Our Memphis in May BBQ Fest team The Ques Brothers is looking to add a few more members. The deal is, you pay $200 to join, and that gets you wristband access as a team member during park hours (there are some 24-hour wristbands but those have already been spoken for). You get to eat BBQ (last year our cooks put out brisket, ribs, chicken, pork shoulder, etc.) and drink beer, wine and liquor Thursday, Friday and Saturday as a team member. You also get to invite a few of your friends to stop by our booth for some food and a drink on those days (note the way that sentence is worded: It does not say you get to invite 40 of your friends to come in and hang out and eat and drink all weekend without paying to be on the team). You also get a pass for “Friends & Family Night” Wednesday night. And, you get a Ques Brothers shirt. I’m not sure what the plan is for shirts this year, but last year we did polos which were nice enough to wear to work at most companies.
Here’s a link to last year’s photo album, where you can see how much fun we all had. Terex is not back as our sponsor this year (if your company wants to sponsor us, we can talk). Most of the team members pictured in the photos will be back.
We are in the shoulder category, which means we will be located in the south end of the park. Our booth was roughly parallel to the Huling entrance to the park last year, and I’ve been told we’ll have approximately the same location again. We have fantastic cooks and in our rookie year placed 12th out of about 80 shoulder teams. Our head cook knows exactly what he needs to do better this time around, and it’s possible and maybe even likely we’ll take home a top-10 trophy this year.
Since we have a cook team in place, you won’t have to worry about being involved in that. I believe we also have people to build the booth, so you’ll probably be able to get out of that duty as well. Basically you won’t have much responsibility beyond showing up and having a good time, although if you want to contribute (volunteering to go on liquor runs or whatever else there is to do during the festival) I’m sure it will be appreciated.
THIS OFFER IS ONLY OPEN TO PEOPLE WHO I KNOW PERSONALLY, AND KNOW SOMEWHAT WELL. We have a great team dynamic going on and I don’t want to mess it up by adding people I’ve never met. Sorry, but that’s the way it has to be. You need to be someone I’ve at least talked to several times and got along with well, not someone I met at the Saucer at 1:30 in the morning that one time a couple of months ago when I was on my 11th beer.
Great opportunity for someone who has always wanted to be on a BBQ team but has never figured out how to get connected with one. Also a great way to get better connected to our large informal network of early 20s-45ish Downtowners. There were quite a few people in the booth I didn’t know at all last May who are now good friends. We even have a team member who met his future wife in the booth last year.
If interested e-mail me at paul@paulryburn.com. This is not a first-come, first-served offer; I’m going to wait until about Sunday or Monday to see who all wants to do it, run the names by the team, and then invite the people who we think will be the best fit. I know there are a few people out there who are “the right people” who we just haven’t asked yet; for those people, we’d love to have you aboard.