MEAT+POULTRY
www.meatpoultry.com/articles/19314-satisfaction-guaranteed

Satisfaction Guaranteed

06.13.2017
 Foodservice
Chris Lilly, owner of Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q is happiest when he's working back in the pit room at his Decatur, Alabama barbecue restaurant. 
 

If you look for a list of the top barbecue restaurants in the country you’ll notice some of the same establishments will make the list time and time again. Joints like Skylight Inn BBQ in North Carolina, Franklin Barbecue in Texas, Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que in Kansas City and Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Alabama, are recognized in barbecue circles around the country for producing some of the best low-and-slow cooked meats around.

While barbecue connoisseurs all have their favorite spots to dine, they’ll agree it’s hard to compare one restaurant to another, because each has its specialty. It’s these specialties that keep the customers coming back for more – and even more so, keep customers travelling far and wide across the country to get a taste.

Locals and visitors to Ayden, North Carolina, drop in to Skylight Inn BBQ for the whole-hog pork, served with corn bread and slaw. People travel far and wide to Aaron Franklin’s Austin eatery, Franklin Barbecue, to try the brisket. At Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que, hungry customers line up daily for the famous burnt ends, as well as the Z-man sandwich (stuffed with slow-smoked brisket, smoked provolone cheese and topped with a crispy onion ring).

‘Big’ Barbecue 

Since 1925, people have been flocking to Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q, based in Decatur, Alabama for smoked chicken slathered in Bob’s signature tangy white sauce.

“Every chicken that comes out of our hickory fired pit gets dipped in our white sauce,” says Chris Lilly, 4th generation owner and award-winning pitmaster at Big Gibson. The signature sauce has a vinegar and mayonnaise base, seasoned with black pepper and lemon juice. “We are known for our barbecue chicken in white sauce – it was invented here back in 1925 – but now I see it all over the country.”

Perhaps part of the reason Big Bob Gibson’s signature sauce can be found in restaurants around the country is because the restaurant itself is legendary. Bob Gibson started his business back in 1925 in Decatur and it’s been handed down through four generations of the family. While the smoked chicken remained at the top of the menu, new recipes and meat selection were added through the years, as well as an additional location to accommodate growth. However, the restaurant truly started to gain its national recognition when the fourth generation took over in 1991.

Lilly, who met his wife Amy (Big Bob Gibson’s great granddaughter) at the Univ. of North Alabama, had no barbecue experience when he started working at the restaurant – he was a marketing and finance major. Amy’s father, Don McLemore, offered Lilly the chance to come and learn the business from the ground up – starting naturally, in the pit room.

“That’s where you start out when you’re in a barbecue restaurant – you need to learn the whole business from the back of the house to the front of the house,” Lilly says. “I learned it all, but my passion and love for barbecue is always going to be back in the pit room. I still spend as much time as I can back there.”

Lilly says aside from being born into the business, the best way to learn about barbecue is by cooking it, over and over again. “I often say the greatness of a pitmaster is directly proportional to the size of his ash pile,” he says. “This means, the more you burn, the more barbecue you cook and the more your ash pile grows – you just have to learn by doing.”

Lilly learned his craft by doing from the time he started with Big Bob Gibson in 1991 until 1997 when it was time to show off his talents at his first barbecue competition. The restaurant bought a rotisserie cooker on a trailer to use with the catering side of the business. And in 1997, they entered their first barbecue competition in Huntsville, Alabama, as a way to promote the catering business. At this first competition, the Big Bob Gibson team got high marks and an invitation to cook at the Memphis in May Barbecue Championship. “And then we were addicted,” he recalls.

“We started as a way to promote the restaurant, but they’re also a lot of fun,” he says. “If you get out there and win consistently on the circuit – at competitions like Memphis in May and the American Royal – you can use those wins to promote your restaurant.”

The team has won championships in all categories – pork shoulder, beef brisket, chicken and ribs – but they’ve won the most with pork.

Big Bob Gibson has cut back its competition involvement to four per year (Memphis in May, American Royal, Jack Daniels World Barbecue Championships and a new charity event in Palm Springs, California, King of the Smokers).



 Foodservice
Jess Pryles is a cook, author and TV personality known as Hardcore Carnivore.
 


The New 'Cue


Not all barbecue restaurants have the pedigree of Big Bob Gibson. Being in business for 90 years has given the iconic establishment more than just street cred in the barbecue arena. It’s given the restaurant history, tradition and family favorite recipes that customers have enjoyed for years, and keep them coming back for more. That’s a great recipe for a successful business, but many of the new barbecue places around the country can’t deliver on the same traditions – so they’re taking a different route.

“It’s hard to recreate a hole-in-the-wall type of place that’s been around for years,” says Jess Pryles, cook, author and TV personality known as the Hardcore Carnivore. “You can’t force history into a place – that only comes with time.”

Instead, Pryles says, the latest trend is barbecue restaurants that are more upscale. “The new barbecue restaurants out there are more upscale, and they’re trying to offer additional things that the traditional places don’t offer,” she says. “Whether it means getting a liquor license and serving different kinds of bourbon, or offering higher end side dishes to accompany the barbecue dishes – I think there’s room to elevate the cuisine from the hole in the wall places to the new upscale places, and offer something for everyone.”

As barbecue gets more popular around the country, especially in non-traditional barbecue cities, the lines between the traditional barbecue regions are starting to blur, Pryles says.

“You used to only find beef on the menu at barbecue places in Texas and Kansas City, but now brisket is everywhere,” she says.

“When a new barbecue restaurant opens up they’re pulling from the best around the country – now you’re finding those regional specialties everywhere,” Pryles explains.

“Barbecue places in New York and Chicago are offering Carolina pork and Texas brisket – they’re offering all the great barbecue from around the country in one place. Fifteen years ago when you went to New York City you’d find very few barbecue restaurants, and they were doing just an adequate job,” Lilly says. But times have changed. “Now you can find a lot of barbecue up there, and they’re doing it just as well as in the barbecue belt.”



 Foodservice
Dan Janssen, owner of the Rub Bar-B-Que in Olathe, Kansas.
 


New and Different 

Building a successful new barbecue business can be a challenge in any location, but inside the barbecue belt it might be easier said than done. No one knows this better than Dan Janssen, owner of The Rub Bar-B-Que in Olathe, Kansas.

With more than 20 years in the restaurant industry under his belt – 15 years with Applebee’s – Janssen decided in 2011 to pursue his dream of opening up his own place. It would have been easier in the Kansas City market to open any other type of restaurant other than barbecue – but Janssen’s love of cooking barbecue that he discovered on the competition circuit led him to opening up yet another barbecue restaurant in a city that has more than its share.

“Barbecue in Kansas City is the toughest restaurant market to get into,” Janssen explains. “There are 105 to 110 barbecue restaurants within 35 or so miles. The competition is fierce.”

The Kansas City barbecue market is made up of iconic Kansas City establishments such as Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que, Gates, Arthur Bryant’s and Jack Stack, so Janssen knew he would have to differentiate his restaurant from the competition. The first step was building a unique menu.

While his protein choices were the same as most barbecue joints in town – pulled pork, ribs, brisket, burnt ends, sausage, smoked chicken, turkey and ham – The Rub featured a few dishes that couldn’t be found anywhere else in town. Enter, the barbecue bowl.

“I wanted to come up with an idea that was different, something that was unique to our restaurant,” Janssen says. “The bowls are cutting edge – no one else had them when we opened.”

When the eatery opened in 2011, there were two bowls on the menu – the Hash Bowl and the Hillbilly Bowl. The Hash Bowl features fried potatoes, sautéed peppers and onions, four types of meat (chicken, sausage, pulled pork and burnt ends), topped with jalapeño cheese and onion straws. It’s the No. 2 item on the menu. The Hillbilly Bowl consists of sugar-crusted cornbread, topped with beans, choice of meat and onion straws.

Today, customers can also dine on a Nebraska Bowl (cheesy corn, baked beans, pulled pork and sausage topped with onion straws) or a Baked Potato Bowl (baked potato topped with choice of meat, cheese, butter, sour cream and onion straws).

The biggest challenge, aside from differentiation, according to Janssen, is staying profitable when the cost of goods is so high. “With barbecue restaurants being protein based, the cost of goods is higher than some other restaurants. With eight proteins on our menu, there’s no way to get around those costs.”

Janssen learned from Day 1 that the best way to build up his profits and his business at the same time was to expand into catering. “Barbecue lends itself to catering – it packages up easily and travels well,” he says.

In its first year, 6 percent of The Rub’s profits came from catering. By Year 2, it was up to 20 percent, and Year 3 it was 30 percent. Now The Rub brings in 55 percent in catering from weddings, corporate events, lunch groups, school functions and sporting events.

“We’ve gotten a name for ourselves now through our catering business,” he explains. If the popularity of the catering continues, the restaurant might have to get an off-site facility to fulfill the orders.

The Rub also is creating some buzz from its cooking classes. The classes include Brisket for Beginners, Ribs for Beginners and BBQ Pork for Beginners. “The classes aren’t revenue drivers, but they help create the social media buzz that you need to be successful,” Janssen says. “Fifteen years ago, you would market yourself on radio, but today social media is so much more influential. It’s hard to quantify what success is – but if you pull back that buzz will disappear and that’s never good.