It happens to every restaurant & bbq joint at some point: A customer comes in towards the end of the evening, orders brisket or ribs, and the incredible staff has to let those customers down easy:
“I’m so sorry. We ran out of brisket & ribs tonight.”
Most of our customers are incredibly understanding. To date, our staff can’t recall a customer who wasn’t understanding. Unfailingly, our team’s response is met with questions along the lines of the following:
How did you run out of ribs? Fundamentally, y’all specialize in them, right?”
Said tongue in cheek, with a smile.
We do get embarrased when we run out because we want to make sure everyone who asks for our custom smoked meats, gets our custom smoked meats.
But when we run out of our brisket, ribs, chicken, tri-tip…we can’t simply pull a hunk or slab out of the fridge, slap it in the microwave, pretend no one heard the timer “ding”, smother it in sauce, and hope no one noticies. Others might. We don’t. We couldn’t.
Here’s why:
Our smoked meats average 14 hours in our smoker to get our taste and flavor. That’s not including prep time, which is its own time-consuming labor of love.
And while, yes, we have meats on the smoker at the end of the night, those meats are already being prepared for the next day.
We’ve gotten really good at estimating how much food we’ll need in a day. Still, once in awhile, our customers amaze us with their support, and their appetite.
It’s a fortunate problem to have. One that tells us we’re on the path forged before us by those many other iconic barbecue joints throughout the country. We thank our customers every time it happens, then we take in the information, and revise our demand projections.
Speaking of which, we need to maintain precision and accuracy with our estimates.
Our meats don’t have the shelf life of processed foods. They wouldn’t survive an apocalypse with solar power and a little grace.
We hope this helps.
We thank you for understanding and for continuing to ride with us on this incredible bistro adventure. We hope to see you, again, soon.