Where to buy a great comp brisket

[Smokin Mike]

thank you patrick! I also considered using huntspoint.

 

[motoeric]

I think that the turn that this conversation has taken warrants me saying that I have had ribs and a ribeye from Huntspoint and had no problems whatsoever. Both the product and the customer service was fine.

I know that Phil has also used them and I believe that he was happy with the meat and service and I believe that Chris Hart has also used them without problems (please note that I'm going on memory here, hopefully they will both pipe in if I'm mistaken).

Eric

 

[BasicPatrick]

Eric, I would not agree to that summation due to nuance and minor details and would prefer to let what I posted be what I have to say. I too know a few people that are happy with huntspoint.com and I think its up to an individual to gather info and make their own decisions. I for one feel the worst bit of what I posted is that hunts point.com was at least a third party in the chain of custody for the products I purchased and it is a fact the business was for over a year not licensed to store, handle or sell meat. I'm not willing to risk that in the food I serve, even to judge #6.

 

[motoeric]

I'd like to see a Huntspoint reply, point by point if they care to respond.

It would be easier if people could see your assertion followed by theirs and make up their own mind.

Not a big deal. Hopefully you're happy with who you're using now and are kicking ass at comps.

Eric

 

[BBQchef33]

I've used huntspoint.com many times both directly and thru BBQ guru. Never, not once had a problem or bad brisket, in fact the last batch were 2 of the best I've seen. I ordered 2 15s. Not only did I get 2 17s but they changed my shipping preferences on their own and saved me 70 bucks.

No business can make everyone happy. ive used both srf and huntspoint. In all instances huntspoint has been a pleasure to deal with as was srf.

 

[BBQchef33]

Thanks Patrick for telling the story. I have had other people PM me to ask what was up when I referred to huntspoint.com as "some guy in a basement" in another thread, but I didn't think it was my story to tell. Jonny Love pressured Facebook into removing this thread there. I'm assuming Phil isn't going to cave to that kind of nonsense.

OFFICIALLY(as admin): Correct, as any member who knows our culture knows, we thrive on 'Free flow of Information' and do not moderate threads on content, but based on our rule set. Historically, we have had situations like this, and more times than not, as long as things stayed civil and professional, we we instrumental in the 2 parties coming to amicable conclusions.

As long as this conversation remains factual and/or civilly expressed opinions, we will, as we always have, allow both sides to be heard and members to form their own opinions. However, if it becomes a chit sling mudfest, flame war, or pissing match, we will step in. Hopefully, huntspoint will step in for clarification. There are always 2 sides to every story. If there is any one lesson I have learned from running this forum is that there is no way any business can make ever single customer happy. Its impossible.

 

[Sawdustguy]

I've used huntspoint.com many times both directly and thru BBQ guru. Never, not once had a problem or bad brisket, in fact the last batch were 2 of the best I've seen. I ordered 2 15s. Not only did I get 2 17s but they changed my shipping preferences on their own and saved me 70 bucks.

No business can make everyone happy. ive used both srf and huntspoint. In all instances huntspoint has been a pleasure to deal with as was srf.

Phillip,

You spoke about shipping. When ordering from Hunts Point Market do you have to go to the Bronx to pick them up or will they ship it directly to you?

Guy

 

[BasicPatrick]

Phil, thank you for clarification of your position as admin. I have no intention of participating in any flame war, I graduated high school in 1984 and left the drama there.

I wont even participate in debates over details of my purchases and the following conversations with the company...that is long over and is unverifiable hearsay.

My intention when I decided to share my opinion/knowledge in this thread was to inform fellow Brethren seeking a brisket supplier that I had a negative customer service experience, that I have received more than one poorly butchered or damaged brisket, that this company has misleading advertising and that this company has been operating (at least through the date in the email I posted) without a license. I have done that and am moving on.

As you stated and I agree. All companies can not satisfy all customers and individuals should gather available information and make their own decisions.

 

[BBQchef33]

Phillip,

You spoke about shipping. When ordering from Hunts Point Market do you have to go to the Bronx to pick them up or will they ship it directly to you?

Guy

They shipped directly to me. I ordered in the late morning from BBQ Guru Website and paid extra for overnight shipping. Shortly after, I received a phone call from huntspoint who said they changed my shipping to standard and it will still be here overnight as it was so close. Saved me a bundle on shipping.

I am not 100% sure but I think i was told its coming from NYC.. or i may have just assumed that when they said it was very close, so please take that part with a grain of salt. Personally i dont care where it comes from, nor do i care if its 1st, 2nd, or 3rd party. If the product is good, the price is right and the service is good, im ok.

Whatever the case, it was delivered the following morning and the briskets were fine.. no issues except the judges didnt like it but we know whos fault that is. :redface:

 

[timdortch]

There is a guy in north Texas that sells the best wagyu around. He is the rad of the association at Texas A&M.

 

[CBQ]

Correct, as any member who knows our culture knows, we thrive on 'Free flow of Information' and do not moderate threads on content, but based on our rule set

That's good to know, as huntspoint.com has applied pressure to other social media sites to edit content they didn't like.

I don't think anyone here has said there is any problem with huntspoint.com products. People that use them have generally had good things to say. Even Patrick's damaged brisket did well when he turned it in.

What is being questioned is the sales and marketing practices of the company. They are using what I would consider to be deceptive marketing practices, and heavy handed bullying tactics to anyone that dares to point out that the emperor has no clothes.

All of this stuff above is only my opinion. People may well decide that they are willing to overlook those sorts of things to get the product they want, but people should be well aware of the facts. I mean...why not TELL people you are grading the meat yourself? I bet a lot of BBQ teams would be willing to pay a premium for hand culled product. I would. It's just the deception that turns me off.

 

[BMerrill]

Personal opinion.
Until you master cooking a CAB Choice Brisket, don't waste money on a higher priced one.

 

[Fat Freddy]

Personal opinion.
Until you master cooking a CAB Choice Brisket, don't waste money on a higher priced one.

Friendly counter point.
When it is a 1 1/2 hour drive to find the closest place that sells CAB(Sams) , so gonna have to pay gas and time even at the $1.70 a gallon, it makes that CAB at least $85 plus time. So just for the record a SRF wagyu is only just over $20 more in bulk, plus get a decent little Styrofoam cooler and the little ice packs that can be used a few times, plus the brisket already aged. I realize everything I named doesnt equal $20 but it is worth something.

My point is brisket is already outrageous with no end in sight, for some people though it might actually be worth while to try a Wagyu.

To your point though BMerrill as of yet I have not gotten a call with a wagyu, every call I have gotten is either with a Sams Prime or even a 2nd place call with an overcooked Walmart brisket. I am going to try wagyu's this year. I am either going to succeed or fail but thats the route I am going, but I am still trying to find the best possible deal and avoid as many headaches as I can.

 

[Huntspoint]

Hello Basic Patrick, ZBQ Chris and other Brethren.

This is Johnny Love from Huntspoint.com. Let me start out, Basic Patrick, by saying that I regret that you weren't satisfied with your experience with us. We certainly don't want to have any customer disappointed.

I'd like to take a few minutes to offer our perspective on the issues that you raise. I think that it's reasonable to have both sides available and let the readers make up their mind based on input from both of us.

BasicPatrick did buy one brisket from me, then he reported a problem with it. I took 2 briskets at 11pm to meet him 30 miles away and gave him the selection of 2 of our gold wagyu briskets, so he could compete in a BBQ competition. He then selected the bigger gold brisket, and the next day he raised concerns about that brisket as well, which he got a 2nd place finish with btw. He then ordered another brisket, reported a problem with it too and I offered to give him a refund if he sent it back.

See image below from FB messaging. http://www.huntspoint.com/images/PP.png

BasicPatrick wrote on Post #13 "This time the company refused to make good."

Again, BasicPatrick brought up how the briskets were marred by scarring. Sometime it is hard or impossible to see the gash or cut from the outside of a cryovac.We sell lots of briskets and on occasion a few may have cut section(s) in it. Briskets with noticeable slashed or cuts do not ever go to competition teams. We certainly apologize for that and we're happy that the one you did use got you a second place finish. Regarding the other brisket that was problematic, you said “This time the company refused to make good.” That is inaccurate. We offered you your money back and were happy to do so. We stand behind what we sell. Mistakes can happen. It was a while ago, people can forget. The screenshot does indicate that we attempted to ‘make good’ however
We offered a refund to an unhappy customer(Patrick) that apparently was not enough. He wanted another brisket. I did not have any brisket that would make Patrick happy, therefore I offered him a refund. We hate to see unhappy customers, therefore, we try our best to make each and every customer a happy customer. However, we also, understand that we can not make everybody happy and regret that.

I also want to talk about our Gold Wagyu Briskets. BasicPatrick seems to be concerned about our use of the term 'gold' as one of the designators for the quality of our meat. The term was chosen for what I assume is the same reason as everyone else (including numerous companies in the meat industry). It's an instantly recognizable idiom for 'premium'. Gold medal, gold standard, gold award. There are at least 4 meat companies that use 'Gold' in their marketing. There are at least 2 ancillary companies that use 'Gold'. Gold, Silver, Bronze and A, B, C are probably the two most common means of classification of tiered quality in marketing.

The name 'Huntspoint' seems to be a problem for you since we are not located in that part of NYC. You might be relieved to know that we were and that's where the company started. We didn't think it would be a big deal or advantageous to change the name of the company when we moved. I hope that you can agree that this was reasonable. Basic Patrick is claiming that we have been shipping from NH for over a year. This is not true, the NH location has been shipping for less than 9 months.

Another concern is that we haven't been inspected. Unfortunately, we don't control when inspections occur. We are confident that there will be no problems when we are inspected and would be happy to post information about such an inspection when it occurs.

I do not eye ball any brisket and come up with my own grade. The fact is we have a meat supplier network that provides us with what we ask for, some time we get what we ask for, other times due to supply limitations we don't. If I get a Imperial Signature its marketed as a Gold Brisket. Imperial also sells a Wagyu Brisket which would have less marbling and would not be highly marbled like the gold Wagyu Brisket. For our gold briskets, we use only the best briskets from our suppliers and then verify that those specific briskets meet our standards.

All of our meats that we sell have been graded by a meat expert in a meat plant during the meat processing. We work with the facilities directly where we receive everything in cryovaced packaging and graded at the plant.

In 2014, We sold Imperial Wagyu, SnakeRiver Farms, Australian Wagyu, Durham Ranch, and Domestic Wagyu. We don't specify brand on our website, We offer the best hand selected briskets that are available on the market. Every wagyu company has named their gold grade (8+) briskets under different names, and we just name all those as gold, because the grading is 8+.We never sold regular wagyu briskets as gold brisket and never would, if anything, many times we shipped gold briskets to our customers as a replacement when we did not have regular wagyu briskets in hand. We upgraded our customers at no charge. Also, when we did not have gold wagyu brisket in hand, we informed our customers about the shortage of gold wagyu briskets. That is part of how we define customer service.

We have a very successful business and sell many briskets as well as other cuts. We sell hand selected best briskets to the BBQ teams, and the rest of our briskets go to the backyard barbecuers.

Our meats are winning, because we are selecting the best bbq meats for our customers and also bbq teams know how to cook. Some of the successful results of our meats are :

1st place brisket Seaside Heights NJ 2013 & 2014
1st place Brisket RI State Championship 2014
1st place Brisket Cresskill NJ 2014
1st place Brisket Staten Island, NY State Championship 2014
1st place Brisket Atlantic City, NJ BBQ Championship 2013
1st place brisket in Sam’s Club Regionals VA 2014
1st place brisket Wildwood NJ State Championship 2014
1st place brisket Sam’s Club National BBQ Tour Laurel MD
1st place MD State BBQ Bash
1st place in New Holland PA 2014

1st place Ribs Seaside Heights NJ 2013
1st place Ribs Staten Island NY State Championship 2014
1st place Ribs - World Food Championship, Las Vegas 2013
1st place Ribs - International division of Jack Daniels 2014
These are some of the competition results by teams that used our meats.

I have been referred to as "Basement Dude", I hold my head up high when I hear that, there is no shame in starting a business small. Hewlett Packard started in a garage. There are many successful billion dollar companies which started small in a garage, basement or dorm room. The Home Kitchen / garage / basement is the place where many people in the BBQ community have started their rub/sauce/catering businesses so they can support their families and passion for BBQ.

BasicPatrick and ZBQ Chris think that I have a lot of power at Facebook to pressure them to remove threads which are posted by others. The fact is we proudly sold meats to the Facebook CEO, but I do not have any power at the Facebook corporation to delete postings.

They are claiming that I sell gold Wagyu briskets for 3X more money. That is also not true. SRF sells gold wagyu briskets 14-17 lbs is $199.00 and Huntspoint.com sells our 15 - 17 lbs gold wagyu brisket for $199.95. You get more meat with Johnny Love by 1 lb on the lower end.

If anyone has any questions for us, I encourage you to call us or email us at your convenience. We'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. We obviously hope that your questions will be answered satisfactorily, but we respect the right of anyone to make up their own mind.

For those following this thread, we thank you for reading our (somewhat lengthy) response to Patrick's concerns. Competition BBQ is a lot of fun but is also a very serious business. We congratulate anyone who takes it seriously enough to become a serious competitor. We appreciate Patrick's commitment and encourage you to read his comments, our response and look for input from other people that have used our meat.

Again, we welcome any phone calls, 212-380-1273, or emails from anyone with any questions or concerns.

Happy smoking!

Johnny

 

[MattG]

Restruant Depot

 

[walrus79]

Interesting thread. I have used one of Johnny's briskets and got 4th in an incredibly tough field (finishing behind two other JL briskets in a Sam's regional). The brisket was procured by a competitor friend, so I had no dealing with Johnny, but he and I exchanged some brief communication after the event to see if I had any issue with him posting about us and that we used his meat...to which I had no problem. He was kind and professional.

The quality of that brisket was amazing and far exceeded anything I'd cooked before (prime being the highest). I'd use it all the time if I had the budget. I plan to use Johnny again occasionally when I'm able to.

I've used choice, superior angus from RD, prime from a couple different sources I have. I've scored just as high with those cuts as I did with Johnny's brisket, but I had to ace the cook to do so. That gold is forgiving and the flavor is more rich and intense than anything I've tasted previously and since.

My two cents.

 

[CBQ]

I'm happy to see that Jonny responded here. I may not agree with everything he said, but I do think it's good he was able to present his perspective. People can do their own due diligence and make their own decisions.

 

[Meat Man]

It sounds like Johnny tried to do right by this customer. We are in the meat business and Johnny is right when he says there are things that sometimes are impossible to see. Gashes, scars, bruises, crooked bones and shiners are almost impossible to see unless you open the package and examine the meat. BBQ meat customers are a very decerning lot, and they should be, shelling out big bucks for top quality cuts along with shipping really adds up. We are very selective in what products we offer to our BBQ customers, some brands just do a much better job and offer a more consistant quality.

 

[Roast Beast]

There is a guy in north Texas that sells the best wagyu around. He is the rad of the association at Texas A&M.

Where can this be purchased?

 

[wmrrock]

I have been ordering from huntspoint.com for a very long time. I have spent thousand of dollars on meats from huntspoint.com and I have NEVER had an issue with any of the meats they have sent me. I place my orders online and the meats arrive the very next day via fedex. The quality of the meats have been top notch and the prices are in my opinion very reasonable. I recommend huntspoint.com to everyone and I have not had one person tell me they are dissatisfied with the products and or service of the company. I am sorry others have had bad experiences with huntspoint.com All I can say is Try for yourself and see before you take the word of a few disgruntled people.