Geek BBQ Tips with Pit Master Gary Parker

This guy knows barbecue. I mean reallly knows barbecue. As an art, a craft, a cooking method and a means of science expressing itself. Listen if you want to know how to work with science to make delicious smoked meats every time! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good afternoon, Facebook and YouTube audiences. Uh, this is Jennifer Noreen. As usual, uh, once a month, Gary and I chatted up about the food they serve at Barbecue Q. Gary owns a restaurant called Barbecue Q at in Point Cosic area in Gate Harbor, Washington. Hello, Gary.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Hey, how is everybody?

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Yeah, and I want to I want to shout out and remember to shout out to the people that listen to this after the fact. So we know that all of you are not live. Um, many of you listened to this video after we recorded it. So thanks for joining us. You can always always uh contact barbecue to you on the website at TexasBQTU.com and email in or comment in your questions um even after the live session. Um, we'd love to hear from you during the session, though. So feel free to comment. I keep an eye on those during the session. Um, today we're gonna talk about ribs, all things barbecue to you ribs.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

I like ribs.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yes, yeah, your customers do too. Kind of crazy. Um, I saw a lady begging for you to serve the um, oh no, that was the pork belly, sorry, but people are always begging you to add things to your menu and and ribs are on. So so what do you have what have you cooked in the past? Like, what do you what about ribs do you love to cook? What are you great at? But even more importantly, what do you serve at the store? What is it available to your customer?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Well, the um I've cooked all kinds of ribs from every kind of animal you can imagine. So uh we'll just leave that at that. But um, what we do here in the store, our primary menu, um, we do a um uh a St. Louis cut pork rib, right? And I'll get into more detail on that in a minute. And then on a special, I think they're doing it on the weekends now. Um, we do a beef back rib, okay. Okay, and then of course we have the big uh the big gigantic uh dyno bones, right? Which we can talk in detail about what that is to help what.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

But what I primarily cook here that um is the favorite of folks is um the uh the St. Louis pork cut rib. Um so what is that, right? So there are three three cuts. Where's my camera? There you go. Three cuts off the um off uh off the rib cage of a pig. Okay, the top third of it, when they slice it off, that is called the baby back rib, right? Yeah, you hear that all the time. You know, there's singers making songs about it. It's really from the top of the ribcage next to the spine, and what it has is it has the well-marbled um uh ribeye meat, you know, probably the equivalent to ribeye meat, but for pork. Um, and um, and so it's a very sweet meat. Um, the bone is a little bit thicker, it's very curved because it's come across the top of the top of the pig, circle, you know, the circle or circle slice of the pig. Um, and um, those are really good. We cook those in here sometimes, but um then the rest of the rib cage, okay, from you know, that's left over all the way down to the pork belly, that's called a spare rib. Okay, so you see a lot of restaurant joints, um, you know, they'll a lot of artificial joints, they'll um they'll say, We cook the spare rib, or we cook the whole ribcage, right? Is is the way to do it. And the reason they say that is because they they take the rib cage, they cut the baby back off the top, and now you've got this this 13-inch thick or long uh ribcage, piece of ribcage, right? That's a spare rib. So um the problem with with cooking spare ribs um is um the ribs are not the same length, right? As you go all the way across. Okay, so the bottom, you know, because you can imagine, you know, uh they're really long up in the front up by the shoulder, and as they go back to the loin, um they narrow up just like any root pitch does. Um, and so that sometimes gets to be a problem in restaurants, yeah. Okay, because somebody got this really nice long one over here, then their partner got this three-inch one over here off the other end of the rack. And so restaurants don't like that. So um many, many, many years ago, the um uh the St. Louis cut was um uh invented, and that's where barbecue joints started taking those rib cages, and um we you would see the uh the last ribs about four inches long, right? Four four and a half inches long. And so we take a bandsaw and we cut the uh we cut the the rib down so that all the ribs are the same length. And that's what a St. Louis cut is, and then now when you have that, you have that skirt piece, right? Um, and uh what do you do with that? Because you don't want to throw it away, and so because that's got all that good bacon fat type of uh type of meat on it. Um, and that's where the medio item rip tips comes from. Because restaurants are taking the um the pork rib and they're slicing them all uh equal or to equal length, and then what's left over, they uh they made a product called the ribtips. And we've done those sometimes in here too. When we have there have been times where, particularly over COVID, we could not get the St. Louis cut, they just weren't available because the meat houses were um were just simply doing the baby back and the spare rib for a long time. And so for a long time we were doing the full spare rib, and um, and then we would cut it like that, and we'd have rib chips and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

So St. Louis has nothing to do with being from St. Louis, the sauce, the spice, the nothing. It's the cut of the rib.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

There's many, many stories, and I don't know what the real one is. That's the reason I didn't speak up and say that, right? It's uh there's been many, many legends about how the how it got the name St. Louis Rib Cut. And I uh um I honestly have never discovered what I think is the uh the answer to that yet. So but anyway, that's the that's the anatomy of the pork rib, right? Is you can you can do it two main ways or maybe a third, and um if you think about the the St. Louis cut, and then that's what we do here, um, just out of convenience and and cost things, right? Um we love to cook them. You know, I I don't know how many uh how many others we do, but uh it's it's a ton, right? And uh literally, um but uh they're easy to cook. I like uh it's kind of like you know, I always when I'm training people, I always start out with pork butt, right? And show people how to make the pork, uh whole pork and stuff like that. Um ribs are are another really simple way to go. And if you don't, if you're hungry and you don't have a lot of time, or you've got a party coming and you don't want to spend all your time on your grill or your ribs are the ideal solution to that, right? Because they cook quick. And the reason they cook quick is because they're thin, right? Um and uh and so they're they're really nice to do. You can lay a couple hours, a couple three hours with the smoke on them, you know, wrap them, you know, and um it puts some moisture in the aluminum when you when you wrap them. So I I like to use my sauce right um in there before I wrap them and before I wrap them up totally, and um, and then that creates a very high humidity um um very uh uh theme, right, that will um will cook the rib uh very quickly. That's what makes it let go of the bone, and um and you know, and then you just gotta let them breast so you have the ability to cook them or cover.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

So back up for people taking notes. So you have a piece of foil, you have the ribs, you have sauce, you fold it up. Are you smoking it in the same smoker that you're smoking this?

SPEAKER_01 7:53

So now with all that as an overhead, I'll start at the beginning with it, right? So the first thing you do when you pull them out of the pack that you got for Costco, um Costco does not uh strip the skin off the back of them. Okay, and so that's a lot of people don't do it. A lot of people make an argument to not do it. The right thing to do is to do it, pull the skin off, right? Uh the skin is a membrane um that separates the the ribs from the internal organs, and so it's a very thick skin. Um, and it will, it just ends up being an ugly thing once the rib is cooked and it peels off and this kind of stuff. So um, and the way that the secret to getting that stuff off, you'll see the boys do it here if you're ever in while they're while they're stripping, um, is the easiest way to do that is you take a butter knife. And with a butter knife, you can slide underneath that layer of the skin versus the the meat, and you can make it go all the way across, right? Um without without ripping that piece of skin. Because anybody that's ever done this knows if you rip that piece of skin, now you're gonna be pulling little chunks at a time. It's kind of like getting tape off a window, right? You start out with it, all right. So, but you can get all the way across, and then you can you can you can get your fingers in on both sides of that that skin, right? And you just made a little tunnel with the with the knife, and then you can you can pull it, right? And it'll just pull right off, it'll hold together and it'll pull right off. And um, and then you've got this nice clean meat and um neat surface, right? Just like the top. Okay, so at this point, then uh then they're ready to put on the pit, right? So you um uh you do them the way you want to do them. Um if you're if you're close, if you're more on the um east coast of the U.S., you're gonna see a lot of prepping with mustard, right? On on uh ribs in general, and then they'll follow that with some type of salt pepper, pacrika, paprika, uh brown sugar type of uh um rub that they'll put on. Depending on what state you're in and the approach, it'll be the really thick to really thin. Um, believe it or not, here at Barbecue U, we don't do any of that, right? We're we're traditionalists, and um we uh we we might put a little bit of salt and pepper on, just a little bit, but everything you see us do here is straight smoke, smoke and meat, right? That's what our settlers did. Um so uh yeah, so then you're gonna kind of you know dressed the way you want them dressed, then you put them on, you know, you just put them on the grill, get that fire up to 250, and let them sit there and smoke for a while, right? And they'll turn um, they'll turn a really beautiful shape or a shade of amber, dark amber, you know, when they're fully smoked. The smoke will go all the way through them because they're so thin, so therefore you don't get smoke green, you get smoke nitration all the way to it, which turns that meat really red. Um, but they're not cooked yet, right? They're just smoked and flavored, and you've made, you know, if you've had that mustard and and brown sugar and stuff on there, well, that's all melted now, and it's kind of uh caramelized and and everything. And so now you've got this thing, this this rack of ribs, and you're ready. So then you get you some foil, um, and you uh, you know, you you put the uh the sauce or the apple ciders or whatever you're using in the bottom of that, and then you put the red on top of it, and then you roll it all up, right? It's heal the end. So you've just made you basically just made a little uh chamber with aluminum foil, just like you would when you render any any of the meats we talk about. Um then you put it back in there for maybe an hour. Um, the way you test it is uh either a toothpick or a um um or a thermometer. You can uh you can poke it through, and if the meat between the ribs feels like putting your thermometer in butter, then you're done. Right? That's when those ribs are done. Um, and then um, and that's and we say we like to all of us in the barbecue business like to say like butter, uh, because that's something that somebody can go practice. You can go get a uh you know, a uh uh room temperature kind of uh stick of butter you can poke through the skin, right? Or poke through the wrapper it's in and see what that tension feels like, right? To practice, and then you can go compare that. And that's when you know they're done, is when that thing feels like butter. Then you're gonna pull them out, you're gonna let them rest for at least an hour.

unknown 12:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Okay, because the fact that you super steam them inside all their juices and everything, inside that oil, they're just gonna want to completely fall apart on you, right? And you've got to let them rest for a minute, let that muscle, uh, muscle meat um tighten back up a little bit so that uh when you're ready to cut them, then uh and I recommend flip them on, flip them up so their back is up, and uh and uh cut them so you can see the bones, right? If you're trying to cut from the top, a lot of times it just rips because there's a big strap that comes across. So we like cutting them from the bottom because it's easier to see where the bones are, and we get that cut right down the middle that way. So that's the that's a high level of the pork group.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

And how many do you get in a serving, or how do people buy them at the store? By the pound? How much is that?

SPEAKER_01 13:06

You can buy them by the root, you can buy them by the half rack, you can buy them by the by the whole rack.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Okay. And how popular are they?

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Uh they're probably our probably our second most popular meat. Nothing beats the brisket. I mean, we hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pounds of that stuff go out, but um pork rooms are right there behind it. Like I said, it's hard for me to I haven't looked lately about what our what our volume rate is, but um yeah, we'll do, I don't know, we'll do there's 15. No, yeah, there's 15 in a case. We probably do four cases a day until you get the idea of how many how many pork roots go go flying through here.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

So you have a pretty simple approach to this. You're not saucing them that much. You're not you're pretty are you you're salt and peppering and smoking them pretty much?

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Salt and pepper smoking them. Yeah, because I want to I want to step back for a minute and remember what I'm always talking about. This is a nod to the to the the the immigrants that um that founded Central Texas barbecue right. They didn't have all this stuff, right? And the the Texas flavor is all about how to do things in this very simple way, right? Knowing how to manage a fire, knowing how to manage um the type of meat you got over the smoke, managing the smoke itself. Um, you know, because that's that's all there was, right? It came out like it came out, right? In those smoke houses. Um and so we we're doing a nod to that thing very traditional to it. So unlike in the Carolinas, we see a lot of mustard based, or in um uh Tennessee, Kentucky, we're seeing a lot of mops, right? Um, you know, mop tech processes and stuff like that. Um it's all very those things are all very different than the Texas uh Texas method because Texas comes from a really poor beginning and and there just wasn't you know all this all this fancy stuff to to do with a rib, right? Or with the breach or anything, right? Um and so anyway, that's that's kind of the uh the story behind why we do what we do and where we do it. It's very simple and um it's easy to it's easy to instruct and then you know and do it.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

So you have the St. Louis ribs, you have the Dino ribs, and then you have a special beef back rib. So which one you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_01 15:33

We'll talk about beef ribs next. Okay, okay, so um the next one, uh, we'll talk about the beef ribs because they're really we follow the same kind of process. It's not really process of what are they is the question. Because they look very different, okay. Um, and so when you look at the uh um at the let's start with start with the rib cage of the cow again, right? Um the uh the back rib or the deep back rib is exactly what you what it sounds like it is. Yeah it's coming off the spine, and it's that it's that first uh six or eight inches. Um yeah, six or eight inches that come off the spine, you know, and if you remember a cow's back, it's kind of flat on top, and then it and then it starts to roll off, right? Into the into the main part of the recreage. Um, so that's the that's the beef back rib. Okay, coming off the spine, it's kind of flat. So and there's and the way they usually do them, um, and it's a real uh scrap piece of meat, anyway. Um they usually get 10 bones, 10 of the bones is all they can get, um, and really make it a marketable product, right? So they don't the ones that get really short, they don't they don't um they don't usually ship those or we have them trimmed off. So you get 10 bones in a rack. Um they're very thin, right? As opposed to the to the we're gonna talk about next with the dyno bone uh or the beef short ribs listen. Um so they look a lot like a pork rib, they're just they're just beef. And we we do them the same way where we soft pepper them lightly and we smoke them and render them, and it's all the same process. Um now the next thing I'll talk to you about is as you go down the to the side of the couch, okay. Now that rib cage is pretty strong. The rib has has um where am I at? The rib has uh grown very wide, right? It's very it's a thick, it's a thick um um rib. And so right in the middle of the of the what they call the plate, um they cut these, they cut these uh foreign, foreign fire roof sections. Okay, and the meat on them, instead of being really thin, like we've been talking about, now the meat is about uh, I don't know, three to four inches thick. Um these are the dyno bones or what they call the beach uh beach short rib. Okay, when you go to Stagely or Fred Meyer or Albertson's one of those, and you see um the short rib uh in the packers, what they've done is they've taken that square of those four and five ribs, right? And they've taken it and it's about and it's nine, I think it's nine to ten inches long, right? Um what they've done is they've taken them on a bandsaw and they cut them to be about an inch and inch and a half, two inches long, right? And that's what's what um uh Framework, all these grocery stores around here sell as the as the short rib, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:35

And um it's no grocery store rib what you get it. Barbecue T is no grocery store rib, it almost looks like a weapon when they hand them to you.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Yeah, so so for us, we live the rack intact, right? Same kind of thing. Uh on the on the bottom of it. Um there's uh there's a really thick uh skin that separated the internal arguments from the rib cage. So you've got to grab it. You just pull it. There's no fancy trip to it. You can just you can just grab it and pull it off there. You need to do that, and then just sprinkle it with uh salt and pepper, and we get it on the pit. Um again, they'll sit there on the pit for most of the day. Um, they come off a little bit before the uh the brisket's due, but uh they sit there. Um same kind of bark as we do on brisket, right? So it's the heavy salt and pepper bark that we put on. Um they're basically um you know, it's got the same flavor, you know, it's just got a basically the same flavor as the brisket, but it's got it's more rich, right? The rear cage on the cow is really fatty, okay. So when all those fats and stuff melt, um it's actually a more buttery flavor, much more smoother flavor than the um um than the brisket is only because it's just got that much more fat content in it, right? They're really rich, you know. It's funny to watch people because the you know they're real expensive to buy because um um there are trade wars around the beef short rib between us and China, and um and so China keeps driving the price up, it's causing me to have to spend more, which means I have to charge you guys more is really the story behind this, right? And um, but nevertheless, we make these things and people will come in and buy them, and uh I mean it's just one rib, right? And uh, but it takes them a while to eat it if they can even finish it, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:30

So if somebody wants a dino rib, how do they make sure to get one? Because what you see a lot online in your social media is people that are wanting them, but they show up and you guys are they're out. So do you prepares turn them out every day or call before you come?

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Because, like I said, supply chain has never settled down on this, right? One week they got them, next week they don't, and that's what's driving us, right? Um, and um, you know, one of these days I'll have to find a better source of them, to be honest with you. But um, yeah, uh, call before you come if you're after the deep dyno rib. Um, at least do that so that you know that we cooked them. And then after you know that we actually have them, uh either that or you can order ahead. If you know you're gonna come in a couple days or something like that, um call ahead, right? And uh order them order in and um say, hey, I really want to get these things. Can I get them ordered, get them reserved before you before you put them all out to the counter, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Got it. All right. So does that so that covers the three kinds of ribs that you serve, correct? And they're all available every day, right? No special days for them.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Only the beef back rib is a special. We do it one day a week.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

What day?

SPEAKER_01 21:48

I think it's Saturday is what term's cooking them on these days. So okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

So Saturday is if you want the regular beef ribs, call ahead Saturday.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Get the vocabulary back rib. Beef back rib.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Got it. Beef back rib. So deep dino bone beef back rib and the Saint Louis cut. My big lesson today is that St. Louis has nothing to do with where they're from or the sauce or any of that. I had no idea that was the cut. That's interesting. So thank you. Anything else you want to say about ribs and how you guys cook them? Sounds pretty simple. It sounds like you're kind of a person when it comes to how you cook ribs.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Yeah, they're super simple.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Sounds like it.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Um I love doing them. You know, I could I could talk more, you know, because I I just talked about smoking them. Grilling them is a lot of fun. You know, there's a lot of different techniques for drilling um on these things. They work great and uh and tragers for all those people who got traggers out there, pellet cookers. Um you know, they're they're very adaptable and they're they're really kind of forgiving, right? And as long as you don't catch them on fire, right? But um, yeah, they render out really well. If you let them rest, then uh then you're able to manage them right better. Um and then um, yeah, uh just flavor them up any way you want. You know, pork is one of the cool things about pork, we haven't talked about it here, but um, you know, pork will take on whatever flavor nuance that you want. So you'll see a lot of guys they're um they're soaking them in apple cider vinegar or they're injecting things, or not on ribs, but on pieces of meat. But um, you know, there's all kinds of flavors you can make up. And uh, you know, more sugars, there's more caramelization, you know, there's there's just a large variety of things. It's um it's really fun to cut ribs.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Nice. Well, thank you. Good to know. Lots of things didn't know. I didn't realize how simple it was. That kind of makes me want to practice on ribs before brisket. Yeah, so so what else is going on at the store? I'm sorry, say again.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

No, I said brisket takes the master, right? So that one those are hard, right? Yeah, and you gotta know what you're doing to get that one right.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

And it's an expensive piece of meat to ruin, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

That's right. Is the day.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Yeah, yeah. So what else is going on at the store? What's your philanthropy happenings? Anything you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Um on the Arthur's corner, we got a new author, uh, John Shoemaker's in. And he wrote a book on program management. And uh so it's one of our first business uh business authors that we have in. Um interesting. We are you know Deborah's still doing first Wednesday of every month, um uh doing the paint classes. So come in and see next month's uh come in see next month's picture and sign up if you like doing that kind of thing. As I said, they have a hoot when they um when they do it, they get the they break out the wine and chocolates and stuff most of the time, and they're they're having a good time over there. Uh counter takeovers. Um we're kind of in the transition point right now because school just got out, and so a lot of the clubs, the stuff that we support, you know, they're all going on their summer break, right? Um here in probably a week or two, we'll start having the rotaries, the koanises, uh Altrusas, you know, those kind of folks will start coming in. We just completed diaper derby, right? Yeah, here we did uh we did 300 or those 6,000 diapers out of this out of this store.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

So that was pretty good. Um and then um we're still doing uh collect uh collect books for kids are over there. Um eyeglass recycling is is over there. Um I always forget these things. I'm trying to remember them all today. Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Well, I know that you've been involved with backpacks for kids, the key club, Koanis. When we had a baseball team, which I don't think we do anymore, the high schools, the grade schools.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

The Gig Harbor High School football team, we sponsored them. So we're one of the two sponsors, I think. So that's where you said you see the big harbor flag up in here. One of these days, uh Peninsula probably asked me because I left room for their flag.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Yeah, I'm sure you'll hear from them soon.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Um yeah, we sponsor the uh Gig Harbor Film Festival. We're one of the theater sponsors over there. Um, that's gonna come out. That's gonna be a really good show this year. So we're uh we're looking at looking at that. Um, we did sign up to uh we're cooking the uh the meal on Veterans Day um for 400 veterans. Um yeah, so we're gonna be doing all that ourselves. We got we got we were honored to get asked to do that um in uh in January by the committee that does that here in town.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Where is that at?

SPEAKER_01 26:33

That will be at the antique airplane museum. Uh more will come as we get closer to November, obviously. But um, yeah, the uh we got asked to cater that thing this year and um wanted to do something other than a Thanksgiving meal because they always they always have that meal, and then the participants in that get to go home and go have another Thanksgiving meal, right? So we're gonna change it up a little bit this year. So they say let's go get the barbecue guy to come in and do it. And uh and so we're really honored to come in. Um the focus uh for this year's um Veders Day celebration will be uh uh D-Day because it's the 50th anniversary of D-Day. So um we're gonna have some World War II guys there and so forth that that are looking in the hardware. We're really excited about being a part of that and um and doing that effort.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Wow, so some new stuff coming up for sure. And then you're busy catering, I know, just about every weekend, probably, right? Your book through the end of August. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

And then um, oh, I was gonna say too, uh, we're also gonna be out at Semel Park, right, next month with the the Game Harbor Art Festival. For those who don't know, it's not downtown this year, it's out in Semel Park this year, uh, because they ran out of space downtown. Uh the week after that, uh, we're going to be in on Fox Island for the Fox Island Music Festival. So if you like our food, you like music, and you like a lot of beer, um, you can go to the go to the Fox Island Music Festival. That'll be fun. Um, yeah, and uh I think that's that's all that comes to mind right now. I'm sure I'm forgetting what somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Wow, it's a lot though. Getting boring. So um what about catering? Are you booked? Are you still available or what's up at that?

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Oh yeah, um yeah, there's yeah, the catering is is getting back to the way it was in 2019, right? And uh so they uh people aren't um people are getting a lot of quotes this year, and uh some some accept and some don't. They're they're looking for their best deals, and so it's got to be a little bit more competitive this year. So we still have spots that you know, spotty areas open. Um, of course, everything around a major holiday is is is probably saturated at this point, unless somebody drops. I do I do have a standby list, by the way. So if it's 4th of July or if it's um or if it's Labor Day or what have you, right? Um I do take standbys, right? Because there are a lot, there are people who will call in, secure us, and right at the last minute decide they're not gonna do it. Right. So I like having that that uh that small list of people to call in case uh in case somebody drops out.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

So it's not too too late for summer, you might be able to get your event, but likely have to wait till fall or winter. But as is always call early because I know that certain times of year book up really fast. So and if you want to see the menu ahead of time before you call, it's on it's on the website for sure. Um, yeah. So anything else before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_01 29:30

You made it correct on Google for me, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Oh, the menu, yeah. If you've been trying to chase down the current menu, uh you'll find that it's updated on Google, it's updated on Facebook and Instagram. And if you find it anywhere else out there that doesn't look right, let us know. But we've been trying to audit uh the menu. We're pushing buying meats by the pound as opposed to the trays. Uh in fact, Gary, why don't you explain that? There's a way to get trays, but most of the time you're wanting people to use the pound.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

You order what you order, or you order what you order. This is the this you know, we sell meats by the pound, right? So sure. The problem with with the trays was for some people it was too much money, right? Or too much meat, you know, be prescripted for them. And then for other ones, it wasn't enough, right? And the guys were always trying to go through and make adjustments and all that. I probably just said, I'm gonna do like my brother and down to Texas do, and say, look, here are the types of trades you can have, right? And so I list them. There's a one-meet trade, there's a two-meet trade, there's a three-meet trade, right? And uh that way it kind of gives you an idea of what you want, because we still got a lot of people in here that have never been there before, right? They just want a meal and they don't want to make it so complicated, and they want to learn all the jargon. So I said, look, one meet two meetings, right? And then what happens is the guy's now just simply wail, right? Because we got meat by the price pricing on it. And uh, so if you want three ribs, you buy three ribs, right? If you want a pound of brisket, you get a pound of brisket. You want a pound and a half, you get a pound and a half, right? It's so much simpler on the boys, it's so much easier for the customer. Yeah, so um, and I know some people liked just saying a package deal, uh, but um, you know, this is really the the better way for both of us in in the long run. Everybody gets what they want, and um, you know, it's it's not so confusing.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

So will you fulfill the will you fulfill the trays if someone calls and asks for them?

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Well, just gonna ask you what they want. The only difference is there's not a set price. So you can say, well, I want to, I want a uh I want a two meat uh you know, brisket chicken with uh with mac and cheese and potato salad, right? We know that's gonna be a Texas tray, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Oh got you, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Right. So, but you know, the pricing is gonna be the pricing on it, right? For whatever the meat weight and sides are. Um there's uh there's only one place where we break that rule, yeah, and we don't like it, but we do it because we have to, right? And that's on the online services, right? Because they don't really have a good way to set up, you know, doing those things. And so for them, we uh we've kind of got a version of the old tray on DoorDash and on Channel, right, to it at Uber to do that, but um it doesn't work very well. I won't like I won't I won't tell you a lie, it doesn't work very well, but we seem to figure out a way to get through it, right? But it's not really a part of a main menu anymore. The trays are there for for uh recommendation, but yeah, the pricing is not going to be fixed on them.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Yeah, gotcha. All right, well, very good. Thank you, Gary. Always good to see you and thanks for all the information on uh how you cook ribs at barbecue to if anybody here wants those uh wonderful steps that Gary laid out. I do have notes, I'd be happy to share them. Just um hit us up on the website or on social media, and or you can always just email gparker at texasbq to calm and we will respond there. So, anyway, thanks for being with us, and we'll see you again next month.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

See you everybody.