I arrived at the booth about 2 PM, and was immediately kicked out. “What’s going on?” I thought. The BBQ judges usually come by the shoulder booths between 11 and noon. Judging should have been over well before I got there.
“We’re top 3,” several team members told me. “The judges are coming back for the final table.” Never have I been so happy to be kicked out of my own booth. Here’s a pic of the judges and our cooks and team leaders in the booth for the final judging:
Our cooks’ hard work paid off… later in the day we were awarded Third Place (out of 70-80 teams) in the World Championship Pork Shoulder Category. Here’s a pic of the team onstage accepting the third-place trophy:
Here’s a pic of me (the sole pic of me in the 300+ taken with my camera on Saturday) posing with the trophy:
Here’s a pic of our team shirt (front view):
And here’s the back of our shirt:
After the awards ceremony we celebrated not only the 3rd place finish, but our friend Lauren’s 23rd birthday. Here’s a pic of her boyfriend Lee bringing out the cake:
And here’s a pic of the birthday girl:
Hey, we got Lauren porn for her birthday! Oh, no, wait, that’s a giant birthday card.
And finally, let’s have a pic of what a $60,000 BBQ booth looks like:
That’s the upper deck of the Valero Oil booth which was next door to ours. Saturday night and it was EMPTY. Just goes to show, you can throw as much money as you want at BBQ Fest, but it’s the PEOPLE that make it. Our booth, by contrast, cost about $12,000 and change, a shoestring budget considering the number of team members (~42) and the number of guests we invited (we went through 1,000 guest wristbands in four days). Next year we will have a considerably more expensive booth, but we will have sponsors who see how much fun we have and want to have it with us, not ones who expect to take over the booth and make it a corporate BBQ team.
I’ll finish this post with a pic of the “without you, it wouldn’t have happened” people – head cook Willie (on the left) and team captain Chuck (right), with Chuck’s mom in the middle:
BBQ Fest wrap-up to come. Got lots of thoughts and rants still to post before the subject of BBQ is done for the year.
Here’s a link to Saturday’s BBQ Fest album, so large (314 pictures) that it had to be split off as a separate album from the Sun, Wed, Thur, Fri pictures. 5-minute walkthrough video of the booth to come.
I’m giving myself permission to sleep through brunch in the morning, but if I get up in time it’s Majestic week 2. It’s booth tear-down day but I’m invoking the “no physical labor” clause. Right now it’s 12:30 in the morning and I’m thinking to myself, hmmm the Rooster is open. I haven’t been out other than BBQ Fest all weekend. Time to go have some fun.