Month: May 2010

The Memphis Flyer’s Hungry Memphis blog has a post up about BBQ Fest, mentioning the Ques Brothers and several other teams.  Check it out here.

I wanted to pass along a compliment that I heard yesterday.  As I was walking to BBQ Fest, I ran into my friend Sarah who was out walking her dog.  “I just had the best sausage biscuit Downtown,” she told me.  “It was at that little convenience store, Second Street Shoppers.  The sausage was so good.  It was a little spicy and that made it different.”

Check them out if you need to grab a quick bite.  They have a full deli.  They’re located on Second near Kooky Canuck and the Flying Fish.

BBQ Fest 2010 is over, and it’s time to congratulate a few of the winners.

The Ques Brothers didn’t finish in the top 10 for shoulder this year, but we did bring home the Grilling Green Award for our recycling efforts.

On the way back to the booth, I saw that another local team, Barbecue Republic, had picked up an award in the Whole Hog category.

Our friends at Squeal Street BBQ scored fourth place in Patio Porkers.

Congratulations to ALL the BBQ Fest winners.  What a party.  I am absolutely exhausted.  I took about 140 photos yesterday, and given that it was the final day of debauchery, I have to go through the photos and remove the ones that are not fit for public viewing.  As soon as I do that and take a shower, I’ll post the rest of the pics.

Here are the pics from yesterday.  You can tell that we’re getting progressively drunker as the week goes on.

One of the things I do at BBQ Fest is called “PervertCam.”  Meaning, I stand outside our booth or on the rooftop, and clandestinely take pics of hot girls walking by.  Here’s a pic I snapped of a tube top hottie about to go into our next door neighbor’s booth.

Team photo.  Attn Steve: I had to resize it to 1600×1200 for blogging purposes, but I’ll send you the original photo, which is higher resolution.

Official dinner time was 7:30, but during the late afternoon – from 4:30 to about 7 – the cooks would occasionally bring out food, ranging from shoulder to exotic stuff like duck and lamb.  The Nuh-Uh Girl HOVERED by the server table nearly the entire time to make sure she had first dibs on any food that came out.  She even organized a game of quarters at the server table to make it look like she had a reason to be there.  I lost count of how many people commented to me about her hovering, but it was at least ten.

About 5:00, the rain started.  We covered everything, including our camel.

Team members used 2x4s to push water off the roof of our tent…

…and Joe unfortunately was standing in the wrong place.

One of the many, many, many meals the Nuh-Uh Girl had yesterday.

Looking into the booth of our next door neighbors, the Hogfathers.  Apparently the Nuh-Uh Girl didn’t get enough to eat in our booth, so she went over there and ate too.

Tube top hottie with Terry

Mikey’s rain gear

Magyn dancing

Because of his hard work all these years, our inspirational leader/father figure has earned the right to pass out in our booth without being blogged.  Frank, however, has not earned that privilege.

11 PM, food is still coming out, and look who is back hovering the server table.

Another tube top

I took so many photos that I went over Facebook’s limit of 200 per photo album, so I had to break them up into two albums:  Part 1 and Part 2.  If you haven’t been checking out the complete albums, I highly recommend you look at these.  Many, many tube tops, and you can really see a timeline of the Nuh-Uh Girl’s hovering throughout the day.

Random thoughts, some related to BBQ Fest and some not:

– Thanks to Kao for hanging out post-BBQ Fest.  Sorry I couldn’t hang longer – one beer at the Goose and one at the Saucer and I was about to pass out from exhaustion.  I have not had more than 5 hours of sleep any night since BBQ Fest started.  My feet feel like I’ve been walking on razor blades all week.  Pain in my feet woke me up this morning.  And yet I’m going to go down there today and walk around for 9 or 10 more hours.

– Based on a post-BBQ stop I made last night, I’m beginning to think Polish girls may have overtaken Romanian girls as the sexiest girls from Eastern Europe.

– I shot the Ques Brothers booth video walkthough yesterday, but YouTube is being a bitch when I try to upload it.  It’ll appear here eventually.

– I also have video of Steve leading a poker run group as they do the hokey pokey.  And video of Shane and Esther doing the hokey pokey.  Those’ll eventually make it online too.

– There’s one video I shot and then decided not to post… it was taken Thursday night and it was a video of someone’s mom dancing.  It will be shared with select people.

– Extremely excited about today.  As I’ve mentioned, one of our sponsors is WordPress.com.  Matt Mullenweg, the head WordPress guy, is likely to be in our booth.  I’m really hoping I get to meet him.

– Attn Nice Magan from Kooky Canuck: Welcome to Foursquare!  Suggestion: When you check in and you’re picking up a server shift on the floor, you might want to include that as a comment in your checkin.  Yesterday I saw Magan check in at Kooky, and went up there all excited thinking she was bartending, but instead it was… someone else.  It was like hearing that the Fire Sale might be Dos Equis Lager, and running up to the Saucer and finding out it’s actually Turbo Dog.

– We need a music advisor who is female and 29 or younger.  I loved the music played in the booth yesterday, but seriously, we need to get more songs in the mix that were made after 1980.  We need to appeal to a more diverse crowd with our music.  And by “more diverse” I mean “hot, tube-top wearing crowd.”

– Why I love the Saucer:  This week, one of the girls showed up for her 5:00 shift, but first she had to run over to Victoria’s Secret in Peabody Place mall.  Reason why:  She forgot to wear underwear to work.

Okay.  Time to jump in the shower and get the day started.  The judges come by our booth between 11 and 12, and since presentation is part of the judging, I tend to stay the hell out.  Probably I’ll hit Kooky Canuck, then the Saucer, then head to the park.

The Plush Club, the nuisance at 380 Beale which has been the scene of shootings, assaults on police officers, and 100-person brawls in recent years, may soon be gone.  The owner of the building has filed suit to shut down the club, saying that he’s had enough.  “We are not in the mood to put up with that kind of thing,” he said.  FANTASTIC.  More details here.

I just saw breaking news on Twitter that the CCC’s board has voted to approve Paul Morris as the new president and CEO of the Center City Commission, taking over from outgoing Jeff Sanford.

I am THRILLED… absolutely SUPERB choice.  I’ve known Paul for about seven years, five of which he was my across-the-hall neighbor at Number 10.  Paul is someone with a vision for Downtown, he’s a listener, and he’s fair.  Downtown will do well with Paul at the helm of the CCC.

Congratulations, Paul.

Congratulations to Brent and Holliday Flowers, designers of our Ques Brothers booth.  The judges came by at 11 AM yesterday to have a look, and we were told the Tunisian judge in particular was impressed with the booth’s authenticity.  At 8 PM the awards were announced, and we brought home a second-place trophy.  Congrats to Brent on a beautiful booth, and wherever we display that trophy, be sure to save room for a BBQ trophy to go next to it.  Here are some highlights from yesterday.

We wanted our cooks to take it easy yesterday, so we brought in special guest cook Air Traffic Mike.

Our camel looking out the window

“She’s so cute, it almost makes me want one for myself,” commented Clay.

Uncle Ray

When nature calls, you have to answer.

Head of security Lee getting the guest list in order

OttoMom and OttoDad

The team bringing back a delivery

Tube top

Best Booth second place trophy

Terry and friend getting down

SWEET Mello Yello VW Bus that was parked outside the Beale Street entrance

Complete album (192 pics) here. Whew.  I am worn out.  My feet are already aching and I have two days left to go.  It’s 9 AM as I type this.  Time to throw my Ques Brothers team shirt in the laundry, take a shower, recharge the camera and iPhone batteries, go through the 119 new e-mails in my Inbox, and do whatever other pre-BBQ Fest things need to be done.  Saucer at 11, BBQ Fest at 11:30.  If I have time before 11 I’ll do another post.

BBQ Fest kicked off last night with Friends & Family Night.  Here are some pics from the Ques Brothers booth.

Booth facade

Fountain that is part of our hopefully award-winning booth facade.  Moody, who was in charge of security last night, didn’t seem to appreciate me referring to it as “the urinal.”

Terry and Boo getting down at the bar

The dining room

The grill

Erin, setting the standard for BBQ Fest fashion

The Nuh-Uh Girl goes crazy when she sees food

Another pic of the Nuh-Uh Girl eating

BBQ pizza

Mikey getting a beer

Aaron and Brenta

BBQ baloney

Hunter tries to convince Frank to wait until after the booth judging today to make love to the camel.

Our team sign has never looked so good.

Complete photo album (about 130 pics) here. Also, make sure you scroll down and check out the previous post, where our inspirational leader/father figure sings us a song.

Great vibe in the booth last night, especially for the last hour.  Whoever picked the music (I think it may have been Otto) did a great job.  People were dancing and singing along.  Good to see that on the first night – I think good things are in store for the next three days.

Went to the Saucer afterward, which SUCKED – the place was filled with rude corporate turds who stood right in the middle of the aisle and didn’t care that they were in people’s way.  I’m trying to verify that they were with the company I think they’re with.  If they are I’m going to call the company’s office and complain about how rude they were and how poorly they represent the company.  I ended up going to the Silly Goose, where I drank PBR and had a long conversation with Brick.  You know, Brick is actually smarter than people give her credit for.  She misses her regulars… please go by the Goose and see her.

Time to shower and get ready for the first day BBQ Fest is open to the public.  Booth judging is this morning at 11, and I want to be out of the way for that, so I’ll do a quick beer at the Saucer to start, then head down about 11:30.  Ms. Piggie Idol is at 6, booth awards at 8.  If you’re coming down, they let you in at lunchtime for free (can’t remember if it’s 1 or 2 when they start charging).

I’ll be commenting/snarking all day on Twitter.  Follow me at @paulryburn to keep up.

Today I went to Court Square, where Pete the Trivia Guy was doing Memphis trivia for the CCC’s Downtown Alive! program.  There were three rounds, each with a prize of $25 in Saucer bucks to the top finisher, plus a $100 Saucer bucks prize for first overall.  Here’s a pic of Pete at Court Square.

The results:  I won round 1, round 2, and the overall prize (via tiebreaker), becoming $150 richer in Saucer beer money.  It will be put to good use, believe me!

Here are some more pics from last night and today.

Brick working at the Silly Goose last night.  She had on an outfit that didn’t show any ass.  Booooo!!!

The Stepbrothers in their final performance at the Silly Goose

Sign on Kooky Canuck’s door.  The Sunday before Memorial Day is not a school night for most of us, and Kooky will help get the party started with 99 cent beer.

Need a ride to The Pony?  The Southeast Memphis strip club has had a BBQ-themed shuttle on the streets of Downtown this weekend.

Earlier this afternoon, I was holding down the fort at the Saucer, and one of my BBQ teammates called.  She thought she left a satchel there last night, and wanted me to retrieve it.  Turns out she left it somewhere else, but that is an illustration of why it’s so important that I be at the Saucer to keep things under control while the rest of the team builds the booth at Tom Lee Park.  You never know what might come up.

Less than 2 hours until the gates open for Friends & Family Night.  Expect LOTS of pics tomorrow.