Latest / BBQ Therapy / Kurt Mueller - Ironhead BBQ | Keep Calm and Smoke On

Transcript

Kurt Mueller - Ironhead BBQ | Keep Calm and Smoke On · BBQ Therapy

0:00
I can remember early on, there were some days literally I'd
0:04
make $16.00, I'd sell one or two plates.
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That was it. Yeah, that's, that sucks.
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You can't. They're not.
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There's no books you can read. There's no training or class you
0:16
can go to to prepare yourself for a day like that.
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You know, you just, I'd, I'd love to sit here and, and paint
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a rosy picture of rainbows and unicorns, but it, it's not,
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there's going to be days when it rains and nobody's buying.
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And then there's going to be other days when you sell out an
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hour and you feel terrible because, you know, you didn't
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bring enough food. So you, you, you got to look at
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it more than just one. You got to look at it the bigger
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picture. So anyway, but yeah, those are
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the fun days, man. Make it $16.00.
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I laugh about it now, but man, that was you.
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Talk about a tough That's a punch to the face right there.
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Exactly, because with BBQ is different from other food truck
0:59
because you can't wrap up BBQ, you can people going to tell if
1:03
it's old and you try to conserve it.
1:06
So it's definitely different from normal food trucks and the
1:10
process that you have to go through.
1:12
Waggle ham BBQ, waggle ham BBQ, waggle ham BBQ, waggle ham BBQ.
1:20
Ever notice how the sound of sizzling meat and the smell of
1:23
smoke can silence the noise of the world?
1:26
Now that's BBQ therapy. If the fire moves you like,
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subscribe, share and help spread the message because growth, like
1:34
good BBQ, takes time and patience.
1:38
Welcome to your therapy session. Welcome to the BBQ Therapy
1:44
podcast. My name is Tavis Bryant and on
1:47
this episode I have a special episode.
1:49
I call this a me episode. I'd like to bring people on that
1:53
inspired me along the way. And this episode features a true
1:58
underdog term, BBQ powerhouse Kurt Mueller, the former
2:02
financial planner who traded spreadsheets for smoker temps.
2:06
He built Arm Head BBQ from a competition circuit favorite to
2:10
a thriving food truck operation. And now he's gearing up to open
2:13
a brick and mortar restaurant in North Augusta, SC with French
2:18
ambitions. Along the way, he launched a
2:21
podcast, The BBQ Life, formerly BBQ for Newbies, catering for
2:26
festivals, employees and barbecue and through enthusiasts
2:30
across the region. With experience on BBQ USA and a
2:35
vision to take ARN Head national, Kurt's journey is as
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rich and flavorful as his BBQ lineup.
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From baby back ribs to Tri tip, he's carving his own path and
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his own style. It's time to meet ARN Head.
2:49
Welcome to the show at One Rule. Make yourself at home, speak
2:52
freely. But this is more conversation
2:54
and that all stiff and professional.
2:56
So enjoy yourself and thank you for coming on.
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I love it. Thank you for having me.
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It's great to be here. All right, no problem.
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I'm going to start it. I'm going to take it way back to
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your early days of growing up. Did you grow up around BBQ or
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did you discover it later on in life?
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I did grow up around it, so my dad really taught me how to do
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it when I was probably 8 or 9. And nothing fancy, right?
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Just old school black Weber charcoal grill.
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I think we all had them growing up, and I still have one,
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actually. But yeah, my dad taught me how
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to do it when I was 8 or 9, and that's just ignited that passion
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for it. And then I guess the rest is
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history, as they say. So did you start practicing?
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How long did it take you feel comfortable enough to jump to
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the next level? Oh, I would say I I never felt
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comfortable. Here's the deal.
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If you feel comfortable, you ain't doing something right.
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So I don't think I've ever felt comfortable along the way.
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When I got into competition BBQ, I didn't know what I was doing.
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I just felt, hey, you got to put jump in with both feet and it's
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the same thing. When I left financial planning,
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I didn't feel comfortable. I didn't know what I was doing.
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I still don't know what I'm doing.
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You got it. I, I would say you got it.
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One of the my favorite sayings is you got to get comfortable
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being uncomfortable. Yeah, that's a good saying too.
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So as far as financial planning, what goes into that is that
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dealing with inheritance or just organizing people how they spend
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or what it goes into financial advisor?
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Back in those days we did really the full scope, so everything
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from investment management to budgeting, like you said,
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monthly budgeting to inheritance, estate planning,
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insurance, you name it, we covered all of it and it was, I
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loved it. It's a people business.
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It's no different than what I do now.
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BBQ is a people business. You just, you're dealing with
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people in a much different aspect of their life.
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Let's be honest, the conversations I have now are way
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more exciting than than they were back when I was financial
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planning. At least when I'm at parties now
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with people and I tell them I'm on a BBQ restaurant, they don't
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turn the other way and run from me.
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But but no, it's like I said, it's a people business.
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So we're just dealing with them in a different aspect.
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You were that for 13 years. What triggered that leap into
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full time BBQ? Yeah, almost.
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Yeah, almost 13 years. Like you said, I started
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competing in 2021 and like I mentioned earlier, never felt
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comfortable about it. I just jumped right in May.
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Wait. Once I started competing, it
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really just refueled that passion, if you will.
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I learned a lot and met a lot of great people and just kept
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raising my game right, learning how to cook different meats,
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different temperatures, different smokers, all that
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stuff. And Fast forward.
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So that was the fall of 21 when we started.
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Fast forward to about the beginning of 23 and that's when
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I just had to have a conversation with the man in the
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mirror, right as they say, as one of my favorites, David
6:05
Goggins likes to say, you got to have a conversation with the man
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in the mirror and just came to the realization that I had lost
6:12
my passion for it. And that's that wasn't man
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that's not fair to me. It's not fair to my clients.
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So I just made the decision beginning of 2023 that I was
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going to go all in on barbecue and gave me about six months to
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get everything in line, communicate with my clients,
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etcetera and so made the jump officially in the full time
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barbecue in September of 23. That's a big decision,
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especially you having a family. There's a lot of pressure.
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How did that go over at home when you just came home?
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And honey, guess what, I'm gonna quit my job and start a full
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time BBQ. It went over like a lead
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balloon. I mean, it didn't go.
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It didn't go over very well. It didn't.
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And it's one of those things where it is what it is.
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That decision. I'm divorced now, of course, but
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that decision was made prior to those proceedings.
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It's one of those things where, yeah, certainly you want to
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discuss a move like that with your significant other.
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And it's it can be challenging because not everybody's going to
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get the support that I have. But, and that's just that's
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life. Yeah, 'cause that's your vision,
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your dream and you have it planned out and it's good to
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have somebody to hey, I see you doing it, go ahead, do what you
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want versus somebody that's bucking heads against what
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you're trying to do. But, and again, just like you
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said, you took six months to figure it all out and you just
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one day you just say I'm done, just go BBQ.
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So that's the key also to taking your time and plan ahead and get
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everything straight so when you transition, it won't be big of a
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hit. That's definitely a good way
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that you did it. How did your financial
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background play into competing as far as financial planning?
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Did that play into any way you dealt with competing?
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I think it comes down to 1 very important aspect of competing
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that is time management, right? Especially with all the
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different turn in times you have.
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If you're doing the KCBS sanction, you've got those four
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turn in times. So you got to manage your time,
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you got to manage your all the various things you got to line
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up. So I think time management's a
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big thing that I learned doing financial planning with the
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schedule that we kept to the calendar was real tight.
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And so I think that helped a lot on the competition side.
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Now the timing of things isn't as important on the commercial
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BBQ side and we can get into that.
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I want to jump ahead, but to answer your question, I think
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the time management was the biggest skill that carries over.
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OK, OK. And when you did your first
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competition, how did they go? We did.
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Our first one was actually September of 23 up in
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Cartersville, GA at a Harley-Davidson with the Georgia
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BBQ Association. I want to say there was 2829
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teams. We finished middle of the pack.
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We finished I think 1516 in that competition.
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So not great, not we weren't dead last.
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We weren't first by any means, but it was a lot of fun.
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Learned, like I said, learned a ton, met some great folks, very
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supportive folks at the GBA and that's how we that's how we
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started as we started competing in GBA, did a few Scbas and then
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jumped into KCBS. OK, OK.
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And your BBQ style, how do you describe it?
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How do you describe your BBQ style?
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Do you plan everything or sometime in the middle of the
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competition you may alter something?
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Or do you stick by the book mostly?
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When you did it, I know the big thing is everybody talks about
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doing the same thing every time and all that, and that's just
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not me. Maybe that's why we didn't do
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that great competing. I don't know.
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But I always like to change things up and I feel like
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competition, competition BBQ is no different than life 9998% of
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the time. You got a plan, it's not going,
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it's not going to go according to plan.
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You could have, you have a temperature or a temperature
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probe fail, you lose power. You have some bad wood that you
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put in your smoker, you got some bad meat, you drop some meat.
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There's all kinds of things that could happen, right?
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For me, I don't know, I'm not. Again, that's probably why we
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didn't do that great competing because I always like to change
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things up. I never stuck to the same thing
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every. I'm not saying everything was
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changed, but we would always. If I just got a gut feeling
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about something, I'd roll with it.
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And sometimes it paid off and sometimes it failed miserably.
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Did you take any classes back then or?
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I took a ton of classes. Yeah, that's one thing I'd
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recommend anybody getting into competition BBQ is the classes
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are really important. Took Robbie Royals class, which
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is amazing class. You want.
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Robbie's a wealth information stand up guy.
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Very willing to share what got him to his level of success.
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He was a huge catalyst for us in the beginning.
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So I can't say enough great things about Robbie.
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I took his class. I took the Atlanta BBQ Stores
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class. They have that in January I
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think. So I took that one year.
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I signed up for Myron Mixon's class.
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So now I'm just thinking about it.
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I never actually went so that's probably not a good thing but
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that. But I hear that's a good one and
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I'm trying to think. There was one more class I feel
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like I took and now I'm drawing a blank on it.
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I also bought Robbie's online courses.
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That's how it all started as I bought Robbie's online classes
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and started there and then that kind of gave me a base and then
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I started taking the in person classes.
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Oh, OK, yeah, I took Robbie's and I took Myron's.
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Myron was it's more it give you tips and stuff, but it's mainly
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for to me, it's mainly for show and selling products and 'cause
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this one, it was like maybe 60 people there and it he going to
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feed you. You left with two gallon size
12:02
bags of meat. But I think it's more show than
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OK, I'm going to learn. It's more backyardish I guess.
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But he does the whole hog and the different comp meats.
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But I think it's more geared for just going to shooting the
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breeze and stuff like that. But that 975 price tag was,
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yeah. But like it's like you said,
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Robbie was on point where he is much.
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Yeah, yeah. And he gives you back then he'd
12:31
give you a playbook, he'd give you like his a binder of all the
12:36
stuff that he did. So it was very helpful on the
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competition side. His class is very much focused
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on competing. Sounds like Myron's is more like
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just cooking at home kind of thing, which is not bad.
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Which is different. Yeah, definitely.
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But yeah, he, he gave us the binder and did different
12:55
associations and had information about all that.
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So it was very helpful. And like I said, I, like you
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said, I like taking classes also because everybody have something
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different to give. Most of the process.
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A lot of them are the same, but there's tips, little small
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things here and there that you may not have thought of that you
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can pick up as well as I like going there just to make
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connections with some of the people that come there.
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And I've made so many friends just for people just sitting in
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the audience and just talking to folks and fellowship.
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And so that's why I like going to them.
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But I've been to five myself because I've been to Luke
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Darnell, Joe Pierce and Chris Shaffer's Glass also, and they
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were awesome. Also recommend to anybody that
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have an interest in it, it definitely take a class and it
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cuts the cost of having to go out there and do trial and
13:52
error. So it's definitely helpful.
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You started out as Atomic City smokers.
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What made you change the Iron Here?
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BBQ. A big thing for us was when we
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started, I had two guys helping me, a friend of mine and my
14:06
brother. And they, they didn't want to
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compete as much as I did in the early days.
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And so they, they took a step back and I also realized that
14:16
this might turn into a business. So my biggest thing was I wanted
14:21
to protect the brand name. I wanted to protect the name for
14:25
branding purposes. So I met with a trade marking
14:27
attorney and he told me that I couldn't trademark Atomic City
14:31
Smokers because there was too many Atomic City fill in the
14:35
blanks out there. Great.
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So I said I went back to the drawing board and Iron Head was
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a name that my high school football coach gave me way back
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in the day, his nickname. So I started playing around with
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ideas and I just like the way it sounds.
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I like the way it sounded, had some graphics made and then went
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back to the attorney and once he gave me the green light says,
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yeah, you can trademark that. Then I said, all right, let's do
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it. We got a trademark, protect the
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brand because I do want to be able to franchise that out
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nationally one day. OK, OK, that makes sense.
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OK. And you did a you were on BBQ
15:13
USA. How did that change your life?
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Did it make you more recognizable?
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Did it help get sponsors? How did that play into boosting
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your BBQ life? Yeah, it was a ton of fun, no
15:27
doubt, to be with Michael Simon and the crew on BBQ USA.
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So for us, what we saw is it really grew our social media.
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We didn't get any sponsors as a direct result of that, just to
15:37
be clear, but it definitely boosted our social media
15:40
presence and which led to increased awareness.
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We started getting a lot of requests for catering at kids,
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birthday parties, graduation parties, that kind of thing.
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And so it really helped us from a branding standpoint, just
15:56
launch us out there. But like I said, we didn't get
15:59
any sponsors necessarily from it, but it did help with our
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overall social media presence in a roundabout way.
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It definitely helped with name recognition which led to more
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catering opportunities. Oh yeah, I actually had a brief
16:15
3 second cameo on one of the episodes because we had went to
16:19
Memphis in May. I took my wife up there and 2023
16:23
and we was Blues Hog was doing their presentation and one of
16:28
the people there, they was very friendly to me.
16:31
Mark Bayless, he called me over. Come on, you can get up here and
16:35
listen to it while they do their presentation for the judges.
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So I'm sitting up there and they say, you know, I told my wife
16:42
that'd be funny if I was on TV. I'm sitting here watching
16:45
episode 10 of Season 2 and I'm sitting right there crowded in
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with them. I was like, oh, OK, all right.
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And you say you were with GBA and then you switched to KCBS.
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What are your thoughts on each and what made you ultimately
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switching to KCBS? For me, they're both both great
17:08
organizations, Very different organizations, right?
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GBA only judges pork, so you get your pork loin, pork ribs, pork
17:15
butt. KCBS, of course has all four,
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your chicken, your brisket, pork and ribs.
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For me, I just, I want to be able to cook beef and that's why
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I did it. And selfishly there was, there
17:28
was more KCBS events closer to me than GBA, so it was just a
17:34
convenience factor for me. But the biggest thing was
17:36
getting I wanted to get more experience cooking the chicken,
17:40
cooking, the cooking the beef. That was the main reason behind
17:43
it. And we're going to switch over
17:45
to the podcast. And like I told everybody at the
17:48
beginning that one of the main reasons I started the podcast
17:52
was because of you. For those that don't know that
17:55
you had a podcast back in the day that was catered towards
17:59
people that were starting in barbecue and basically giving
18:03
people backgrounds and giving people tips and stuff like that.
18:09
And like I said, I this is a me episode where I like to bring
18:12
people on. There's instrumental in helping
18:15
me get along and barbecue. And like I said, I want to thank
18:19
you for having that podcast and helping me learn while I'm
18:24
riding in the car because the way I work out, it's like an
18:28
hour away so I can listen to a few episodes driving back and
18:32
forth and stuff like that and getting tips.
18:34
I said I thank you for thinking of the people that didn't know
18:38
much and investing in US because you didn't have to do that, but
18:42
you took time to think of others and help educate others on the
18:46
world of BBQ. So I want to thank you for that
18:49
and what made you get into podcasting.
18:52
I was like, what? Probably similar reasons that
18:55
you started a podcast. I really love BBQ.
18:57
I wanted to share what I had learned from everybody else with
19:01
everybody that I could. When I was looking at the
19:03
podcast landscape, I realized that there wasn't a whole lot of
19:06
podcasts out there that talked about the whole scope of BBQ
19:11
competition, restaurant, backyard, just the whole
19:17
everything. So that was my, that was what
19:20
drove me to start the podcast was I just felt like it was a
19:23
great way to share the message and make those connections, get
19:25
a chance to to enter, get introduced to people that you
19:30
wouldn't normally be introduced to and network with folks.
19:32
And so, yeah, that was the main. Those are the driving forces
19:35
behind me starting it. Yeah, it's definitely a gamble
19:39
because I'm when I start I'm thinking like, OK, ain't nobody
19:42
going to sign up and how is this going to go and how I'm going to
19:46
do. I'm not a people talkative
19:48
person and stuff like that. But it's an experience that I'm
19:50
learning as I go along and people have been willing to sign
19:54
up. I've because I record and then I
19:57
bring them out 1 by 1. I had to slow down and taking
20:00
the invitations because it was I would get 20 in one month.
20:05
So if people are out there and willing to.
20:08
Share their story and their products and stuff like that and
20:12
exciting to see that people willing to help other people by
20:17
coming on and giving their stories.
20:18
As I said it, it's like a you pass the torch and I want to
20:22
take it and carry it on and continue on what you're doing as
20:27
well as give you your props for what you did for me as well as
20:31
what I do probably for the next person and keep it going.
20:34
To think of those that are starting out and let them know
20:38
they're not left out and give them that boost that they might
20:40
need to jump into whatever they want to do, whether it's food
20:44
truck, restaurant or or just cooking in the backyard.
20:48
Just getting better. So you started around the time
20:52
you were how far into competing where you when you started the
20:55
podcast was around the same time?
20:58
Let's see, we started the podcast.
21:02
It was probably, I'd say we were about a it was a year.
21:08
Yeah, it's about a year, about a year into competing.
21:12
Excuse me. So I started competing in the
21:15
fall of 21 and the podcast came out like end of summer 22, so a
21:21
little less than a year and. How hard was that process of
21:25
getting started as well as staying consistent?
21:28
It's overwhelming. There's just so many things to
21:30
think about when you start a podcast, how you going to record
21:33
it? What equipment do you need?
21:35
What's your background going to look like?
21:37
And for me, I didn't really think about any of that.
21:40
I was just like, let's just toughest thing for me was OK,
21:43
what's the logo going to look like?
21:44
What's the name, right? What's the name going to look
21:46
like? What's the logo going to look
21:48
like? What equipment do I need?
21:50
So it's just there's a lot of time spent.
21:53
You almost get analysis paralysis, right?
21:56
You just so many things to think about and you're like, for me,
21:59
it was a little overwhelming. I was lucky that I took a a
22:03
podcasting course from a girl named Heather Parody, who's
22:07
become a great friend of mine. Anyway, at the time she was
22:11
offering like how to start up a podcast course and it was like a
22:15
four week course. And I'm a list kind of guy,
22:18
right? Just don't tell me how the watch
22:20
is made. Tell me what time it is.
22:21
So just give me give me action items to do and I'll go out and
22:25
do them and just cross them off, right?
22:26
That's just that's how that's that keeps me organized anyway.
22:31
So that helped me just in terms of what equipment I needed.
22:34
What was my recording? How was I going to record it?
22:37
All that fun stuff. And then from there, once you
22:40
get the base stuff and the important things, then you can
22:44
start adding on the bells and whistles, so to speak, like you
22:46
got a background and you can get all kinds.
22:50
It's just like anything else, right?
22:51
There's a whole market for podcasters and there's, you can
22:56
spend as much money as you want to there.
22:59
There's just, it's like any other niche market, right?
23:03
It's people that are in the cars, people that are into BBQ.
23:06
There's products for days, so you can get out of control with
23:10
it. But I would say to anybody who
23:13
wants to start a podcast, help. The technology is so great
23:17
nowadays. You could literally start a
23:18
podcast with nothing more than your phone.
23:20
Exactly. That's true.
23:22
And the biggest thing I noticed too, there's a lot of podcasts
23:26
out there, but there's not a lot of podcasts that are consistent.
23:30
That's the key. You got to be consistent,
23:33
whether it's weekly, whatever it is, just stick to that
23:36
consistency. Yeah, definitely.
23:38
I appreciate that advice much for myself because like I said,
23:42
I didn't know what I was getting into because since I've never
23:44
did anything like this, I didn't have no media background.
23:48
So YouTube, just YouTube, just watching and learning go on
23:52
Amazon, see what little products here and there.
23:55
Like you said, it doesn't take a lot.
23:56
Half of the stuff I already had in here, I just pieced it
24:00
together. I bought the background here
24:02
behind me for Vistaprint, but and then just go from there.
24:05
But it doesn't take a lot of people try to tell people you
24:08
need this need $700.00 microphones and all this other
24:11
stuff and have folks broke before they even get started.
24:15
But it doesn't take much to get started and my thing is mainly
24:21
doing your homework and having a game plan as far as when it
24:25
comes to interviewing people and just meeting people, period.
24:30
People like when you know who they are and stuff like that.
24:33
I do my homework. So when it's the opportunity, I
24:36
can walk up and say hey, so and they look like they know.
24:39
I've done that numerous times and know about people that's and
24:42
from YouTube books or anything like that.
24:45
So when the opportunity come, I'm prepared and know how to
24:49
present myself to them, know about them and stuff like that
24:53
which makes them more welcoming and when it's helped me out
24:57
greatly on a lot of people that I've met.
24:59
And some of the people I didn't had early on, they probably
25:03
wondering, OK, he didn't have Harry Sue on here.
25:05
He didn't have Tim Shear, Chris Shaffer.
25:08
Yeah, you on here and it had Reuters and tutors on here and
25:12
I'm just I only been here on here month and.
25:15
Yep. The thing is that everybody
25:18
don't know and everybody trying to, some people trying to fill
25:21
out, OK, who is this guy and all that?
25:23
But some people that I met, they know, OK, this is a welcoming
25:28
guy that's got to know his stuff and he's not taking this as a
25:31
joke and I'm being serious about it.
25:34
And they invested in me and I appreciate that they're doing
25:38
that and knowing that I'm here to stay and I'm here to offer
25:42
something to people to help them out.
25:45
So it it, it's definitely been great start to doing this.
25:50
There's some downside 'cause it's tedious and stuff like
25:52
that. And I don't have a team.
25:56
I'm doing this all by myself, but editing and making the all
26:00
types of graphics and stuff like that and promoting yourself and
26:02
stuff like that. But it's helping me learn and be
26:07
more professional and as far as organized as well as that.
26:12
But I know, but it's a lot that goes into it that people don't
26:16
know. People just think you just click
26:18
on the on button record and going about your business.
26:22
But it's dealing with people trying to get organized and
26:26
coming up with the interviews to be different from everybody else
26:29
and not ask the same questions. But it is.
26:33
I wouldn't trade it for nothing in the world because I love BBQ
26:35
that much and I love the people BBQ that much.
26:38
That is worth it to come out my comfort zone to do this and help
26:42
people. That's why I said I definitely
26:45
thank you for giving me that push into doing this.
26:50
So the food truck, what made you want to get into starting a food
26:54
truck? Did you see somebody else with a
26:56
food truck and investigate or did you?
26:59
What made you want to get into doing the food truck?
27:03
No, I think for me, going back to what we were talking about
27:05
with the social media and how BBQ USA helped us with that,
27:10
that open the door to be able to pick up business, whether it was
27:16
some graduation parties or birthday parties, whatever it
27:19
was. But that started getting our
27:21
name out there. And then when I realized I
27:25
didn't want to do financial planning anymore, the next
27:28
thought was, OK, how am I going to make a living?
27:30
Right? You got to make a living.
27:31
You got to live, go to work. And I knew that I had a passion
27:35
for BBQ. I knew that people liked our
27:37
food. So I said, all right, I don't
27:39
have, I don't have a million and a half dollars laying around to
27:43
go build a restaurant and buy all the equipment.
27:45
So what's the most cost efficient way for me to get into
27:50
the BBQ business? And that's a food truck, right?
27:53
That led into all right, what's the next step?
27:58
When we got the food truck up and running, then we had to
28:02
upgrade our trailer. So we went from our original
28:05
black trailer to the blue trailer, and then literally
28:08
about the same time we got the blue trailer is when the
28:12
building that's two blocks from my house came up for lease.
28:15
So anyway, but to answer your question that the transition was
28:18
basically #1A need to make a living, right?
28:22
Got to be honest with yourself. You got to generate revenue
28:24
unless you're a trust fund baby. And then two, where's your
28:27
passion lie? My passion lie in BBQ.
28:29
So I'm like, you know what? I think I could.
28:32
I think I can make this profitable.
28:34
OK. And how was that?
28:35
How hard was that process of getting started as far as
28:38
initially having the idea to actually getting the first
28:41
customer? For us it was gradual.
28:45
I don't they wouldn't say. I wouldn't say it was that
28:47
challenging to get the first customer because our we had
28:49
already laid some groundwork just from our competition days.
28:53
People had, they'd eaten our food, so we had some.
28:58
It was a small customer base, but it was still a base.
29:00
The biggest challenge when you go from like just doing catering
29:05
to a food truck, you're, there is no guaranteed revenue there,
29:10
right? When you do a catering job,
29:11
let's say the job's $1000, OK, I'm getting paid $1000.
29:15
But when you go set up your food truck somewhere, you don't know
29:18
what you're getting. So the biggest challenge to that
29:21
for me, the biggest punch to the gut, so to speak, was I can
29:25
remember early on, there were some days literally I'd make
29:29
$16.00, I'd sell one or two plates.
29:33
That was it. Yeah, that's, that sucks.
29:37
You can't, there's no, there's no books you can read.
29:40
There's no training or class you can go to to prepare yourself
29:44
for a day like that. You know, you just, I'd love to
29:48
sit here and and paint a rosy picture of rainbows and
29:51
unicorns, but it it's not. There's going to be days when it
29:55
rains and nobody's buying. And then there's going to be
29:58
other days when you sell out an hour and you feel terrible
30:01
because, you know, you didn't bring enough food.
30:03
So you got to look at it more than just one.
30:07
You got to look at it the bigger picture.
30:10
So anyway, but yeah, those are the fun days, man.
30:13
Make it $16.00. I laugh about it now, but man,
30:16
that was you. Talk about a tough That's a
30:19
punch. The face right there.
30:20
Exactly, because we're BBQ is different from other food truck
30:24
because you can't wrap up BBQ, you can people going to tell if
30:28
it's old and you trying to conserve it.
30:31
So it's definitely different from normal food trucks and the
30:35
process that you have to go through.
30:37
Can you run through a typical day of the food truck?
30:41
Because a lot of people don't know what goes into the
30:43
background as far as when it come to cooking meat, having to
30:47
get up early and stuff like that.
30:48
Could you run through a process of a food truck day to show how
30:52
long your day is? Oh yeah, for sure.
30:56
And I would preface this by saying that everybody's
30:59
timelines and their structure is going to be slightly different
31:02
because it all depends on what do you, what do you cooking,
31:06
what's your cooker? What's your personal life like?
31:09
What are your other obligations? So all this is going to be
31:11
different. But for me, in the early days
31:14
when it was just me, I had to develop processes and systems
31:19
that were repeatable and that were maximizing my time
31:26
efficiency because I was only one person.
31:28
We would, I'd put the big cuts of meat on around 4:00 in the
31:32
afternoon. So your butts, your brisket,
31:35
your beef ribs, those go on the smoker.
31:39
And at the time we primarily cooked on a Deep South gravity
31:43
fed smoker, GC28. We've had her for almost 4 years
31:47
now. Her name is Babe.
31:49
Anyway, so I would cook low and slow. 235 was my cooking
31:53
temperature. So 4:00 The big meats go on.
31:56
I usually am up at 3:00 AM. That's when I'm wrapping
31:59
everything. The butts, the brisket, the beef
32:02
ribs. That's also when I'm putting on
32:05
the smaller cuts of meat, right? The chicken, the ribs, Tri tip
32:11
and then I'm and then I'm getting the sides ready.
32:13
Usually at the sides are prepped the day before.
32:15
So this we smoke our Mac and cheese, we smoke our baked
32:17
beans. So anyway, all that goes on
32:21
around 4:00 in the morning, give or take.
32:24
And then I go workout, come back about 6:30.
32:28
Usually there's something like usually by that point in time,
32:31
the butts, the brisket, the beef ribs, they're ready to come off.
32:34
They go in the cameras to rest and then I'm periodically
32:38
checking the sides and stuff like that.
32:40
And then our goal was usually we serve lunch from 11:00 to 2:00.
32:44
We like to get to the place an hour early to be able to set up.
32:48
So my target to leave, to leave to head that way was always
32:52
around 9:30 in the morning. So that was my, I guess my
32:55
guideline was OK, how close is it to 930?
32:59
And that's when you start around about 8:30 is when I would start
33:02
getting all the preparations for the trailer itself going through
33:05
my checks. Do I have enough paper towels?
33:07
Do I have enough gloves? Do I have enough sauce?
33:09
Like all that stuff, right? Hook in the trailer, getting all
33:13
that ready with the goal to leave by 9:30.
33:16
And then you serve from 11:00 to 2:00, clean up by the time you
33:21
get back 3330. And then the whole process
33:24
starts again. So they're four O clock.
33:26
So in the early days it was we were doing 5-6 days, sometimes
33:29
seven days a week. Since then, since I got the
33:32
trailer, I hired more people and now I'm at the point where I
33:37
don't even work on the truck anymore.
33:39
I'm all at the restaurant driving that shit.
33:43
OK. And I, I noticed when I look at
33:46
your menu, you serve a lot of meats that people typically
33:49
don't serve and the quality that they, the quality of your meats
33:54
are way different from other people's.
33:57
What made you decide to do the higher quality meats on your
34:01
food truck? Yes, you hit the nail on the
34:04
head there. Number one, we're not trying to
34:07
be like everybody else. People ask me what kind of what
34:10
style is our barbecue and I say it's iron head style.
34:13
We don't. We're not trying to be Texas.
34:15
We're not trying to be Midwest. We're not trying to be West
34:18
Coast. We're trying to be our own
34:19
style, do our own thing. Some people like it, some people
34:22
don't. That's OK.
34:24
We're not going, no matter what we do, we're not going to make
34:26
everybody happy. So our style is iron head.
34:30
That's just how we roll. That goes back to what you said.
34:34
We serve tricep. That's West Coast.
34:36
You're not going to find that on the East Coast.
34:38
Very few and far between. Dino beef ribs, the Dino ribs,
34:42
that's Texas, your brisket, Texas.
34:45
And then of course, our baby back ribs, pulled pork, that's S
34:49
SE and chicken. Man, I hate chicken.
34:52
I don't like cooking chicken. I'll be honest with you, I don't
34:55
my staff gives me a hard time about it.
34:57
I just I cook it because people want it and I understand that
35:02
I'm going to service business and sometimes you got to give
35:04
the people what they want. But anyway, but to your .1 of
35:09
the things I looked at from the numbers side, right, when I
35:11
analyzed OK, when I looked at the industry locally, right, I'm
35:15
in the Augusta area. So when I looked at the local
35:18
market for BBQ, I kept seeing the same thing over and over
35:22
again. Chicken and pork, chicken and
35:24
pork, chicken and pork. Right?
35:26
Nothing wrong with chicken and pork.
35:28
I like it except for chicken, but nothing wrong with it,
35:31
right? But that's what people are used
35:33
to now from the business side of things, I understand
35:37
commercially. There's a reason they sell a lot
35:39
of chicken and pork. It's cheap.
35:42
It's cheap. And guess what?
35:45
Here's a secret, not a whole lot of people want to know they can
35:48
put it in the fridge and reheat it for the next day and you're
35:51
not going to lose a whole lot in quality because it's chicken and
35:55
pork, right? You're just not.
35:57
So I said we want to be different.
35:59
I don't want to be the same and beef is what separates us.
36:04
So that's what I decided I said, you know what we are going to
36:06
own? We're going to be the kings of
36:07
beef, right? Our chicken's going to be great.
36:10
Our pork's going to be great, but our beef is what's going to
36:12
separate us. And so once I made the decision
36:19
to focus on beef, then it was, OK, where can I get the right
36:23
product? Because Tri tip at retail
36:26
prices, Tri tip is insane. You're looking at 10 to $12.00 a
36:30
pound. You can't.
36:34
There's no way you could sell that commercially and be
36:37
profitable. You'd have to sell it.
36:38
You'd have to sell it for $60.00 a pound.
36:41
And that's just you're not going to sell it to anybody.
36:44
So I was fortunate I found a beef distributor that's 12
36:47
minutes from the restaurant in Augusta and all they do is beef.
36:52
And they said, look, we can get you as much Tri tip as you need.
36:55
I said perfect. So I've been buying from them
36:56
ever since. The other thing like you said
36:59
about quality is I've refused very early on.
37:03
As I said, I'm not buying anything less than prime.
37:07
It's going to be prime or better with the way the beef market is.
37:11
It fluctuates like any other market.
37:14
What I determined, what I found was, is that Wagyu beef brisket
37:18
specifically is really not that much more than prime, but the
37:23
quality difference is huge, huge.
37:27
So I said, you know what, I'm willing from a business side of
37:29
things. I'm willing to take less margin,
37:33
right? So I'm willing to make a little
37:34
bit less to buy a better product Wagyu because I know long term
37:41
we're going to have repeat business.
37:42
Because if someone is comparing our brisket to a, another
37:48
commercial brisket, chances are that outfit is cooking a choice
37:51
brisket or maybe in some cases some of the larger chains
37:56
actually cook select. So you're talking about bottom
37:59
of the barrel, right? Bottom of the barrel.
38:02
So if you put a, if you put a Wagyu brisket against a select
38:04
brisket, it's just, it's like she, it's, there's no
38:07
competition there. There's none.
38:10
And I could say the same thing for a Wagyu versus a as my son.
38:14
I can say it, I can say the same thing.
38:16
I can say the same thing for a Wagyu against a choice.
38:19
There's just no competition. I also know that the higher
38:23
quality meat you buy, the greater your margin for error is
38:28
because like brisket, for example, there's way more
38:31
marble, way more fat and a Wagyu brisket than there is a choice.
38:36
So my margin for error on that is much greater than a choice.
38:40
So I don't can I still dry it out?
38:43
Of course, but my timing, I have much greater time right until
38:49
that happens, especially when you're in the commercial world
38:52
and you're starting to staff up and you're hiring people that
38:56
they don't. So there are some folks believe
38:59
it or not now they know now, but when they first started with us,
39:01
they couldn't tell you. They couldn't.
39:03
If they had a brisket laying next to a pork butt, they
39:05
wouldn't know which ones, which to you and me sounds absolutely
39:08
insane, right? You're like, wait, talking.
39:10
That's like an apple and orange, believe it or not, like I didn't
39:12
know this. I just took it for granted
39:15
because I'm around it all the time.
39:16
But there are some folks they've never seen a pour a raw pork
39:19
butt. They never cooked one.
39:22
They've never seen a brisket or tried to.
39:24
So for when you own a restaurant, you're hiring people
39:27
who have never cooked anything, training them and getting them
39:31
to not dry out the brisket. It's much easier to do that with
39:34
a Wagyu than it is a choice. But from a business side, like I
39:37
said, I analyze the numbers and I know because I have Contra or
39:42
because I have accounts with multiple food distributors, I
39:45
can see their price of choice brisket.
39:47
So I know what my competition is paying for it, right?
39:51
And I know what I'm paying for my Wagyu, so I can buy a Wagyu
39:54
less than they're buying choice for, right?
39:56
So for me it was, hey, let's buy it, let's buy a higher quality.
40:01
It helps with marketing. Everybody wants Wagyu.
40:03
And to be clear, this is American Wagyu, the same
40:05
Japanese Wagyu. Just to be clear out there, I'm
40:08
not trying to get anybody all fired up.
40:09
This is not Japanese Wagyu. I wouldn't.
40:12
I'd have to charge a lot more if it was.
40:14
But for me, in our business model, I said we're going to
40:18
serve a higher quality grade of meat.
40:21
We're going to charge more for that.
40:23
But I believe people are going to pay more for it, and they do.
40:27
So that's just, I view that as a more longer term play.
40:31
Same thing with pork ribs. Most everybody in the business
40:36
and even competing with the exception of Memphis BBQ
40:40
Network. So Memphis BBQ Network, you're
40:42
going to cook baby back ribs, right?
40:46
KCBS, GB, ASCBA, you're cooking spare ribs.
40:51
I hate spare ribs don't like, I don't like the little grisly
40:54
thing on the end. Some people say you can just cut
40:57
it off. That's true.
40:58
You can do the same lows cut. But now we going to do the rest
41:01
of that and I got to fuck. So to me, I'll cook a baby back
41:06
rib all day long. I'll take baby backs over spare
41:08
ribs all day long. Why?
41:11
There's much less prep on my end for it.
41:13
And I looked at the numbers. In my opinion, you can get a
41:17
greater yield from a baby back then you can a spare rib based
41:24
on the price per pound. In other words, what I'm saying
41:26
is I believe you get a better output on the cooked meat output
41:33
on the back end. I think you get a better output
41:36
per pound on a baby back versus a spare rib.
41:40
So the cost is really marginal, but the quality, again, quality
41:46
going back to quality, in my opinion, when you take a baby
41:49
back rib versus a spare rib, that baby back rib is going to
41:52
have so much more meat on it. You're not going to have that
41:55
gristle. And again, most outfits don't
41:58
work. To my knowledge, we're the only
42:00
ones in our area that serve baby back ribs.
42:02
Everybody else serving spare ribs, why?
42:05
They're cheaper, but are they really?
42:08
And in my opinion, they're not in the long run anyway, that's a
42:12
long way to answer your question.
42:13
But that's why it's focused so much on quality because of, like
42:16
I said, repeat business and your margin for error is so much
42:21
greater. So it helps when you're staffing
42:23
up and when you got people that just they don't cook, they don't
42:27
know. Exactly.
42:29
There's a lot of people don't even know there's different
42:31
types of meat. They don't know nothing about
42:33
Prime, they don't know nothing about the Wagyu or the choice
42:37
and stuff like that. And then once they tried they
42:40
like this is good God. I know I didn't grow it up.
42:43
I didn't know nothing about that.
42:44
I just thought all meat was the same in the store, but once I
42:47
got in the BBQ, you started learning OK, they got different
42:52
qualities of meat and it draws your attention to the more
42:56
higher quality meats and stuff that you can tell other people
43:00
that's not good right there. Get this right here.
43:02
Or just giving advice to people as far as the quality of meat
43:08
that doesn't know that. And what you're doing is
43:11
stepping outside of the box where people just getting any
43:15
meat because they like, oh, they'll buy it, but you're
43:18
giving them quality is like a fine dining food truck that you
43:23
have and that you set a standard for yourself and you're sticking
43:27
by that standard regardless of what going on.
43:30
And you did your homework on trying to figure out a way to be
43:35
able to get those higher priced meats as well as not breaking
43:39
yourself in the process and giving somebody elevated
43:43
experience that they may not be able to try any other place.
43:48
Because any, like you said, most restaurants, they have the same
43:52
old low budget meat, but they just think in the head like
43:57
they're going to buy it anyway and go from there.
44:00
As well as not putting thought in to what size they have to go
44:04
with the meat and stuff like that.
44:06
And 'cause that to me, the sides also play a big part of the BBQ
44:13
meat 'cause if you don't have good sides, it throws it off.
44:16
And some people don't, they have bad sides and stuff that come
44:22
out of cans and all this other stuff that they didn't doctored
44:24
up and it throws off the BBQ even if the BBQ is good.
44:28
I've been to a couple of restaurants where the BBQ is
44:31
good. But besides, they're like, I
44:34
don't want to eat this. And with you, your sides are
44:38
elevated as well as you involved the dessert where you got the
44:43
cakes and pies and stuff like that.
44:45
So it's, even though it's a food truck, it gives the people the
44:48
experience of a fine dining restaurant, but the casualness
44:53
of being a food truck. So there's definitely, like I
44:57
said, I'm looking forward to making a field trip up there to
45:01
visit the restaurant. What made you transition to one
45:05
in a restaurant? Could you give a rundown of the
45:07
restaurant, the size and a little bit about the restaurant
45:10
that you're on the way to open it?
45:14
Yeah, absolutely. So the short answer is because I
45:16
want to build a national brand. I want to build a national
45:20
franchise. I want to, I want AI want an
45:22
Iron Head BBQ restaurant in every single state, multiple
45:25
locations, right? That's the end goal.
45:27
So in order to do that, you have to have you have to have one,
45:30
right? You got to start with one.
45:32
And talk is cheap right now. I can talk all I want, but we
45:35
have to show a proven business model.
45:37
We have to show that our model works.
45:40
And at the end of the day, numbers don't lie.
45:43
So we have to show that we can make this work to be able to
45:47
justify additional locations in our area and then justify
45:51
locations in the Southeast and then growing nationally.
45:55
So that's number one. Number two, I felt like it was
45:58
the next step for us, right? And sometimes you'd rather be
46:02
lucky than good, right? So we got really lucky.
46:06
A restaurant that had been closed, that was a former BBQ
46:09
restaurant had been closed for over a year.
46:13
It's two blocks from my house. I've been keeping my eye on the
46:15
building, talked to some commercial Realtors in the area,
46:18
said hey, listen, you find out anything about this building,
46:22
give me a call, let me know. Sure enough, couple of weeks
46:26
later, got a call, hey, building was sold.
46:31
It's bought by Son's. They're going to put it up for
46:33
lease. Let's take a look at it.
46:35
And so again, right place, right time now, I had to had to fight
46:40
off some other folks that wanted that building too.
46:43
And it wasn't easy. Took two or three months just to
46:45
hammer out the lease agreement. I felt like that was the next
46:48
stage in our growth, growth progression.
46:51
And like I said, it's two blocks from the house.
46:53
So when I had my boys up there helping me, they like, hey dad,
46:55
we're done. Can we go home?
46:56
Sure, walk home. I didn't want to let that slip
46:59
and I had to make some concessions.
47:01
When you're in negotiations for anything, especially a
47:04
commercial lease, you know you're not going to get
47:06
everything you want. The other side's not going to
47:08
get everything they we want. I feel like we hammered out a
47:11
really fair deal and we took over.
47:14
The reason I wish I was, I wish I was open last week, but that
47:17
building was very neglected. I've learned a lot about
47:21
commercial structures I don't know anything about.
47:25
I don't know anything about construction, but we've had a
47:28
lot of amazing tradesmen and women helping us with that
47:32
building because it's outside of my area of expertise.
47:34
So the building itself is 37, excuse me, 3700 square feet.
47:40
It was a former BBQ restaurant, so that makes it a little bit
47:43
easier. It's got an outdoor screened in
47:45
smoking room. The kitchen is one of my
47:47
favorite. The kitchen is outdated.
47:50
The the original building was built in 1974.
47:53
So it's been there a minute and it's been over those years, it's
47:56
been all kinds of different things.
47:59
But the kitchen, in my opinion, is one of the best features
48:01
because it is so large and so open.
48:05
And that's big when you're when you get a lot of people running
48:07
around and those kinds of things.
48:09
Our design for the restaurant is to do what I would call
48:14
cafeteria style, right? So it's not a buffet.
48:17
I don't want to ever do a buffet.
48:18
That's just not our business model.
48:20
But we the biggest thing I was trying to figure out.
48:23
So when we first started with our food truck, we worked out of
48:26
a tent next to our trailer and people could see you slicing the
48:30
meat, serving the food. When we went into a food
48:32
trailer, they can't see that anymore.
48:36
I wanted to bring that back and you obviously you got to go
48:40
through and you got to comply with all the health, the health
48:44
department rules and all that. I figured out a great way to
48:46
bring that back is to do it cafeteria style.
48:48
So that way people can smell the food when they come in, they can
48:51
see it and we want to be able to slice the meat in front of them.
48:54
So we're going to be set up as more or a fast casual type of
48:57
restaurant, right? Not full service.
48:59
You're going to come in, you going to see the you're going to
49:02
see the buffet. You're going to pick what you
49:04
want, pay for it, grab you a drink, go sit down or get back
49:08
in your car and leave. But we're not going to have
49:10
table service or anything like that because I wanted to keep it
49:14
simple. But also speed is important,
49:18
right? Especially let's be honest here,
49:21
right? A lot of the blue collar guys,
49:24
that's our customers, man. They're BBQ people, right?
49:27
They don't have an hour and a half for lunch.
49:31
They want to come in, they want to get their food.
49:33
They want to get a good portion of food at a reasonable price
49:36
fast. That's what they want and that
49:39
goes back to our food truck days because we go to Bridgestone,
49:41
which big tire manufacturer, biggest one in the world, I
49:45
think. But there's two Bridgestone
49:46
plants that we go to every week with the food trailer every
49:49
week, Wednesday and Thursday. They got 30 minutes for lunch
49:53
out there. They might walk 10 minutes.
49:56
That plants huge. They might walk 10 minutes to
49:59
get to you. OK, so now they got 10 minutes.
50:03
They're not. So that all serving on the food
50:06
truck, I think helped us because we're so used to quality and
50:11
speed got to be fast. And so I wanted to keep that at
50:16
the restroom. And the way that I figured out
50:18
how to do that is to do the cafeteria style because it
50:22
accomplished 2 things. One, it kept our speed and
50:25
quality, but two, it's still allowed folks to smell the food
50:29
and see the food because at the end of the day, people eat with
50:31
their eyes first. Exactly.
50:34
Why do you think they got these big menus in these restaurants
50:36
with these real bright colors when they're showing the dishes?
50:41
It makes sense, right? So that's going to be the layout
50:44
of our of our restaurant. Eventually we're going to put in
50:48
a bar and we're going to serve beer and wine.
50:51
Football season's coming up, so I'm not stupid.
50:54
Football and BBQ go together. But yeah, 3700 square feet is
50:57
the size of the restaurant we sit on.
50:59
The lot itself is pretty small. It's about, I think the lot is
51:03
touch over half an acre. It's not very big, but the
51:06
location is important. We're on a very well traveled
51:09
road, 25,000 cars a day. I did my research there.
51:13
I looked it up and I also think it helps too that it was a BBQ
51:17
restaurant for a very long time, so people are used to seeing BBQ
51:21
there. Now it's just under a different
51:23
name. Like I said, I'm excited for you
51:26
and I'm proud of because those that follow your journey know
51:30
where you started to where you had now.
51:31
And the stuff ain't easy. All the things you're doing are
51:35
not easy there. There's a lot to go in the food
51:38
truck and a lot to go into restaurants and behind the
51:40
scenes stuff. And like I said, I appreciate
51:43
you telling the not sugar coating in and putting whipped
51:46
cream and cherries on it and telling the aid.
51:49
Sometimes there's hard days, sometimes there's stuff you
51:52
ain't going to know what to do. You got to get outside help and
51:55
figure it out and stuff like that.
51:56
So I said this, I enjoyed this interview and you gave a lot of
52:00
knowledge and tips and stuff like that and not fluffing it
52:04
for people to make it. Make them think that
52:08
everything's going to be fine when they jump out there.
52:11
There's going to be some days you got to figure things out and
52:14
figure out what are you doing and not knowing what to do at
52:17
all when you jump into something.
52:19
So I definitely appreciate all the advice you have been given
52:23
on this episode. I saw that you had started
52:26
seasonings. You talk a little bit about your
52:28
seasonings and then we'll wrap up from there.
52:32
Yeah, we did. So those came out a little about
52:35
two years ago. We came out with brisket, beef
52:37
and pork seasoning and I just got a lot of inspiration from
52:42
existing seasonings on the market.
52:44
It's nothing fancy. At the end of the day, it's all
52:46
the same stuff. It's all salt and sugar.
52:48
So don't anybody wants to create their own seasoning.
52:50
Don't think you're going to come up with some magical formula.
52:52
I promise you, someone's party. It's just, it's the mixture of
52:56
it, right? That's the difference.
52:57
But we launched those in July of 23, found a great, what they
53:01
call Co Packer. It's called Co Packer.
53:03
So I didn't have to. I don't bottle those.
53:05
I just send off my recipe. It's about two hours away where
53:08
they bought them in Athens, actually not Athens, it's in
53:10
between Athens and Atlanta. Bethlehem, GA.
53:14
Anyway, send them a recipe. They bottle them for us and then
53:18
we sell them at the restaurant and sell them on our website.
53:21
Brisket, beef and pork because those are the big three things
53:24
that we sell. Our brisket works really well on
53:26
steak. Excuse me, I use it on my rib
53:29
eyes all the time. Our beef rub is interestingly
53:32
enough, our beef rub is become our all-purpose rub.
53:36
Not by design, just happened that way.
53:38
We put it in our beans, we put it on our chicken.
53:40
If we run out of pork rub, we use it on our pork.
53:43
Sometimes we have plans to come out with chicken and we have
53:46
plans to come out with an all-purpose rub and an SPG.
53:49
I've also got plans to come out with sauce because people keep
53:52
asking about sauce. But anyway, yeah, the rubs have
53:56
been great. It it does add some credibility
53:58
when you have your own rubs, I think.
54:01
But for those out there, don't think you're going to make a lot
54:03
of money on rubs. You're not if you're not.
54:06
Now, if you can get yourself like Lane's BBQ, that's who does
54:10
our bottling, like them, if you can get yourself into Academy
54:13
Sports and Bass Pro Shops, that's different.
54:16
But I would say for most folks, it's really just an extension of
54:20
your passion. Don't think you're going to make
54:23
a lot of money. And really, if you're doing, if
54:26
you're getting in a BBQ, whether it's competing or commercial BBQ
54:29
to make a lot of money, you're probably getting into it for the
54:32
wrong reason. Because it's just, it's, if
54:36
that's your sole driving factor, then it's it's, that's not going
54:42
to get you through the tough days because they're going to be
54:45
those days, like I said, when you make $16.00.
54:47
But but yeah, going back to our rubs, like I said, brisket, beef
54:50
and pork. The beef, like I said, the pork
54:53
does have a kick to it. We use cayenne in it.
54:56
So it doesn't stay with you. Like I said, I took inspiration
54:59
from a lot of the commercial rubs out there.
55:02
Heath Ryles, Malcolm Reed. What's the Butcher's?
55:05
Butcher's BBQ? Just Priles.
55:08
I took a lot of inspiration for them because they've already
55:10
done it and they've got a, they've got a good formula and I
55:13
took what I liked and I didn't take what I didn't like.
55:16
That's how you do it. And I heard that Elaine's is
55:20
opening up a restaurant also. I don't know where it's going to
55:23
be it, but I heard he's opening a restaurant.
55:25
Wouldn't surprise me. If you haven't already had him
55:27
on your podcast, you definitely should.
55:29
Ryan's a great dude. He started, he's got a great
55:32
story. He started selling BBQ to
55:33
produce stand on the side of the road.
55:35
And now he's they had to, I think they had to open up a
55:38
location in Australia because they had so much demand.
55:41
So he's international, but really cool story and he's been,
55:45
he and his team been great to work with because I'm a small,
55:47
I'm a very small fish in a large pond.
55:49
I'm not ordering truckloads of rub.
55:52
I'm getting a little tiny little pallet to go into my truck
55:55
that's they've been great to work with and when I need more
55:58
rub I they get it ready and I go get it so it's consistent.
56:02
Definitely good and on that note, that completes the
56:06
questions. I got 2 quick games and then I'm
56:08
going to let you go. You know how to college
56:10
basketball. They had the tournament bracket
56:12
so I came up with a bracket of 16 different BBQ meats and you
56:16
just pick which one that you prefer to eat.
56:19
Matchup #1 is beef ribs versus lamb.
56:23
Beef ribs. All right, next matchup, smoked
56:26
ham versus smoked Turkey. Turkey.
56:30
OK, next matchup is burnt ends versus Hot Dog.
56:35
Burnt ends. OK.
56:38
Next matchup is pork rails versus steak.
56:41
Steak. OK, next matchup is smoked
56:45
Bologna versus brisket. Oh, brisket.
56:49
OK, next matchup is BBQ shrimp versus sausage.
56:54
Sausage. OK, next matchup is pork chop
56:59
versus smoked chicken chop. You know the answer there.
57:04
Next match of pork belly versus hamburger.
57:08
Oh, pork. Belly.
57:10
All right, all right. Next round beef ribs versus
57:14
Turkey. Beef ribs.
57:17
OK, next match up, burnt ends versus steak.
57:22
Burn ends. OK.
57:25
Next match up, brisket versus sausage brisket OK.
57:31
Next matchup is pork chop versus pork belly.
57:35
Pork belly OK. Final four beef real verse burnt
57:40
end. Burn ends OK.
57:45
And next matchup is brisket versus pork belly.
57:51
Oh boy, that's tough. I'm going to have to go brisket.
57:58
Which? Means.
58:01
All right, finals burnt ends versus brisket.
58:04
Boy, that's real creative there. And I got to go.
58:08
I got to go. Burn ends.
58:09
OK, all right, Burnt ends is the winner.
58:12
Got one more quick tournament. I got the top 16 since you're
58:16
from Saint Louis Cardinals fan. I got the top 16 players from
58:21
Saint Louis Cardinals since 1990 tournament.
58:24
All right, all right, matchup #1 Poo host versus Matt Holiday.
58:28
All right, next matchup, Scott Rolen versus Jason Isrin Hauser.
58:35
Roland. OK.
58:38
Ozzy Smith versus David Freeze. Oh, Ozzy Smith.
58:42
All right, next matchup, Jim Edmonds versus Mark McGuire.
58:48
McGuire. OK.
58:51
Next match up, Yadier Molina versus Paul Goldsmith.
58:56
Yadi. All right.
58:59
Next match up, Vince Coleman versus Lee Smith.
59:05
Coleman. OK.
59:08
Next match up, Chris Carpenter versus Jack Clark.
59:14
Carpenter. All right, next match up,
59:19
Wainwright versus Willie McGee. Wainwright.
59:24
All right, next round, who hosts versus Roland?
59:28
Bulls all. Right, Ozzy Smith versus
59:32
McGuire. Ozzy.
59:36
OK. Molina versus Coleman.
59:40
Molina. OK, Carpenter versus Wainwright.
59:46
Oof Wainwright. That's a hard one.
59:49
Yeah. All right.
59:50
Final Four Poohos versus Ozzy Smith.
59:53
Oh man, I got to go with the wizard Ozzy.
59:56
OK. And Molina versus Wainwright.
1:00:00
Dang, got to go with Yachty. All right, all right.
1:00:05
The Wizard versus Molina in the finals.
1:00:08
Got to go with the wizard man. Exactly.
1:00:13
All right. I appreciate you for coming on
1:00:16
this episode and joining me. If you have anything to shout
1:00:18
out, you can say that now or anything to promote, you can go
1:00:22
ahead. Just to give us a follow on
1:00:26
Instagram, Facebook, TikTok X at Iron Head BBQ.
1:00:32
All right, and if y'all haven't seen a menu and food truck menu,
1:00:36
it's different. So like you said you go get the
1:00:39
quality of a high end restaurant and A food truck and when the
1:00:44
restaurant open I will be there. So I definitely expect everybody
1:00:48
else to come support the fellow BBQ people in the community as
1:00:53
well as you in that surrounding area.
1:00:56
Like I said, I appreciate all that you've done for me and the
1:00:58
podcast and your journey is inspired to anybody that's
1:01:03
trying to move forward in BBQ, whether it's food truck and the
1:01:08
restaurant life period. I just want to say thank you for
1:01:11
me and the BBQ community for all that you're doing.
1:01:14
So just keep up the good work. And I'm going for a couple
1:01:18
months. I'm going to check back with you
1:01:19
to come on and talking about how the restaurant going.
1:01:22
So I look forward to that. Absolutely.
1:01:24
I look forward to it as well. And yeah, thanks for having me
1:01:27
on, man. Keep keep doing what you're
1:01:29
doing and keep calm and smoke on all.
1:01:31
Right, I appreciate that and we're on to the next episode.
1:01:35
We just wrapped up another session of BBQ therapy.
1:01:38
Remember, stay patient, stay passionate and keep that fire
1:01:42
burning Hit subscribe, share the good smoke, and pay the
1:01:46
secretary on your way out. Have a blessed day.