Blake welcomes guests to our booth. Photographer: Paul Brown of Mad Meat Genius .
We had a great time at the 8th Annual Winner’s Circle BBQ Competition this weekend. We had a great turnout, lots of visitors came by our booth. We competed with some of the nations best BBQ grill masters and we were honored during the award ceremony with a “Hospitality Award!” Most importantly, we reinforced connection within our community.
You might’ve heard from Arcadia Weekly about the 8th Annual Winner’s Circle BBQ Competition that happens at the Santa Anita Race Track, where some of the nations most renowned grill masters gather to show off their culinary skills. It’s also a carnival, and is a family friendly event for all ages. As a family owned, local small business, this is a yearly opportunity to connect with our community in a way we love to do: lots of food, festive feels, and everyone invited!
It was great to see so many people come visit us. In particular, we were most pleased to see event staff not only visit us, but return (for more of our delicious cooking). Many of our own team members came out with their families, which was great, because we always love to see little ones running around having fun. It was an immense pleasure to connect with our existing customers, too. We’re so used to helping our customers out during times of stress, we always appreciate opportunities to connect in a relaxed and festive setting. And of course, we were happy to meet so many new people, as we invited the general public to come and enjoy our relaxed vibes and tasty foods.
We’d like to thank Smokin Double Barrels for their catering. They really knew how to prepare some fine foods. We’re quite sure their fine, BBQ style catered cuisine played a big part in why some of our repeat visitors kept coming back. They’re also the makers of the mini-barrel smoker we gave away in our raffle… more on that later.
Congratulations are in order for the winners of this year’s 8th Annual Winner’s Circle BBQ Competition! It was truly an honor to compete alongside some of the nations finest BBQ grill masters. We’re truly honored, and humbled to receive a special mention during the awards ceremony, “Honorary Hospitality Award!”
Speaking of honors, we’re grateful to Danny, one of our family members from Missouri, who came all the way out to this part of Southern California, just to support us during the BBQ competition. His expertise in smoking tasty meats helped us produce some of our finest BBQ, ever!
Our own competition, a raffle giveaway of a mini-barrel smoker, went really well! We had lots of participants, and Adam H. was quite pleased to hear he was the winner. He almost didn’t believe us at first, but check out the smile on his face as Mike gave him our top prize!
We were also quite pleased to see so many of our new BBQ Team shirts on display! We tried something new this year with shirts we could give away to guests, and it was a great success.
Overall, we’re really happy to have made such a strong connection with our local community. Participation in local events like these is truly a pleasure for us. This year’s BBQ competition has us feeling inspired: we’d like to participate in even more local events!
What local events would you like to see us participate in?