Today's blog post is a little different than most. This week's podcast episode was an interview with Jordan Wright, the owner of Wright's Barbecue. So I've taken the transcript and tried cleaning it up a little bit so it is a little easier to read. That being said, I did not check for punctuation, spelling and wording items all throughout so if you find anything weird like that, please ignore. I hope you enjoy reading the blog post and if you want to hear the full interview and episode with Jordan Wright, head over to www.lifearoundthepit.com/pit010 to listen or check it out on your podcast player!

TONY BROWN: Today I've got Jordan Wright, who is the owner and pitmaster of Wright's barbecue in Northwest Arkansas, now Central Arkansas as well. So I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm glad he's joining me today. I've got some questions for him and Jordan say hello to all of our Pit listeners, and tell us either a favorite barbecue memory or a mistake that you've made, probably your biggest mistake.

JORDAN WRIGHT: Hi! I'm Jordan. But no, A big mistake. I mean, probably hiring some some people that didn't know what they were doing, and caused us to have some fires. So no, I mean, I you know that's probably the biggest struggle early on, which is figuring out how to not catch everything on fire because our smokers were filled with grease. It's tough to keep them clean. And you know occasionally you just push things to the limit, especially when you're cooking multiple days, day, day, day, and you have no time to clean out the pit, because you're literally going fire to fire, to fire, to fire, to fire. It's you know, you catch stuff on fire. So yeah, you're constantly running so much meat through there. And then you think you have a grease plan, and you don't whenever something flares up, and it's on fire. So that's probably the biggest mistake was burning, burning up a whole catering order for a friend's golf tournament. So it's kind of kind of wild.

TONY BROWN: That's yeah, that that sounds exciting to me. Not at all. So yeah, I remember you telling me that story one time. And just yeah, that would be horrible having to, having to know that you have that catering that is ready to go here in a little bit. But you have no meat so...

TONY BROWN: Well, tell the audience your story. I'd like to hear your story how you went from corporate America to cooking barbecue, doing catering food truck and now to four brick and mortar stores that you've opened.

JORDAN WRIGHT: Yeah, it's kind of wild. Yeah. So just started in sales and was was working, just trying to. you know, make somewhat of a living, and and and try to take care of the family. And you know my wife not working and just raising kids, and when I cast started in the barbecue whirled. And you know, I guess just a hobby of working on it, and it was like, you know. Really, it was pretty good. And and you know it's funny when you're not trained like a trained chef, or you're just a diner, someone who eats out of restaurants. It's like, you know, you don't really know how good your palette is, and how good you know your taste is like. You just kinda think you know what you like, and but you don't until you start cooking for people in the public. You don't really know if what you like is what everyone likes, and if everyone's going to latch on to and really like, love it like you do. So yeah, whenever I've started, you know, kind of tinkering with doing some small caterings, and you know you get positive feedback, and you listen to it. And you know I kept kinda listening to the fact that, like, Hey, I was pretty good at this, and you know people do screw up even pork butts a lot of times, and you know I will say this. I don't think I've ever, you know, outside of, you know, a couple times maybe we cooked too many butts and trying to get them off too fast, like me. Personally, if I'm cooking like a butt. I think I've ever screwed up a butt like I think a good pork butt, but like it's really hard to mess up and so, but but like people do mess them up...maybe I've had one where I just overcrowded or fell asleep and didn't wake up but like, and if you take take time, then, you know, take care of it, and you know, run the process. It's really good meat, but like once you see that alright, this is good as good as I can get in a restaurant better than I can get a restaurant that it was kind of like. All right, maybe I need to. you know, start catering. And then a buddy mind was like, man. Why, you just go. I had no brand at this point. This is in the fall of 2015. He was like, why, you just change that trailer to the food truck and try to get to the farmers market. So I asked to the food trailer people, and they made the adjustment and went, and, you know, interviewed at the farmers market showed them breakfast tacos cooked some meat and had some barbecue breakfast, Tacos, and they were like alright. You're in so and then then it's like, Okay, now, create a brand. I mean, at that point you kind of like, okay, well, now, I've got to open up a Wright's barbecue truck. And so I had a buddy who was at Tyson at the time, graphic designer and and he whipped me up a couple of logo options, and I picked one I really liked. And you know, the rest is kind of history.

TONY BROWN: Yeah. And now you have. Now you have 4 stores that you've got open. You just opened Little Rock what? A month ago, month and a half ago. Yeah, and that's that's going great. I think that's really, I love that story just hearing how how things kind of played out. And now, did you have any. Did you have any kind of experience with Brisket, prior? Or did you do any kind of competitions or anything with that?

JORDAN WRIGHT: Like when I bought my trailer like I'd cook some briskets on the egg, and I never had really good much success. With them and, and so that's probably the one thing like if I could go buy another green egg and just start like she's see if I can figure out a perfect big green egg process for briskets. I think I have an idea what it would take. and I don't know if I'm ready to share yet. But I think I think I have an idea of how you can cook, actually, I think if you took, I think if you built a contraption, I mean, think about this for, like what we do, and you got fire grates, brisket, chimney. For an egg, everything's directly below, and and so it's really hard on the flat, so I think you hang. I think you wrap the brisket, like you hang the brisket from the egg and cook it butt side with that, that, that can work I've never thought of until just now, because, like every time I cook on the egg, it's like it burns up your flat. Even if you do, fat side down, then your fat cap is sitting on the grate and which is protected. You're you're flat, but then your flat dries out anyways, cause it's literally right on top of the fire. And so I think you, I think you hang it hanging, and we let it just let it with the point. with the point at the bottom, you know. Closer to the grate. Let it sit there. Maybe build a little like Brisket Tower for those things just like Enter in, hold on to. and they just cook vertically. I think that's the best idea I've ever heard. Well, you know, we don't try out going on egg now. Well, yeah. So I wanna hear about it. If you if you get it, I'm gonna do it. I wanna see it. I'm gonna do it. I'm in a video. And I'm gonna I'm probably gonna make a mill like we're gonna make a bunch of money on this on this one thing vertical, the vertical brisket. And I've never seen it done. I'm seeing Kettle cooked brisket, but I'm now like in the kettle like the weber kettles, but I've never seen one do it on a brisket on on an egg. So yeah. But that once that started doing brisk, it was like, okay, I really want to get good at it.

I did a brisket on an indirect cooker and the brisk, it was okay. I remember, actually, I remember the day my buddy thought it was like, he's like, Oh, this is good now, it was not good and I just didn't get them done. And when I went to Texas and 2016 to pick up my trailer. I went and hung out and worked with my buddy for like 6 h, and we're now still, we're still good friends. Name is Evan Leroy. And yeah, he kind of just taught me. You know, this is what I'm looking for. This is what I'm feeling for this is how we do things, how we trim ribs. Blah blah blah, and you know, trim beats and beat barbecue sauce, trim brisk, so you know, got a little experience, but, like I kind of knew most of what like got taught there like it was real brief, and like we got to do so I got 6 and prep for, and make some barbecue sauce, make some bread, do some general stuff, and then, when I went, I took that trailer down to a competition and cooked a Wagyu Brisket ended up winning the competition. That's the only time I won. A competition was in Texas...in Texas. I got like second place in pork butt at the explosion barbecue in like 2017 but other than that, like it was just I don't really. I mean, I'm not a big competition guy, but it's just camping, you know, like it's hard to go. But I'd like, if if we like. We have a plan kind of right now. It's like we're gonna try to get into some competitions. And like, you know, if you say you and your boy, you know, wanted to run down and go with Tommy, or you know, Tony. And there's like 6 guys from across multiple pits that. Wanna go down on a Saturday and go kind of team up. It'd be a blast, you know. So.

TONY BROWN: I'm laughing internally, as you're saying that about yeah, I mean. And I went. And I you know I won my, I won on best brisket on that. And you're saying that like lightly in in Texas, and you're saying it as if like, I mean whatever.

JORDAN WRIGHT: So I didn't win any money.This is the association of general contractors, barbecue competition.

TONY BROWN: Yeah. Well, I wanna go back to something. I wanna go back to something you said about catching things on fire because you were mentioning the the smoker trailer, you know, and and in my second episode I gave my barbecue store and kinda told how I got into it, and ended up in it. I talked about the fact that my first day working for you, I caught the smoker on fire. And I was like, yeah, everybody was like, I just load it up real big. And and then and you're like, yeah, loaded up with a lot of wood. And I'll be back. And yeah, I caught it on fire, and I was like great, I am fired right off the bat like my first day, and so and you got back. And you're like, now, this one gets on fire all the time. So oh, okay, you were like, it's fickle. So

TONY BROWN: Well, what do you think? What do you think has set Wrights Barbecue apart? What do you think that has set that apart? Because we have plenty of barbecue in Northwest Arkansas. Right? We have plenty of of different places. We even have, we even have a bike rally that has barbecue, and it's for that. And what do you think has set Wrights apart. What's what's the key to that?

JORDAN WRIGHT: What do you? What do you think it is you know you're in there? What do you think it is? I want to know your I want to know your thoughts.

TONY BROWN: Well, I'm going to say a there's passion put into the barbecue, so there's passion in that, and there's expectations that are set. That you have set that you expect, you know, for great barbecue. But I also I also feel like just the culture of the atmosphere, and what what we, as people are trying to do for the customers, and how we are. As as you know everybody's open. Everybody's like, Hey, welcome to Wrights. Come on in, you know every just this atmosphere of not only taking care of the customer, but being people to the customers right?

JORDAN WRIGHT: And I think that said, I couldn't have said it better. Yeah, I mean, all those things are true. That's like out, out of this world, knock it out of park. I mean, it's our culture of hospitality is next level. Our culture of team members, how we treat each other, how we talk to each other, how we work together, how we pick up slack, how we cover team members when they're gone, how we take care of us, you know, just as this whole family of people that work for us, I mean, that's what builds. If if we weren't taking really good care of each other, we wouldn't be able to take care of the meat and take care of the food. So yeah, I mean, that's it. Culture is everything. And you know, a a Yeah, we have plenty of spaces, like, I guess, for like. not really. We've got a bunch. There's to me. It's like we don't have anybody that does what we do. And that's the big thing like, even if you'd said, Hey, I'm gonna go buy a thousand gallon cooker which people have. Now. There's multiple places now up here that have followed us in that. But like equipment doesn't make barbecue makes barbecues. The team and the people and the ingredients like we buy the best ingredients we can buy. We've hide the most, you know. We do copious amounts of quality tests every single day. So it's like, just cause you buy something doesn't mean you can recreate what we've done, which is like your right built expectations and a standard that like. if it's deviated. there's an immediate reaction from are frontline team members like they know. And so there's not one person involved that doesn't know the standard. And I think that's and that's accredited to our team, you know. Credit to, you know. I me. I guess you know it's like to not to give myself pat on the back, but, like sometimes that's hard for me to like, give myself credit. But like I do think that's one thing I do really well is is design is communicate expectations, and you know. talks are quality, and and understand that very deeply when it comes to food and on on. That's kitchen and pit, you know. So I think think that's probably what really separates us is that quality and and so, and hospitality so hands down awesome.

TONY BROWN: Well, that kind of leads into the next question, which is, what do you think? What do you think? The the number one key element is to cook in great barbecue?

JORDAN WRIGHT: trial and error. I mean, gotta you gotta cook. That's the key. Gotta do it. Yeah, if you don't do it. If you don't do it, you won't learn how to do it. And so I mean, that's like cooking a steak. The more steaks you cook, the more you know how to cook a steak more, more briskets you've you've experienced, the more different cuts, the more trimming thing about amount of briskets we've trimmed it's like we now know how to handle every item. And and we still see briskets that are mind blowingly different somehow. And it's like I haven't seen one of those in like 6 years that looked like that, you know. And so it's like with the amount of randomness that we deal with that's like the key. The key is, the more experience you have, the more you time you put in, the better you get. If if you can. If you know flavors. I mean you could. You could. You could practice all you wanted. But if you bought a crappy rub, or you thought you wanted to build your own seasoning. you really screwed it up, and it's not gonna be good barbecue. So you have to have an understanding of flavors and and how to how to get what you want to get out of each meeting.

TONY BROWN: Yeah, that makes sense. So if you were to have another pitmaster or barbecue cook come up to you and ask you about starting up like, Hey, I want to get in and I want to start a catering business, or I want to start a food truck, or even a pop up, or a brick and mortar. What would you say to them? What would you? What kind of advice would you give them?

JORDAN WRIGHT: today? I'd say. if you're if you have your own, if you have your own financing, probably a good idea. I guess if you wanted to. If you're trying to borrow from the bank, it's like now's not a great time to borrow from the bank, so it's like, I would know kinda like coach him on the business side like man. I don't know but there's people that are opening places. I we just opened one, but we got a really good interest rate on the little deal. But you know, I think I just encourage. Do they really want to? This is what it like really takes as far as time. And I mean, I don't think I really probably have ever calculated, you know, 2017, 18, 19, pre Covid. Just how much time I spent in the business at the barbecue house those 3 years. I mean, today, it's like much more like running the business setting jump into the stores, you know, and like, you know, I'm not Rogers at time. You know, it's cause we have a great team there, and sometimes sometimes I walk in there. Everyone's like, Oh, and it's like, you know, and I don't want that, you know. It's like, I don't want that to be that case, either. But like life happened, we got kids. Yeah, it's like, when you're when you set up regimen schedule like, Okay, I'm gonna try to go to this store. You know I'm trying to do this store that store and this store in one day. All right. Now, I'm just gassed so like, you know, I think the taxing nature of of running the business having enough cash cause, I mean, I can't tell you how many times, like 2017, 18, 19, 20, where it was like dude. We we could've we could've failed. you know, if 2 things 3 things went bad, you know, like we were. And and today we're a lot more financially strong. like. At the same time, it's like, if something bad happens. You're not like you're not. So it's like, you gotta kind of deal with the fact that you're going to be stressed about trying to save money to like for your business, cause hard to save money as a family like it just did is like saving is not an avid our country makes, I mean, like, really, we're a spending place. It feels like. And so, you know, that's probably the biggest thing is like, are your finances under control personally, because if they're not under control personally, then they don't put stress on the business cause. Then you're trying to outlive your means through your business. And that's a problem, because then you'll need that money like to buy a repair a piece of equipment, or buy a new sauce like oh, you know what we were closed for a day because of an ice storm I've got still got to pay payroll. And so I mean, you know, there's a lot of lot of things that are probably and unknown that, like outside of like the encouragement side of like, Hey, man, if you're passionate about this and you. I would say, if you're passionate about barbecue in order to say, Hey, I'm ready to go. Start a business. I'd say I'd I'd really ask a lot more like people questions like, and are you? Are you ready to lead like is God. Put it on your heart to lead others into to pour out yourself to other people? Are you willing to trust others. Are you willing to do what it takes to be a good operator, which is, you can't do everything. And I said from the beginning, I was like, well, how's you know? How are you leaving? And it's like, How are you? I'm like, well, cause everybody knows everything. I know. Why would I not want everyone on my team to know everything. It is that I know about making great barbecue. In fact, no more. Teach me. Don't be afraid of hiring great people like Tony Brown, you know Tommy Caldwell, I mean Tony Aebi, like we've and now, like even Tony Tony could barbecue a little differently. But it came up like we've got. Really, Jeremy Com, we've got great cooks who love their craft. and but it's like if I was afraid of you know, teaching them or teaching you that. And like like we'd be nowhere. So you know, I think it's just kinda like, who are you and like, what's your real goal is your goal like. make a fortune? Well, there's a lot better ideas to make a fortune, I mean, like, I mean, it's we've we've been very successful in like. And still, it's like, you know, we've we've got. You know, we've got a be really disciplined to be able to make sure we make a profit, so we can pay for pay time off. We pay for health insurance and 401k, like all the things that we do like sacrifice to do. But like it's a it's food service is not an easy business. And so yeah, it's like, what's the motives? The motives just to like Instagram glory. Or you know, hey? You know what I love cooking? I don't know. I think it's you'd have to kinda just feel like what's their heart, you know, and if their heart's the right place, and like you feel like that person is good leader, the person's not a good leader, they're not gonna do. Well, yeah. I mean, I don't care if you're the best chef ever, and you may survive. But you're not gonna have a fun life. So you gotta be willing to, you know. Say, Hey, how do you know what I've got to develop myself and become the best leader I can be? And and some people that happens after they open it, and they realize they gotta be a better leader. They gotta be able to communicate better. They gotta learn. Learn banking. It's it's quite arduous at times, but it's a lot easier to run the food truck, I mean, like, if I was a hey, I go get a food truck and do it on the side. Make sure you can make money week after week, new in one day a week and just invest in that, because that's you know, if you can't make money and build a following, then it's gonna be hard to make money and build a following out of a brick and board. Sure. So yeah, that's kind of yeah, it's a long answer.

TONY BROWN: yeah, but that was great, because II think that's one of those places that you know, most guys that are thinking, well, most guys girls that like cooking barbecue. They like cooking barbecue. They don't. And they think, Okay, I great. I've cooked for different guys, different people, different groups, different parties, things like that. And they think, Okay, man, I could go ahead and do this. And I could make you know I could. I could do this regularly and full time, and they don't think about all the things that you just mentioned. Right? I mean that. Yeah, there's so much more to it than just cooking barbecue. So yeah, so I think that was great. I thought, yes, it was a long answer, but it was a great answer, because it gave, those are the things we don't think about that most people that cook barbecue don't think about

TONY BROWN: So what is? I've got 2 questions left. What's a life lesson that you've learned while cooking barbecue and your time around the pit?

JORDAN WRIGHT: I I think, think it's probably the only place. especially cook. It is the only cooking place where, like so much has to be. You know, it's a waiting game. So stop me, Patience. It really taught me to let go of a lot of things that are outside of my control. And and and I think it teaches the way we do it. It really teaches humility and teamwork. Because most days. you know your shows every day someone else's trim that brisket for you. You may be seasoning it, putting it on and running fires, but then someone else is wrapping it for you, and someone else is pulling it off, and someone else's letting it rest and then putting it in a warmer, and someone else is slicing it. And you know. as even a pit like, you know, it's like I'm one of the pit masters like at times when I'm out there and like. But like we've got a bunch of people that are super super excellent pitmasters, and but like there was a situation that happened a few weeks ago, I kept kind of saying, You know. My! All these people love my barbecue. They love my barbecue. I would. I don't even refer to it as my barbecue, like it's our barbecue like it's like I buy the meat now, like I mean, it's not like I buy the meat sometimes trim some nurse good, but like we've got a team of staff people, and everyone passes it along. And so it like it finishes due to teamwork, not because one guy is depended on for everything. And so to me. It just teaches that value of how to work together. how to solve problems together. You know, it's kind of like there's one common thread across the whole business in my business is like no, but no one man is like known. I mean, I get, you know, like my name is on the building. But, like. you know, it's not like we have one guy that's like the best brisket guy. It's like, you know what. If you don't get Tommy's Brisket. You're not getting. It's like, no like Tommy is great food. I'm Tommy Cook's great Tommy's a great cook. He's great like. Not one person is like better than the whole. and everyone is, everyone is committed to our team. And so I think that's probably the biggest life lesson in this just understanding the value of the team and and not trying to get a bunch of glory. But just what that like teamwork. you know, build, build the success story really, because but I think that's really good way for no one to get. There's no egos. I don't feel like in our rooms. It's it's it's all we know we're trying to make the guest happy, and if we've got an idea to make the guest happy, everyone's gonna listen, and everyone's gonna try to do it and get better. So yeah, that's probably it.

TONY BROWN: Jordan, and I'm glad really glad that you took some time to join me here and share with our listeners, and I know your time is valuable, man. I know that. I know that the value dropped here today is gonna it's gonna create ripples beyond just this conversation right here. And so I appreciate that. So one last question, before we go, where can the pit listeners go to find you and go to find Wright's barbecue.

JORDAN WRIGHT: So they can go to wrightsbbq.com find a location. I'll be randomly at stores at times. But yeah, Wright's Barbecue in Bentonville, Johnson, Rogers and Little Rock. Yeah, you can order it online, you can. We can. We can ship you food. So if you want to brisket, we can freeze one for you and send it to you.

TONY BROWN: Awesome. Yeah, man, awesome way before we go? That's all the questions. I think that's that right. There is amazing that we can ship food like we can just how we're just gonna do that we could get that take care of it. So yeah, well, I think one thing you know, one thing I think for you. I appreciate, I appreciate. And sometimes I don't appreciate cause. It's like, Okay, we gotta figure this out right that. You just man, you take you get an idea. And you're like, we're gonna make this happen. I don't know how we're gonna make this happen. But we're gonna make it happen. So, seeing how you have done things over the years, especially during Covid, when okay, well, we're gonna create. We can't have people in here. Well, we're gonna create a drive through. I mean for sure, really like, what in the world? Well, how are we gonna do that? Don't have a clue, but we're gonna make it happen. So how are we? How are we gonna get this cook done with this amount? I don't know what we're gonna make it happen, you know. So and you just come up with ways, and you come up with things. So that's that's very cool thing.

Remember, BBQ is known for being low and slow cooking that produces a fantastic reward. Life as a pitmaster is the same. You have to put in the low and slow efforts to produce the fantastic reward: a legacy of impact! Until next time, season some meat, start a fire and make an impact!