bad.
• 29:45
  You get a lot of people that don't like stuff.
• 29:47
  But to me, that's when you cook a competition, you take a box
• 29:52
  and you turn it in to judges. They go eat it and all that.
• 29:55
  And you may win the contest or you may take 10, but you don't
• 29:58
  know who ate your stuff. Put on a restaurant when you get
• 30:01
  a cook it and you try to do your best and do all that and you do
• 30:04
  a good job and you turn it out. Even watch somebody take a bite
• 30:07
  of brisket and they're handing it to the person across the
• 30:09
  table and they're all like, oh, wow, It's a feeling.
• 30:11
  It's like winning a contest. I'm telling you, it's the same
• 30:14
  feeling. You know, you get that.
• 30:16
  You're like, all right, I was never the guy that got excited
• 30:19
  at awards. If you ever seen me at awards,
• 30:21
  rarely was I ever excited and I was already thinking about the
• 30:25
  next week. What would I change about my
• 30:27
  cook today? I didn't like this.
• 30:28
  We didn't get a chicken call. I knew that sauce was too thick.
• 30:31
  It's just, it's in your head thinking about what to do for
• 30:35
  the next week. But my ex-wife and them used to
• 30:37
  tell me they're like just enjoy this one.
• 30:38
  I was like, I can't, I got to be back at work, you know, tomorrow
• 30:41
  morning. We got to get home.
• 30:42
  He was like, get the trailer cleaned out.
• 30:44
  I need to leave Thursday the next week so we can go to
• 30:46
  Florida or wherever. It just, you had to have it
• 30:48
  figured out. So I never, I didn't enjoy it
• 30:51
  like other people did, but I love doing it, you know, it's
• 30:55
  just a different way. OK, now what was the most
• 30:58
  surprising thing about the restaurant life?
• 31:02
  OK, I should have listened to some of my friends.
• 31:04
  They all told me they're like, it's not about just sitting in a
• 31:06
  smokehouse and cooking barbecue. And I built probably the nicest
• 31:11
  smokehouse and all of BBQ. It's got an air conditioner in
• 31:14
  it. It's it's nice.
• 31:15
  I got glass windows, 2 Old Hickories, 2 Camelbacks, nice
• 31:18
  pits, put in a ultimate stereo system in the smokehouse in
• 31:22
  there. I put a big screen TV in there
• 31:24
  so I can watch TV on if I watch football games.
• 31:27
  I didn't want to miss games when I was working.
• 31:29
  And I really thought I was going to be in that smokehouse a lot.
• 31:32
  And the for the first six months because then we went through
• 31:35
  COVID and everything. I was in that smokehouse a lot.
• 31:38
  But as the restaurant grew and got busier, you find out you
• 31:41
  have to pay somebody to do that part that you love and you have
• 31:44
  to go do a lot of the stuff you don't love, you know, ordering
• 31:47
  and books. And I do all the numbers is I
• 31:49
  don't want to do that, you know, I mean, I don't want to do that
• 31:52
  part of it. But then you find out, you know
• 31:53
  it's, you know. Well, all right, beyond the
• 32:00
  accolades, what has BBQ given you as a man, a father, and a
• 32:03
  human being? Yeah, I think that as a father
• 32:07
  it it's turned and showed my kids work ethic.
• 32:10
  All my kids work hard. It's Madison's, super smart and
• 32:14
  everything, but that's their own.
• 32:16
  But to me, I know that we taught them work ethic.
• 32:18
  Nothing's free, you know you have to work for it.
• 32:20
  If you want something, figure out a way to work for it.
• 32:23
  They're always seeing me buy an old truck or something and doing
• 32:25
  something, but it's like, how do you do that?
• 32:27
  My hustle, I work on the side. I'll buy something and fix it up
• 32:30
  and sell it. Just a work ethic to get to
• 32:32
  where you want. That's probably the thing that
• 32:35
  I'm most proud that it taught my kids.
• 32:37
  I think it taught my kids to be winners.
• 32:39
  My son is a very good football player.
• 32:42
  When Madison was in rowing, when they don't not winning, they
• 32:46
  they don't like it. I think it brought him that
• 32:47
  mentality of try to do your best to be the best.
• 32:50
  That's you might not win them all, but figure out what you got
• 32:53
  to do to get better. So mentality, that and work
• 32:55
  ethic, I think go hand in hand. If you ain't a winner, if you
• 32:58
  don't have work ethic, I'm sorry, you just don't.
• 33:00
  All that work is put in to push you to a win, to even give you
• 33:03
  the chance to get a win. You got to work at it.
• 33:05
  So I'm I'm pretty proud of that. It changed me as a man.
• 33:10
  It had to show me a little more patience because I'm not a
• 33:12
  patience person. I'm like instant results.
• 33:15
  I like to do something and know it's there.
• 33:17
  Now. I think it it changed my life
• 33:20
  for sure. Barbecues brought more
• 33:22
  opportunities than I could ever imagine.
• 33:24
  But you went from just a normal job to a dream job to to now
• 33:28
  it's a business where you think it's a headache.
• 33:30
  And there's a lot of times I think, God, I hate doing this.
• 33:32
  I'm just over it. And then you sit back and think
• 33:34
  is would you go back to doing what you were doing 10 years
• 33:37
  ago? And the answer is always hell
• 33:39
  no. I don't want to go back to the
• 33:40
  old field. I let my electrical license, I
• 33:42
  had a master's electric license and I didn't keep up my
• 33:45
  continuing education hours and let it go.
• 33:47
  And my wife was like, you sure you want to do that?
• 33:49
  I was like, baby, if I got to go back and be an electrician,
• 33:52
  we're screwed already. Everything has gone way wrong.
• 33:55
  We had a lot of stuff go wrong. I love what I do, but I find
• 33:59
  myself getting to where I don't appreciate it because I just
• 34:03
  it's the headaches of the things.
• 34:04
  A week ago till three O clock in the morning was getting a hot
• 34:06
  water heater replaced. It's of the constant stress.
• 34:09
  But I complain about it, but I truly love it.
• 34:11
  I do. But you have to find yourself
• 34:13
  and put yourself in check and say no matter how tired you are
• 34:16
  right now, would you go back to getting that 3:00 AM call out in
• 34:19
  the snow in an oil field and you're like, no, I don't want to
• 34:21
  do that. So it's an amazing life and BBQ
• 34:24
  gave me all of that. Yeah, it's definitely better to
• 34:27
  have your own and work for yourself because you call the
• 34:29
  shots instead of somebody calling the shots for yourself.
• 34:32
  You do, but the public calls the shots.
• 34:35
  That's The thing is you've got a you've got my first brisket.
• 34:38
  When I was cooking my brisket, I wanted to really do that Texas
• 34:41
  brisket, Just a big old fatty brisket.
• 34:43
  Oklahoma didn't like it. There's a place in town that
• 34:46
  does well with it, but he sells about a 10th of what I do
• 34:50
  overall. As a whole, I'm like, what do
• 34:51
  the people want? We learned that they wanted us
• 34:54
  to really separate them and do burn insurance.
• 34:56
  And it takes way more work and you make way less money because
• 34:59
  there's way less yield. But we had to adapt to what they
• 35:02
  wanted. Not necessarily what I thought I
• 35:04
  was going to cook. I had to change a lot of things.
• 35:07
  I was doing mostly just salt, pepper and brisket rub.
• 35:10
  And then, you know, we had people thinking it's too salty.
• 35:12
  And I'm thinking, man, that ain't salty.
• 35:13
  That thing's awesome. But it was just, it wasn't what
• 35:16
  these people wanted in that you're sending out that big old
• 35:19
  fatty slice of brisket. And I get a lot of women in my
• 35:21
  place and you have to listen to them.
• 35:23
  They were like, can you cut the fat off?
• 35:25
  Can you cut the fat off? And I'm thinking what what you
• 35:28
  did. So it changed how we ran the
• 35:30
  restaurant. So it's the public is the boss
• 35:33
  when you try to adapt to them. And there's some things I won't
• 35:36
  just change. But we haven't changed our menu
• 35:38
  in five years. We're going on six years now.
• 35:40
  We haven't changed really anything.
• 35:42
  It's just the core of what it is.
• 35:45
  That's excellent. That's a nice building.
• 35:48
  I saw it on. I guess Cosmo had came to your
• 35:51
  restaurant and did a video. That's a nice building.
• 35:55
  Yeah, they know it, it's different, but it's not.
• 35:57
  When I was building it, I was talking to people and they're
• 35:59
  like, man, that's not BBQ, that's not how you do it.
• 36:02
  And I thought, why not? Why not make it a cool place?
• 36:04
  Why not make it a date night place?
• 36:07
  Smokehouse is built separate with a fire door between them so
• 36:10
  the restaurant just don't smell like smoke and there everyone's.
• 36:12
  That's not how you do it. You don't paint walls white in
• 36:15
  the restaurant. I'm like, why not?
• 36:16
  Looks clean to me. I like clean.
• 36:17
  They're like, that's just not how BBQ is.
• 36:19
  BBQ is supposed to be grungy BBQ.
• 36:22
  Yeah, somebody has to do something different just because
• 36:25
  one person do it. Don't meet everybody.
• 36:27
  Yeah, I want, you know, had me nervous from beginning, but from
• 36:30
  day one it's always been busy. It looked very professional.
• 36:33
  It looks beautiful on the inside they got.
• 36:37
  A good team that keeps it up, man.
• 36:39
  They know when I walk in there, if I see paint scratch, they
• 36:42
  know. Usually if I look at it, they're
• 36:44
  already going. Already called the.
• 36:46
  That's a good crew to have. Yeah, I got a damn good crew.
• 36:50
  All right, so what's your honest read on competition BBQ today?
• 36:53
  Is it headed in the right direction or the stray away from
• 36:56
  what made it magical? I, I don't think anybody can say
• 36:59
  it's going in the right direction.
• 37:01
  I would challenge anybody to prove to me how it is because
• 37:05
  the numbers are dropping dramatically on it.
• 37:07
  Every year there's less competitions, every year there's
• 37:09
  less teams. So I don't think there's any way
• 37:12
  anybody could convince me that it's possibly going better than
• 37:15
  it was. No numbers support that.
• 37:18
  They can fudge numbers and say we did this many more contests,
• 37:21
  They did that many more 1 meat contests.
• 37:23
  There's a whole bunch of those in there, but true 44 meat
• 37:26
  contests. A lot of the a lot of the old
• 37:28
  time contests were there a long time. 20 plus years are gone.
• 37:32
  The money is way down in it. There's less participation in
• 37:35
  it. There's not a lot of there's all
• 37:37
  the numbers are going down. So I don't think anybody can
• 37:40
  convince me that it's going that it's doing better than it was.
• 37:43
  You look back on what I say, the heyday from like you look at
• 37:46
  like 2010 to 2018201718 BBQ was so many people out.
• 37:52
  It was just booming. And when pitmasters went on TV,
• 37:55
  it really opened up a light to so many people that it was in
• 37:59
  conversations. But there used to be a contest
• 38:02
  that we win grand championships that that paid certain amounts.
• 38:06
  Now the whole contest is less money than that.
• 38:09
  I was talking to some of these guys going out doing all the
• 38:10
  time. They're like, yeah, go win it.
• 38:12
  We're still going to lose 500 bucks.
• 38:13
  That's insane that that's just insane.
• 38:16
  And there was, there's so many contests.
• 38:18
  We won the Green championships for 5-10, fifteen, $20,000.
• 38:23
  They're not even around anymore. It's just changed.
• 38:26
  And I think as BBQ, what happened with that is, is why
• 38:30
  wouldn't it change? What hurt BBQ more than I
• 38:33
  anything and nobody can convince me not is we didn't get the
• 38:36
  public involved. Exactly.
• 38:38
  You come to me as a restaurant and say I want you to sponsor my
• 38:41
  BBQ contest. First thing I'm going to say is
• 38:44
  why? What is it going to get me if I
• 38:46
  do that? Just a banner, Just a little
• 38:49
  banner over here by your hell. I'll just pay for advertising if
• 38:51
  that's the case. We didn't interact with the
• 38:54
  public enough. We should have done more demos.
• 38:56
  We should have let the public come out and eat.
• 38:59
  Here's the dumbest thing in the world.
• 39:00
  I've been to 250 some KCBS ones, and I count on one hand how many
• 39:04
  times you could buy a BBQ to eat at a contest.
• 39:08
  So you get the public to come out.
• 39:09
  You know how many times people come up?
• 39:11
  Can we buy a barbecue? And our answer was no, we're not
• 39:14
  selling BBQ, but they should have had vendors that you never
• 39:17
  got the public. If you don't get the public in,
• 39:19
  why are you going to get somebody to sponsor and give you
• 39:22
  money if it does no good? Exactly.
• 39:25
  It blows my mind it's they never did anything for the public.
• 39:28
  Very few. There's some that do, but those
• 39:31
  contests do well. Like Cory with Osage City, they
• 39:34
  bring it, you go there and on Friday night the whole public is
• 39:37
  out there. They got BBQ vendors set up
• 39:39
  everywhere and a lot of its teams and they got a stand where
• 39:42
  you can buy BBQ sauce and stuff they bring.
• 39:44
  They get the public involved. Too many contests just don't.
• 39:49
  Then they die off. You go to a contest, there's
• 39:50
  nothing going on. It's just a bunch of teams
• 39:52
  there, but you've got to get it. Find a way to get a public
• 39:55
  involved. Whether I wish that it took top
• 39:57
  teams and said would you guys come do a pork demo, cook it and
• 40:01
  pass out samples to the public. Hell, we'd all done it.
• 40:04
  I mean, it's just. Yeah, I don't think it will.
• 40:07
  Apparently I went to Walker comp yesterday, pigs and Peaches, and
• 40:12
  I think it might be a KCBS contest.
• 40:14
  They literally had all the cook teams in one area and then
• 40:19
  probably like 1/2 mile down the road was the festival.
• 40:24
  Yeah. I.
• 40:26
  Was like, you're not, you're having a BBQ contest to have it.
• 40:29
  People want to walk around just like I did it.
• 40:32
  You can't convince me otherwise. I walked around and went, oh
• 40:34
  man, I want to get into this, but Rod took the time to talk to
• 40:38
  me and do it. And then we went in and bought
• 40:40
  BBQ. It was shitty BBQ, but we went
• 40:42
  in and bought BBQ to eat there. But there's too many contests
• 40:45
  that don't people come out. Oh, there's a BBQ contest, let's
• 40:48
  go eat barbecue. And we tons of times would just
• 40:51
  give our food to people. They always said don't do that.
• 40:53
  And a lot of organizers would be like, don't pass out public
• 40:56
  food, don't do it out there. The health department says we
• 40:58
  can't do it. And there's tons of times as I
• 41:00
  look, I'm going to throw it in the trash.
• 41:01
  I'm going to give it to these people.
• 41:02
  I don't care. So we did it.
• 41:04
  A lot of times we give it to people or we tell people, hey,
• 41:06
  come back at 1:00. I'll let's try rib.
• 41:08
  Come back here, do this. But people would come out and
• 41:12
  they wouldn't even have a BBQ vendor there.
• 41:13
  If I was going to put on a contest, first thing I would do
• 41:15
  is people need to be able to come out and eat BBQ.
• 41:17
  How are we going to do that? And it just, it's just silly if
• 41:21
  you think about it. But I'm like, tell me how it's
• 41:24
  getting better. Tell me one way that it's gotten
• 41:26
  better and nobody can The numbers are down.
• 41:29
  They're not making money. Prize money's down.
• 41:32
  Less contest, less cooks doing it.
• 41:34
  You know, you're losing contest faster than you're bringing them
• 41:36
  back. You're not getting the money in
• 41:38
  it because you're not getting sponsors.
• 41:39
  I was like, tell me what's gotten better.
• 41:42
  You know, it's just a, it's a sad state and unfortunately I
• 41:45
  don't think they know how to fix it.
• 41:47
  It's hard to, it's hard to do it once it's on the downspin like
• 41:50
  that. How do you get it back?
• 41:53
  The King of the Smoker was an event that brought public out
• 41:55
  that was just crazy and it was so exciting.
• 41:58
  They brought, they opened the floodgates after it was open the
• 42:00
  public to come out and pay big money to talk with teams and we
• 42:03
  did demos and all that. I never understood why there
• 42:06
  wasn't more contest that just did that.
• 42:08
  Let people come out and do it. You don't have to bother teams.
• 42:10
  We just say it starts at 1:00 or whatever.
• 42:12
  You start people early, say at 1:00 it's open and have people
• 42:16
  doing demos or have barbecue vendors.
• 42:18
  They're selling good food. And try not to rate the public
• 42:21
  just making a deal. Be like, yeah, you can get a $10
• 42:23
  sandwich, That's not a bad deal. You can't do it in a restaurant.
• 42:27
  Just do a deal to get the public involved.
• 42:29
  But without the public involved, there's no way it'll grow
• 42:32
  without the public involved. Who wants it on TV?
• 42:36
  If the public can't be there and be involved in it and it connect
• 42:39
  with you, how can I convince you it's what you want to do or be a
• 42:42
  part of? That's true.
• 42:44
  That is true. That's that blows my mind if it
• 42:47
  as a business owner, if they come to me and just said donate
• 42:50
  this and I'll be like, what the hell am I getting for it?
• 42:52
  That's it just doesn't make sense.
• 42:54
  I just there has to be a way to get people involved.
• 42:57
  I think there's a few great contests that have done that and
• 43:01
  they've always survived and they've always done it.
• 43:04
  And I'll say Corey Sage City, Kansas thinks 100 teams every
• 43:07
  year in the middle of freaking nowhere.
• 43:10
  But it always brings in good teams and we sponsor it and I
• 43:13
  sponsor I don't know what. We sponsor some of the awards at
• 43:16
  it. We sponsor it because it's so
• 43:19
  well ran. They do such a good job.
• 43:21
  Him and his wife both, they do a good job.
• 43:23
  They get BBQ teams to donate sauces and rubs and then they
• 43:26
  sell those things off to raise money for schools and
• 43:28
  everything. It's such a well ran thing that
• 43:30
  they understand. Public comes out, you're raising
• 43:33
  money for something. It's such a good deal, but I've
• 43:36
  been to way more contests where we're all in a parking lot.
• 43:39
  We don't do nothing. We don't even know where we're
• 43:40
  taking the trash to. What are we supposed to do with
• 43:43
  the trash? We can't even figure that out,
• 43:44
  much less how we get in the public involved.
• 43:47
  I was going really wanted to put on a contest.
• 43:49
  I wanted to put on a $25,000 contest, have my Mexican ladies
• 43:54
  at the restaurant make some bad ass breakfast to pass out to
• 43:56
  everybody and really do a good thing.
• 43:58
  And then at the end of the day, and I'm like, why would I do it?
• 44:01
  What would it do for me if I have that extra money under
• 44:04
  there, just give it to my employees anyways?
• 44:05
  It's just when you think about it, it's like there's nothing to
• 44:08
  gain from it, Nothing to gain. You know, most of these
• 44:12
  organizers, they put in a ton of work and a ton of hours and it's
• 44:16
  selfless hours. You're not getting, you're not
• 44:17
  going to make much money if you have an event that it's a lot of
• 44:21
  work. But if you, I'm a firm believer,
• 44:23
  if you can't figure out how to get the public in it, it's just
• 44:26
  going to keep dying. And you look at the numbers and
• 44:28
  it ain't hard to see. Just count up the contest then
• 44:31
  all right, now count. Take the 1 meat ones out that
• 44:34
  you have a 1 meat chicken, A1 meat rib and a contest same
• 44:37
  weekend. They're counting that as three
• 44:38
  things. You just go around and count
• 44:41
  true contests or meat contests. Tell me how it is.
• 44:44
  So then they try to make it cheaper so it's OK.
• 44:47
  Now you can just do pork collar so you can just cook the money
• 44:50
  muscles. Now you're turning into a
• 44:51
  grilling society, not BBQ. I think you're just trying to
• 44:55
  appease people. I think there was a challenge to
• 44:58
  taking a pork butt and doing that.
• 44:59
  I think that was part of the challenge.
• 45:01
  Now you just see money muscle boxes and they all look the same
• 45:04
  and it's everybody want to know why there's inconsistency in
• 45:08
  scoring? It's because everybody's cooking
• 45:09
  the same exact thing. Requires less skill.
• 45:13
  People all the time. I always say, oh, they're always
• 45:15
  like burn insurance. You can't win with burn
• 45:17
  insurance. And I was always just I was the
• 45:19
  guy that just shut up and say I'm like, OK, I guarantee you
• 45:22
  90% of the boxes I won 80 in brisk in the 1st place was damn
• 45:26
  sure burns. I just stayed back like good,
• 45:29
  don't cook them. I will.
• 45:30
  Yeah, dude, that's right. Have you ever competed at
• 45:36
  Memphis and May with any team where?
• 45:38
  I have not. I've been offered several times.
• 45:40
  It's just, I don't know, never been my thing.
• 45:43
  At one time, me and David Qualls here in Oklahoma and Butcher
• 45:48
  Donnie Teal, we talked about like teaming up and going down
• 45:51
  and doing it. Never did.
• 45:52
  I always thought that would be kind of fun.
• 45:53
  I don't really know much about it.
• 45:55
  Never even been. I've never.
• 45:57
  Yeah, I take my wife up there the past like 2 out of three
• 46:01
  years and it's starting to bother me because as far as the
• 46:07
  crowd wise, they're getting too technical.
• 46:09
  I couldn't even record, just walk around recording.
• 46:11
  They had a problem with that. And I'm like, it's supposed to
• 46:15
  be for the why is it open to the audience and we can't just walk
• 46:18
  around recording and. I at one time I wanted to get
• 46:21
  into it and I talked to some people about it and they told me
• 46:24
  how much they spend on a deal and I was out.
• 46:26
  I was like Yep, Nope, not doing it.
• 46:28
  There's no way. You talk people spending 100 to
• 46:31
  $200,000 to put on a party for that deal.
• 46:33
  And it's like, you did what? You know what I mean?
• 46:36
  They're building temporary cities and taking them down.
• 46:39
  I'm like, yeah, I'm out on that deal.
• 46:42
  I ain't got that kind of money. I'm not going to try to raise
• 46:44
  that kind of money. It's just not for me.
• 46:46
  I think it's great that people do it.
• 46:48
  I hope it's something that keeps going forever.
• 46:50
  It's just, it just was never for me.
• 46:52
  Yeah, smoke slam stealing a lot of the people because they throw
• 46:55
  in money at people as well as they have something for the
• 46:59
  audience because they had a whole live fire experience with
• 47:03
  Alfagoni and giving out all samples and all types of stuff
• 47:09
  to the people. That's no different than any
• 47:11
  business. If somebody is going to do a
• 47:13
  better job than you, people will go there.
• 47:15
  It pertains to restaurants. That pertains to any business.
• 47:18
  Your tire shop and somebody's doing a better job than you.
• 47:21
  Your business is going to suffer.
• 47:22
  Exactly. And I, I think there initially,
• 47:25
  I think CBA and hurt KCBS some when they came around and they
• 47:29
  did that. They're mostly Texas, but
• 47:30
  they're branching out now. But I think they just did better
• 47:34
  things in the fact that they were getting sponsors and
• 47:36
  getting money. Some of the things they were
• 47:38
  doing was better. It's that's just the name of it.
• 47:41
  If people are going to go out and do something, that could
• 47:43
  cost you. Yeah.
• 47:44
  What's the most popular item at the restaurant and most.
• 47:47
  And what's the most underrated? Burn insurance are by far the
• 47:51
  most popular burn insurance and brisket it's we sold 267,000 lbs
• 47:56
  of brisket last year and 80,000 lbs of burn insurance.
• 48:00
  It's crazy. And we'll be, we'll do more than
• 48:02
  that this year. It's insane.
• 48:04
  I, I wish I lived in Georgia and I could say that number about
• 48:07
  pork. I'd probably sponsor your show,
• 48:09
  just give you an extra 100 grand for the fun of it.
• 48:12
  People would buy pork, but with brisket, I mean, you just sit
• 48:15
  there and cringe you when it's 6 bucks a pound, you're like, oh
• 48:18
  man, you'd almost rather hand them $5 and say thanks for
• 48:20
  coming in. It's it's gotten so expensive.
• 48:23
  It's the good and bad, but it's the curse of it.
• 48:25
  Living in the Midwest or beef country, it's what people love.
• 48:28
  Probably the most popular, underrated, probably our
• 48:32
  burgers. I don't ever push them that
• 48:34
  much. We use a Snake River Farms Wagyu
• 48:36
  burger. It's probably the best burgers
• 48:38
  in town that people just come in and eat barbecue.
• 48:41
  And once they had the burgers, like I've been coming here for
• 48:42
  two years, never had a burger, just tried one.
• 48:44
  Oh my God, We don't push it because we're a barbecue joint.
• 48:47
  We don't really advertise them and do much, but they're
• 48:50
  unbelievable. They're they're so good.
• 48:52
  OK, I was looking at your menu. What is a coop dog?
• 48:56
  All right, so. Not smartest thing on the menu.
• 49:00
  I let all my kids name something.
• 49:03
  So if you look on there, anything that's American raised
• 49:07
  in the word Americans capitalized, right?
• 49:09
  Everything else isn't capitalized.
• 49:10
  Set my kids names. You got Maddie's Mac and cheese,
• 49:13
  you got the Brooklyn burger, you got Jen's boneless wings.
• 49:16
  Those are my 3 kids. And then Cooper always was known
• 49:20
  as Coop dog. People always called him Coop
• 49:21
  dog. My son, they're always like Coop
• 49:23
  dog, what's up, What's up? Always.
• 49:24
  So when we do the Snake River Farms or the Double R Ranch hot
• 49:28
  dog they have, which is an awesome hot dog.
• 49:30
  Coop used to love them all the time and he's I want hot dogs
• 49:34
  and we're like on the menu. That's what you mean hot dogs.
• 49:36
  You don't want to pick something else.
• 49:37
  And it was like that. So we always did them as the
• 49:40
  coop dog, but you can get any burger, call it as a coop dog
• 49:43
  and they'll do them Double R Ranch hot dogs and they're
• 49:46
  unbelievable. And the messy heifer one with
• 49:48
  the chili and the cheese curds on it is so freaking good.
• 49:51
  It's unbelievable. They're not a hugely popular
• 49:53
  item and when it once once one of our servers sell them up to
• 49:57
  somebody, people always come back and say, man, I got to come
• 49:59
  and get a hot dog. You know, they're they're
• 50:01
  unbelievably good. We don't sell enough of them to
• 50:03
  justify. If it was a normal restaurant,
• 50:05
  you would take them off the menu.
• 50:07
  But it's my kids. I'm like, I don't care if we
• 50:09
  sell five a month. I don't even care.
• 50:11
  We sell several a day, but it's just not a super big mover
• 50:14
  because you don't go to a barbecue joint to eat a hot dogs
• 50:16
  And it's just but it's hate because people come in and eat
• 50:19
  BBQ one day and they'll come eat in the winter time, you'll sell
• 50:22
  tons of them. Chili dogs, you sell tons of
• 50:24
  them. Some people come in and do them,
• 50:26
  but that's what it is. And I've been doing around with
• 50:29
  coming up with another menu item.
• 50:30
  I want him to get a little older.
• 50:31
  My grandson's four, just turned 4.
• 50:33
  Trying to figure out I want to put something on there for him
• 50:36
  too. We just got to figure out what
• 50:37
  he wants. OK, that was cool.
• 50:39
  Everybody got their own idol. How does it feel being addicted
• 50:42
  in the Hall of Fame? It was cool.
• 50:45
  It was cool. I think it felt to me like we
• 50:48
  worked hard and get acknowledged for it because I there's tons of
• 50:51
  people, especially the new people, they have no clue the
• 50:54
  stats that we have or anything like that.
• 50:56
  And I think what Brad has done over the years and Darren is
• 50:59
  unbelievable. Them guys are the Iron Man's
• 51:00
  been doing it forever. You know, they just keep
• 51:03
  cooking. Darren's been done it forever.
• 51:04
  He's cooked over what, 700 and some contest.
• 51:07
  I mean, to me it's 500 more than me, three times as many.
• 51:10
  I look at that as mind blowing to me.
• 51:12
  I never had that kind of patience.
• 51:13
  I was just like, that is a dedication.
• 51:16
  That's awesome. So they get inducted with a lot
• 51:18
  of them guys like that and people that I've always looked
• 51:20
  up to was very cool. I just thought it was cool.
• 51:23
  We went in as #3 all time Darren #2 and Brad at number one all
• 51:27
  time. That's so on points.
• 51:29
  I to me, I sit there and think, man, I've cooked half as much as
• 51:32
  most all these people, 1/3 or less as some of them.
• 51:34
  And I was like, we're still number three.
• 51:35
  I was like, the stats don't lie that to get acknowledged for
• 51:38
  that. I guess I always felt pretty
• 51:40
  cool about that. That was it was it was a very
• 51:42
  big honour and I was super proud of it.
• 51:44
  You know that that that you know, my family could all
• 51:47
  partake in it all. So I'm very proud of it.
• 51:49
  What? Year do you think was your
• 51:50
  better year 15 or 17? 17 I kicked the shit out of
• 51:54
  everybody at 17. Wasn't even funny.
• 51:57
  It was just, I mean, we won 14 grands, 12 Max point wins in 12
• 52:02
  different states. That's crazy.
• 52:04
  Nobody's ever done that. Honestly, nobody's ever done
• 52:07
  that. I thought, 15 I could have won
• 52:10
  it easier if I'd have been smarter.
• 52:12
  I was very new to the game and I didn't really understand that
• 52:16
  the points would matter that much.
• 52:18
  When I was sitting there thinking, man, I've got three
• 52:20
  more grands in this guy, I've got more wins.
• 52:22
  How I beat him head to head. How could we be this close to
• 52:25
  points? I didn't understand how it all
• 52:26
  worked. I truly didn't, you know?
• 52:28
  And that's why I'm 17. I'm like, I'm not doing that
• 52:30
  again. I'm going after all.
• 52:32
  I know it is right. I think 17 was one of the best
• 52:36
  years in BBQ ever. Yeah, and Tim.
• 52:39
  People don't realize Tim didn't exist.
• 52:41
  Boy, I don't know where BBQ would be right.
• 52:45
  No, Tim, I love that guy. I don't get to talk to him a
• 52:49
  whole lot, but he's a talented guy and when I really knew, he
• 52:53
  had an amazing palate. I can remember when it was, we
• 52:56
  were cooking in Colorado and Canyon City, that's where my
• 52:58
  grandma was from. We were cooking a little contest
• 53:01
  there and then we were all going to go like north of Denver after
• 53:03
  that was over and go cook and Tim's I forgot my damn finish
• 53:07
  patterns and he's in my trailer going through all my spice.
• 53:09
  He said, what do you got? What do you got?
• 53:10
  I can use. He's going through everything.
• 53:12
  He's got a coffee grinder. I'm like, yeah, the guy freaking
• 53:16
  dumps this little this and a coffee grinder hits it and he
• 53:18
  dumps a little more this and this does it like 2-3 times.
• 53:21
  He's Oh yeah, that's good. Here, try this.
• 53:23
  I tried it and I'm like, damn, OK, really good.
• 53:26
  It's just it was amazing to me. I'm like this freaking guy
• 53:29
  forgets what he has comes in another trailer just going
• 53:32
  through my boxes while I'm trying to do turn insurance.
• 53:35
  I'm like, get out of here. He cracks me up, but he just has
• 53:38
  such a great palate to go through with stuff.
• 53:41
  It's I think he's I think he's underrated big time of how good
• 53:46
  he is as a BBQ cook. People, the new people all know
• 53:50
  Tim is Blues hog and I'm thinking Blues hog was Bill
• 53:53
  Arnold. That wasn't Tim, that wasn't Tim
• 53:55
  Shear. And I was like, Tim built
• 53:57
  himself in my opinion, but he's grown Blues hog definitely.
• 54:03
  But I'm they don't know Tim Shear how good a cookie was.
• 54:06
  You know, they all just know Tim Shear is Blues Hog and I'm
• 54:08
  thinking that's a 10th of what Tim is.
• 54:11
  Tim was one of the best cooks to ever do it.
• 54:13
  Exactly, and coming out with that drum just changed the whole
• 54:17
  game. You know what I mean?
• 54:19
  It's yeah, it did. You know, it's a very smart guy.
• 54:24
  Exactly exactly. So who do you feel is the GOAT
• 54:27
  of competition BBQ? All right now, I would say Brad
• 54:33
  is still dominating everybody. I will say this, Brad didn't win
• 54:37
  a team of the year until I retired.
• 54:38
  I still tell him that all the time.
• 54:40
  But what Brad's continued to do through it all, I think, I think
• 54:44
  it's impressive. Darren has always impressed me
• 54:48
  for his longevity as long as he's done it.
• 54:50
  I look at those two guys and they've done their career
• 54:53
  different. Darren's done it a long time and
• 54:55
  still pretty successful doing it.
• 54:58
  I I've always looked at both of those guys as good cooks.
• 55:01
  I always thought, and Brad used to say the same thing, that Tim
• 55:04
  was a better cook than Brad is. I've tried their food and Tim's
• 55:07
  food. I always like Jesus, that's
• 55:09
  good. He always just, he cooked great
• 55:11
  food. Tim was always a shit show on a
• 55:12
  trailer trying to get into boxes, always a mess.
• 55:15
  He's always a he was always, you just look over at his trailers
• 55:18
  like a bomb went off and I was like, what happens on the radio
• 55:20
  behind him? You're like, how do you even do
• 55:22
  that? He just, but he was a great
• 55:25
  cook. I would put all three of those
• 55:27
  guys up there really good. I think they were good
• 55:29
  statistically. Another team that people don't
• 55:32
  think about is like Big Papa. Statistically my numbers are
• 55:37
  better than his, but statistically he's probably top
• 55:39
  three in numbers. You look at amount of contest
• 55:42
  cooked and wins. Brad's cooked 150, I don't know
• 55:46
  how many. He's cooked 150 more contests
• 55:48
  than me or something now, so almost double of what I've done
• 55:51
  to get 20 more wins or something.
• 55:53
  To me, I look at numbers and look at it that way.
• 55:56
  And Aaron cooked a lot of years where he wasn't good, but when
• 55:59
  he got good, but he stayed good for a long time and he still is.
• 56:03
  So he's done it a very long time.
• 56:05
  There's a lot of cooks that you can't find their history on BBQ
• 56:10
  data. So a lot of people, new people
• 56:12
  like you don't know him like Donnie till the Buffalo's BBQ.
• 56:14
  Donnie was done cooking before you really got into it.
• 56:17
  He didn't do any case abuse really now, but he's a badass.
• 56:21
  The guy cooked a lot of contest for a lot of years and was a
• 56:24
  badass of doing it. But back in them days, them guys
• 56:26
  would go cook contest at 10 or 15 teams at it.
• 56:29
  It was just different. Jeff Staney had Slaughterhouse
• 56:32
  5, they racked up tons of wins but way back in the day.
• 56:35
  What people don't know is when his restaurant was successful to
• 56:37
  do that, two teams. They'd send a team this way to
• 56:40
  cook and they'd go this way to cook.
• 56:42
  Waterhouse 5 May get 2 grand championship.
• 56:44
  Same weekend they put in the Jeff Stainy rule and that's why
• 56:47
  points started going off of the PCBS number.
• 56:50
  Not your team name. Because they'd go, they'd have a
• 56:53
  group of guys over here, a group of guys over here, you'd win
• 56:55
  contests, 2 contests the same weekend.
• 56:58
  Wow. He told me a story one time that
• 57:00
  he did a double and they were like, they had a reserve and two
• 57:03
  grands in the same weekend from two different teams.
• 57:05
  But they got all the points under their deal and they put in
• 57:08
  the Jeff Staney rule for that to where it had to be your head
• 57:11
  cook number. Oh wow.
• 57:13
  So there's a lot of guys back in the day that people just don't
• 57:15
  know that were really good. They were.
• 57:17
  There was a lot of great teams in it, I think.
• 57:19
  True, Bud. Well, those guys, they when they
• 57:22
  got out of it, Tim just got out of it heavy and on.
• 57:24
  But Tim and Boyd and them guys, those were the main 2.
• 57:27
  They were badass. They were, they had a three-year
• 57:30
  run that you were like good Lord.
• 57:32
  They just, they went after it hard.
• 57:34
  They only won one team of the year, but they were second in
• 57:37
  the next year. They had a two or three-year
• 57:39
  run. They were a dominant team.
• 57:41
  They were really good. That was right when I was
• 57:42
  getting into it. They won the Team of the Year
• 57:44
  2013, which was really when I was getting into it and then and
• 57:49
  in 2014 they were the runner UPS and then we won it in 2015.
• 57:52
  But when I got into it, those were the guys that you were
• 57:54
  like, man, they were on a roll. So there's some great teams, but
• 57:57
  I think what Brad and Darren have done and continue to do is
• 58:00
  good. Brad could have, he got to quit
• 58:03
  cooking this season and still win team of the year.
• 58:05
  There's no competition for him. He's 400 points ahead this late
• 58:08
  in the year. He's enjoying it now.
• 58:11
  Hell, he flies in and cooks everywhere and does it.
• 58:15
  I never do. But it's he, you know, but we've
• 58:18
  talked and he's it's way easier than it used to be.
• 58:21
  And I just think that's just there's not as many people out
• 58:23
  doing it. It's just not, I don't think
• 58:26
  it's saying the caliber teams are worse or anything like that.
• 58:30
  It's just hell of a lot less contest.
• 58:32
  And once you get a lead, you get this late in the year and you
• 58:34
  look at it, it's like, where can they go to even cook enough
• 58:36
  points to catch you? Well, the guy's going to have to
• 58:39
  drive way back east or drive here.
• 58:40
  It's you just can't do them like you used to.
• 58:43
  You look at how many contests Oklahoma alone used to have.
• 58:46
  I think at one time we're up like 16, and I think there's two
• 58:49
  or three now. And all the good ones, what we
• 58:53
  say that had good money and trophies are not there anymore.
• 58:55
  They're all gone. Yeah, yeah.
• 58:58
  I don't know Danny Till he's doing the rib cook off
• 59:00
  association. Yep.
• 59:01
  Yep, he started doing some of those.
• 59:03
  Like he's taking his grandson to some of them and doing them.
• 59:05
  He's been taking his grandson to it and he likes to do it, you
• 59:08
  know, the 4H and stuff with his for the pigs and stuff with his
• 59:11
  kids or his grandkids. That's super cool.
• 59:13
  But Donnie was a bad ass back in the day.
• 59:15
  But I don't know how many new teams that I see that coming to
• 59:17
  my restaurant. They're like, Oh yeah, we want
• 59:19
  to do this. Is there any other good teams?
• 59:20
  And I always, Donnie's one of the first ones I bring up and
• 59:22
  they're like who? I'm like the Buffalo Barbie.
• 59:25
  They're like, never heard of it. And I'm like, oh shit, I got to
• 59:28
  tell him. I'm like, look, this guy 800,
• 59:30
  he's been doing it for 30 years. They just don't know, you know
• 59:33
  what I mean? It's not their fault.
• 59:34
  It's just I just think it's another way that I always said
• 59:37
  that KCBS never celebrated their champions.
• 59:41
  That's what I think them starting a Hall of Fame.
• 59:43
  Hopefully that'll happen like Donnie and them.
• 59:45
  You look at these guys that ain't in it and it's just if
• 59:47
  there isn't a place for the newer people to even know about
• 59:50
  them, how do they we're young enough.
• 59:52
  Do you remember, you know, Joe Montana, Ronnie Lott and them
• 59:55
  guys? But if there wasn't a Hall of
• 59:56
  Fame, would we? I seen them play, but I was
• 59:59
  young. But but if you're. 35 years old,
• 1:00:02
  you may not know if there wasn't a Hall of Fame assistant.
• 1:00:04
  It ain't like you can just Google championship BBQ teams
• 1:00:07
  and watch a video on it like you can.
• 1:00:09
  You Google hardest hit in the Super Bowl and it might pop up.
• 1:00:11
  Ronnie Lott if you're one of them.
• 1:00:14
  BBQ is not that way. We didn't document the history
• 1:00:17
  of it like it should be. That's true.
• 1:00:19
  So that's definitely what I'm trying to do to get some of
• 1:00:23
  those people. I had book one with Donnie Teal,
• 1:00:25
  but he was on the road so I didn't get to do it with him.
• 1:00:28
  But I'm trying to get some of those people that they didn't
• 1:00:30
  get the chance to hear from, to tell their story and stuff like
• 1:00:33
  that. And.
• 1:00:34
  I think there's an Oklahoma people are always like, oh,
• 1:00:37
  here's the king of BBQ down here.
• 1:00:38
  And I still tell everybody I think Donnie Teal is they just,
• 1:00:41
  I've always had good respect for him and his family, Cindy.
• 1:00:44
  I just think they they did it hard.
• 1:00:46
  We was my neighbor to Royal for a lot of years and shit.
• 1:00:49
  Now we send each other car pictures, but I just think that
• 1:00:52
  he's accomplished so much over the years.
• 1:00:55
  We may he didn't have any team of years.
• 1:00:56
  We had better runs, but this guy's done it for 30 years and I
• 1:01:01
  think we looked back, I think he's only beat me one or two
• 1:01:03
  times in my career ever. But I was like, you look back at
• 1:01:07
  the 30 years and just do look at what he's done.
• 1:01:10
  He may not have the winning percentage, but he's done it for
• 1:01:13
  a long time, Been the longevity of it.
• 1:01:15
  It's crazy easy. I think it's impressive what
• 1:01:17
  he's done. That's it's I, I, I think I'm
• 1:01:20
  proud of our stats and I don't know who will ever touch our
• 1:01:23
  stats win percentage, our one 80s or seven hundreds, all that.
• 1:01:27
  I think we've we were a balanced cook.
• 1:01:29
  You look at our numbers and you look at our first, we got what
• 1:01:31
  28 first brisk? It's 27 pour 26 ribs and 24 five
• 1:01:36
  or six chicken. It's all it's even.
• 1:01:38
  It's balanced. I'd never wanted to be a one hit
• 1:01:41
  wonder, always wanted to be consistent.
• 1:01:43
  And you look at guys like Donnie like that.
• 1:01:45
  You can't do a career that long and be successful if you're not
• 1:01:49
  a balanced cook. But I think they are.
• 1:01:51
  Butcher. He's a good cook.
• 1:01:53
  Yeah. And also it's Butcher.
• 1:01:55
  When I got into it was the hot thing whenever I first started.
• 1:01:57
  He had just won that World Food championship in Vegas.
• 1:02:00
  And I remember when he pulled in a new truck and trailer at my
• 1:02:03
  very first contest and everybody was like, oh shit, Butcher
• 1:02:06
  barbecues here. And I was like, who's that?
• 1:02:09
  I really had no idea. And I was like, not the guy that
• 1:02:12
  make the injection rod uses. OK, you know, I had no idea who
• 1:02:15
  anybody was. I remember that day I was
• 1:02:18
  arrogant enough for myself or confident enough in myself.
• 1:02:21
  I told my ex-wife I was like one of these days so that people say
• 1:02:24
  the same shit when I pull in. She's OK you wait.
• 1:02:26
  You know, And we won 80 and had a first and everything at that
• 1:02:30
  contest. And it was a start.
• 1:02:31
  But I was just like anybody can be beat.
• 1:02:33
  I never, I was never proud that I never would I go to concerts
• 1:02:37
  like oh, I beat butcher BBQ. I always looked at as you're
• 1:02:40
  competing against judges, right? It doesn't matter.
• 1:02:42
  We're trying to please 16 judges between these turn insurance or
• 1:02:46
  whatever, a minimum different turn insurance.
• 1:02:48
  We're trying to please these people, but it's 20 different
• 1:02:51
  judges where we're trying to please them how it's going to
• 1:02:53
  be. So that was what I always looked
• 1:02:56
  at how you did it. But it amazes me.
• 1:02:58
  I would get people to come up to me that beat me in ribs a day
• 1:03:01
  and they'd be like, Oh my God, we beat you in ribs and were we
• 1:03:04
  on the same table? No, all right.
• 1:03:08
  But just it amazed me that people would look at it that
• 1:03:10
  way. I never did when I my first
• 1:03:13
  contest, when I got my first win in case BS was Canyon City,
• 1:03:16
  Colorado or I'm sorry, Lamar, Co.
• 1:03:19
  It's my grandpa helped build that park.
• 1:03:21
  So it was cool for me to go cook that there and I just remember
• 1:03:24
  what I wanted. I was like, who's the best cooks
• 1:03:26
  here? And everybody was just Johnny
• 1:03:28
  Trick, Johnny trick. And I was like, I want to turn
• 1:03:30
  all my meat in with him and make sure we're on there with the
• 1:03:33
  best cook. You know, that's what I want to
• 1:03:34
  do, you know, and I mean the judges, that's.
• 1:03:37
  True. I was pretty young and naive.
• 1:03:40
  All right, man, one more question in a couple of games
• 1:03:43
  and we're out of here. If you had to compete, construct
• 1:03:46
  an All Star team, you and three other people to compete in a
• 1:03:50
  competition, what meat are you going to cook and what three
• 1:03:53
  other people you're going to pick, dead or alive?
• 1:03:57
  I I'm going to cook the brisket. That's probably going to be my
• 1:04:01
  go to as a brisket. I think I'm a great brisket
• 1:04:03
  cook. The three other people I would
• 1:04:06
  take, I would probably. Geez, that's a tough one.
• 1:04:12
  I would probably take probably take Sterling Ball and and and
• 1:04:16
  then I'm going to get a pass on that because he always cooks
• 1:04:18
  with James. So I'm bringing in that team.
• 1:04:20
  So I get James also. That's only one person, but
• 1:04:22
  we're breaking 2. We're counted as one.
• 1:04:24
  I'm going to bring them in. I'd probably take Brad and I
• 1:04:30
  would probably take Tim Shear. OK, which each of them cooking.
• 1:04:37
  I would probably let Brad cook chicken.
• 1:04:40
  I would let Tim. No, I don't know.
• 1:04:43
  Sterling's chicken is some damn good shit, too.
• 1:04:46
  That would be, this is a challenge.
• 1:04:49
  I would let. I would let Tim Cook pork.
• 1:04:52
  So pork's off the table, briskets off the table.
• 1:04:54
  I would let Brad cook ribs and I would let Sterling cook chicken.
• 1:04:59
  That's how I would do. All right, I got 2 quick guys.
• 1:05:02
  And then I would go on the records.
• 1:05:04
  All right, you know how to tournament bracket in college
• 1:05:06
  basketball. I constructed a grill meat
• 1:05:09
  tournament bracket where I matched up with different grill
• 1:05:12
  meats against each other. You just pick which one you
• 1:05:14
  choose to eat. Hamburger versus steak.
• 1:05:17
  Steak. OK, next match up, pork ribs
• 1:05:21
  versus pork belly pork ribs. All right, Next match up, hot
• 1:05:27
  dogs versus smoked chicken. Hot dogs or coop dog hot dogs,
• 1:05:32
  definitely on those. All right, burn insurance versus
• 1:05:36
  pork chop. Oh shit, pork chop.
• 1:05:41
  OK, smoked Turkey versus sausage.
• 1:05:44
  Oh. Man, that's a tough one.
• 1:05:49
  Now you're talking to March. I love my Turkey.
• 1:05:51
  I'm probably going to go sausage all.
• 1:05:54
  Right smoked ham versus BBQ shrimp.
• 1:05:58
  Oh, ham, I hate seafood. That's given.
• 1:06:01
  Lamb versus brisket. Brisket, All right.
• 1:06:05
  Beef ribs versus smoked Bologna. Smoked.
• 1:06:08
  Bologna. OK, Next round, steak versus
• 1:06:12
  pork ribs. Steak all.
• 1:06:16
  Right hot dog versus pork chop. Pork chop.
• 1:06:21
  OK, sausage versus ham. Oh, sausage.
• 1:06:26
  All right. Brisket versus Bologna.
• 1:06:29
  Brisket. Yeah.
• 1:06:33
  Final four, steak versus pork chop.
• 1:06:35
  Do that. That's my top two.
• 1:06:38
  That ain't even right. You can't drop my top 2 and
• 1:06:40
  they're right out of the gate. You need to go down to the
• 1:06:42
  final. Oh man, I.
• 1:06:47
  Love pork chop? I'm honestly going to take pork
• 1:06:49
  chop. Man saucy versus brisket.
• 1:06:54
  Brisket. All right, Final pork chop
• 1:06:57
  versus brisket. Oh man, this is this is just
• 1:07:01
  what I prefer to eat. Yes, if I was good on my
• 1:07:04
  deathbed, I'm eating one fried pork chop all.
• 1:07:08
  Right. Straight up pork chop, man, I
• 1:07:10
  grew up eating pork chops and that's one of my favorite
• 1:07:12
  things. OK And next tournament bracket I
• 1:07:15
  got is the top 16 athletes of all time.
• 1:07:19
  Bo Jackson. Enough said.
• 1:07:21
  Leave it. At that Matthew 1, Tom Brady,
• 1:07:23
  Lionel Messi. Tom Brady.
• 1:07:27
  All right, Michael Jordan, Dale Earnhardt.
• 1:07:32
  Michael Jordan. All right, Serena Williams, you
• 1:07:36
  same you, same ball. Serena Williams.
• 1:07:39
  All right, Michael Phelps, LeBron James.
• 1:07:44
  You really ain't got Bo Jackson on this thing, this
• 1:07:47
  conversation. It's longevity, Justin.
• 1:07:52
  LeBron James. All right.
• 1:07:56
  King Griffin Junior Simone Biles.
• 1:07:59
  Oh man. King Griffin junior.
• 1:08:01
  I really don't know much about Simone Biles, but I have to say
• 1:08:03
  Ken Griffin Junior. All right, Tiger Woods, Kobe
• 1:08:06
  Bryant. Oh shit, I gotta go, Kobe.
• 1:08:14
  All right. Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne
• 1:08:15
  Gretzky, Wayne Gretzky, Roger Federer, Muhammad Ali.
• 1:08:23
  Muhammad Ali all. Right.
• 1:08:26
  And Brady versus Jordan. Jordan, All right, Serena versus
• 1:08:32
  LeBron. Serena I don't like LeBron.
• 1:08:36
  Not a LeBron fan so I think he's great.
• 1:08:40
  But yeah, I'm going to get, of course, me personally, like I
• 1:08:44
  always I said before, I think Larry Bird was better than
• 1:08:47
  LeBron. That's just me.
• 1:08:49
  Dude, I would have really players of all time.
• 1:08:51
  Exactly. If he wouldn't have got his back
• 1:08:53
  hurt, it'd have been, I'm telling you, all right, Griffey
• 1:08:57
  versus Kobe. Oh, Kobe.
• 1:09:01
  Ray, Gretzky and Ali. Oh, man, that's tough.
• 1:09:11
  Probably, man. I think Muhammad Ali is one of
• 1:09:15
  the greatest spiders of all time.
• 1:09:17
  But I'm going to say, I'm going to say Wayne Gretzky, all right?
• 1:09:23
  And final four, Jordan versus Serena.
• 1:09:26
  Jordan. All right, Kobe versus Grisky.
• 1:09:30
  Kobe. All right, Final Kobe versus
• 1:09:34
  Jordan. I got to pick Jordan.
• 1:09:36
  Already writing it down. Of all time, who's Bo Jackson?
• 1:09:40
  Oh yeah, that's without a doubt. But that guy was a beast.
• 1:09:46
  Yeah, if he wouldn't have got hurt in the football game, it'd
• 1:09:49
  have been a different story. But Oh yeah, me being a Bronco
• 1:09:52
  fan, I'm a different Bronco fan, so.
• 1:09:55
  Yeah, he he was just the skill of him.
• 1:09:58
  People always talk about Dionne, dual sport.
• 1:10:00
  Bo Jackson, if he could have not had that tackle, if he wouldn't
• 1:10:04
  have got tackled by the Bengals, that was the guy was a freak of
• 1:10:08
  an athlete. Running up the wall and
• 1:10:10
  everything. It's hard to think of what he
• 1:10:12
  could have done. Just unreal.
• 1:10:13
  Exactly. All right.
• 1:10:15
  That's all I have for the interview.
• 1:10:17
  Your therapy session is over. I appreciate you going across
• 1:10:20
  town and hop on it was. Fun this.
• 1:10:23
  Is great. I appreciate it.
• 1:10:24
  I appreciate it. But if you have anything to
• 1:10:26
  promote or shout out, you can do that now.
• 1:10:29
  We don't get a lot. We got our we got our rubs and
• 1:10:31
  sauces. Everything's on our website,
• 1:10:34
  that's about it, and I probably need to give a shout out to my
• 1:10:36
  wife and kids for everything they've always done, but then
• 1:10:38
  that's pretty much it. The other thing we got coming,
• 1:10:40
  we got our sports bars coming that we've tied in with our we
• 1:10:43
  started using our Clark Crew BBQ there and some wings and stuff
• 1:10:46
  and it's about all I got going on in my life first.
• 1:10:49
  Do you have any classes or anything that you teach?
• 1:10:52
  Oh, we started doing a lot of backyard classes at the
• 1:10:54
  restaurant and I haven't done any this year.
• 1:10:56
  We get people calling and I told them when it cools off, we'll do
• 1:11:00
  some more on our patio out there.
• 1:11:02
  It's just too hot right now and nobody wants to be out in the
• 1:11:04
  heat. I think we'll do some again this
• 1:11:06
  fall. The backyard classes are so fun
• 1:11:08
  to do. I did a lot of competition
• 1:11:10
  classes. We taught over 1200 people over
• 1:11:12
  the years doing those. But it's the the backyard
• 1:11:15
  classes are fun because it's what you would really just cook
• 1:11:17
  at home, you know? Exactly.
• 1:11:19
  It's so fun. And now I'm definitely going to
• 1:11:21
  do pork chops out too, so. Yeah do y'all post them on your
• 1:11:26
  website or anything? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:27
  We usually we'll put them on our Facebook page and then our
• 1:11:29
  website. You can sign up on there to do
• 1:11:31
  them. We'll we'll put them on there.
• 1:11:32
  OK, OK. I'm not out.
• 1:11:34
  There, OK, because I'll definitely go sign up and make
• 1:11:37
  the adventure out there. We try to do them, you know, and
• 1:11:40
  like we'll do like a brisket and cheese dip, maybe some
• 1:11:43
  sandwiches. So we do.
• 1:11:45
  All right, cool, cool. All right.
• 1:11:46
  I appreciate you for coming on and.
• 1:11:48
  Thanks for having. Me.
• 1:11:49
  No problem. We'll see everybody in the next
• 1:11:51
  episode. We just wrapped up another
• 1:11:53
  session of BBQ therapy. Remember, stay patient, stay
• 1:11:57
  passionate, and keep that fire burning hit.
• 1:12:00
  Subscribe, share the good smoke, and pay the secretary on your
• 1:12:03
  way out. Have a blessed day.