So on a “Facebook Group” I participate in, (Reno Foodies), Kelsey said in a thread about local places doing BEEF RIBS other than the Rib Cookoff :
“It appears that Sparks and Smoke should be at the rib cookoff…”
I, in my normal, overly long winded way, replied. I wanted Kelsey and everyone else know exactly why we don’t do The Rib Cookoff. It also pretty much explains why we don’t do outside catering, delivery, etc… Get a cup of coffee, it’s a long one…
Hey, Kelsey, I’m the idiot in charge of Sparks and Smoke BBQ Takeout. Please pardon the long winded answer to your question, but really it deserves an answer that is more than I can say in just a paragraph.
There’s several reasons we “don’t do” the cookoff.
Because I can’t usually find extra staff here at the joint when I need them (trust me everybody in town is dealing with the staff shortages), I want to concentrate on this place. My son, Michael Donson is more than my right hand, he’s more like my whole right side!!! He is my Asst, Manager and Asst. Pit Master here. He along with Weekday Cashier Stephanie Tairiuwemale, “Pit Master in training”, Steven Burr, and soon to be Weekend Cashier Traci Ford, make for a truly outstanding crew right now. But to get more like them is near to impossible. Trust me, I’ve been trying for quite a while… So staffing is always an issue when considering doing the Rib Cookoff…
I love what I do and I’m here 7 days a week, 14-20 hours a day. A day off a few time a year would be delightful, but, uhhhh, no, not yet, because we still have much to get done. Trying to do this and run a “remote” would also be near to impossible.
(BTW I’m trying not to sound overly “dramatic”, but my “day” starts around 1 am and ends around 7-7:30 pm, sometimes later… When would I have time to do anything other than try to make sure everything here is getting done?)
The second thing is: we really don’t have the equipment to do a proper job outside of the joint. Considering my smoker in the shop is able to do, at the very most, 20 racks of beef ribs per 6-9 hour “smoking run” yielding 2 usable “bones” per rack, I couldn’t keep up with the demand at the Rib Fest and still keep the quality I insist on. It’s also why we only do BEEF RIBS every Thursday… The smoker is usually stuffed to the gills to meet our “normal” demand for Brisket, Pulled Pork and Pork Ribs and we have to do an “extra run” Wednesday/Thursday Morning to get the BEEF RIBS done the way I want them and then we still need to get a run of Brisket/Pork Butt/Pork Ribs done for service on Thursdays. To stay competitive on price, our profit margin is pretty darn thin (if we even MAKE one) on BEEF RIBS.
Here’s a link to a great article on BEEF RIBS – note it’s 5 years old and my price on BEEF RIBS, raw, is well north of $6 per pound…(and yes I eat the cost of 1 bone in every rack that I throw away, because it’s a “shiner” – more bone than meat. We usually trim around it and split the meat amongst the other 2 “good” bones):
https://www.texasmonthly.com/…/you-may-love-beef-short…/
Now, I know people will say “Just get another or bigger smoker…” right?
Easier said than done, unfortunately… I’ve been here almost 3 years (and OPEN for just under 2.5) and we are just now (!!!) getting _close_ to the point where we are not actually scared silly that we will have an “off day of business” or have an equipment failure. (Thank gawd for me being a mechanic for 38 years – I can fix just about anything that breaks around here, but equipment failures have closed more than one small restaurant when you consider a day or two of lost revenue means not “making payroll”…)
Restaurant margins are so tight right now it’s a wonder anyone is silly enough to even WANT to open one. Now considering that BBQ Restaurants are running on margins thinner than most and you can see that me running out and dropping $15K on a smoker that I can actually fit in the kitchen, here, and still be able to work around is not a viable option right at the moment… I just don’t have that kind of money.
Doing what I and many of the other restaurateurs (BBQ or not) are doing for very little money, if any, the first few years, it’s an absolute PASSION !!! The reward isn’t a huge bank balance, it’s the smiles we put on people’s faces and the praise for a job well done.
We follow our passion here, not the money, because we want people to get VALUE.
If enough people realize that the quality we constantly strive to provide is worth the time, distance and money, we’ll eventually see a return on our investment of time, love and money. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later, but WE’RE not going to go down the road of “CHEAPER, FASTER, MAKE MORE MONEY AT ALL COST!!!” because that’s not who we are…and we’ve seen quite a bit of that amongst “some” (and surely not ALL) of the vendors at the Rib Cookoff.
Kelsey, that’s why we don’t do the Rib Cookoff.