Open a BBQ restaurant, they said. It will be fun, they said

[Panupat]

I finally read through all 198 pages... amazing is an understatement. Thank you Jeremy for sharing your journey and being so open with us. I wanted to start ky own BBQ truck business too and your journey has been so inspiring. Even brought me to tears to hear about your marriage.

Please say strong. You're a great inspiration, a great role model and a great mentor. If I ever have a chance to visit the US Ill make it a point to visit your place.

I had a similar story reading your post about the food fair, how everyone are going frozen these days. Talked to my chef friends while researching about restaurant business and they all said every restaurant they've worked at just use pressure-cooker to cook their bbq. Made me so worried to do it low n slow. But after reading your posts is like seeing the light at the end of tunnel.... We dont need to follow the flock. BBQ it properly and go for quality.

Thank you again Jeremy, my great mentor.

 

[marubozo]

So, the BBQ, Blues, and Bluegrass festival was a huge success. I'm bummed that Jonny Lang had to back out of the event because I wanted to see him, but selling BBQ was the priority anyway.

When we first met with the event coordinator the estimate was for 6,000 attendees. With five other food vendors, three of which also being BBQ, we planned for 850 servings. Without ever doing an event of this scale before we had no idea whether this was a good estimate or not. But all said and done, they ended up selling 7,500 tickets and we sold all of 800+ servings, putting us out of product by around 6:30 or so, which was shortly before the event was to end. I'm very happy with how we budgeted everything.

It didn't go without snags though. Events like this always have something go wrong. In my case, two big problems. We got to the site in the morning and began setting up and realized we had forgotten the sauce bottles. D'oh! That meant an emergency run to a store to try to get some, and it sucked they weren't our nicely labeled ones we had set out to use.

Then an even bigger issue cropped up just 30 minutes before opening. It occurred to me that I had forgot the cash box and all of the change. Huge oops there. No money and nowhere to put it. We had to run to three different banks and beg for change and try to get back before the gates opened. That was a bit hectic. But in the end we pulled it off.

All in all it was great. We had a line most of the day and had people coming back for more throughout the day. We received so much great feedback and met a ton of awesome people. Saw a few familiar faces, and plenty of new ones. Can't wait to do it again. We were already asked to come back next year. And now I'm itching to do even more events like this.

Here are a few pics from the day.

The BBQ crew

The crowd

Shirley smoking away in the background

Brisket brisket brisket

 

[Doog]

Wow....glad you had a successful event. I guess something that size you always forget something. The brisket looks awesome and the sky doesn't get much bluer thank that....thanks for sharing!!

 

[mchar69]

Jeremy - thanks for the pics and update -
Panu -

all said every restaurant they've worked at just use pressure-cooker to cook their bbq.

no no no no no - cook over wood... please.

 

[landarc]

Sounds like a great event. And go figure on the glitches. It's always something.

 

[jasonjax]

Holy cow! I remember when this thread started, but I hadn't been back a lot in a while.

This is an epic piece of internet memorabilia. I hope BBQChef has this thing backed up and in a vault somewhere.

Congrats on such an epic journey. I'm going to go back and read a lot of the parts I haven't.

 

[Pstores]

Well Arron Franklin sells out usually by 2:30 in Austin. Your open 4 hours longer.... Lol......

 

[Neil]

It was great to see you again Jeremy and it was a great day of music, sunshine and Q! I got to Jeremy's tent just as they were packing up to leave because I wasn't able to get down there until 6:30. The final music act ended around 9:00. The plan is for this event to take place every year on the 3rd weekend in May, if you like good blues, bluegrass, and we know you love bbq, it's a great place to be on the shore of Lake Michigan in St. Joseph.

 

[cats49er]

Way to man,wish I could have been there.

 

[MayorWest]

Enjoy the ride, starting a restaurant is a a ton of work but when things come together it is worth it.

 

[bucko]

I wouldn't remodel anything maybe wood floors get some old barbeque sighs and beer sighs and let people write on the walls don't used plates to serve on use butcher paper the older the place looks the better people just care about the q if it's really good you will succeed good luck hope you do well

 

[nmeyer414]

awesome !

 

[Histrix]

Suggestion - you should develop a printed checklist for offsite events like this.

There's a reason airline pilots don't just rely on their memory to go thru all their checklist items.

A printed checklist that you actually go thru and mark off item by item will prevent a lot of angst and last minute scrambling.

 

[marubozo]

A little data on sales.

I still find it pretty amazing that brisket is 3 of the top 5 sellers. This is pork country by far. But I guess there aren't many other places to get good brisket around here either.

 

[landarc]

Nice sales data, and the surprise to me, is that rib tips beats full ribs. Oh, I guess ties full ribs and a la carte together.

Brisket doesn't surprise me, there has been a huge gain in brisket popularity in the past 5 years. In California, I have seen it over the past 5 years, folks used to need an explanation about what brisket is, now they're all experts.

 

[kaosfury]

I'm not really surprised. Good brisket is really hard to find around here, even with the incredible surge of decent to great BBQ places.

 

[aawa]

A little data on sales.

I still find it pretty amazing that brisket is 3 of the top 5 sellers. This is pork country by far. But I guess there aren't many other places to get good brisket around here either.

Time to change the name from the Prized Pig to the Cash Cow?

 

[hammb]

I'm not really surprised. Good brisket is really hard to find around here, even with the incredible surge of decent to great BBQ places.

Not to completely hijack the thread, but since I live right down the road from ya in BG, I'm curious to hear your list of decent to great BBQ places around here?

I've tried Smokey's and thought it was some of the worst BBQ I've ever eaten (with fantastic sides, so real bummer there).
Smoke was ok, but not OMG we must here again good.
Deet's has always been solid, but not great.
Log Cabin Tavern in the boonies served me some of the best BBQ I've had locally, but only do it on Saturdays. Brisket was pulled too soon though.

That's all I've tried for the better local places. Had a trip to the Prized Pig lined up after camping, but unfortunately we got rained out of our camping trip and missed out on stopping there.

Michael Symon's Mabel's in Cleveland is the best restaurant 'Q I've ever had. Very unique in what he's trying to do, but it's still low 'n' slow all wood cooking, and the taste/texture was awesome.

Slow's in Detroit is probably in the decent to great class depending on which day you go. Mac &Cheese is probably better than the BBQ, but still it's good Q.

 

[daninnewjersey]

Time to change the name from the Prized Pig to the Cash Cow?

:mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:

 

[JohnnyB]

Seems like you have a good ratio of plates/popularity going. There's something about brisket...when you nail it...people are in heaven. How are the smokers holding up with all of the use they get?