A few years ago I was reading an article about the 9 the most difficult restaurants to get into in America, one of them was a BBQ restaurant out of Austin, TX. Having lived in downtown Chicago for 20 years and eating out 5 times a week, I knew about difficult restaurants to get into. Loving BBQ, I researched this place in Austin, TX and flew down there and waited in line for 4 hours like everyone else and met the owner. Super nice guy. The food was worth the wait and then some. I said to myself, I need to bring melt in your mouth Texas Smoked Brisket to Wisconsin. Never having any experience running a restaurant, I did not want to be a statistic and be one of the 90% of restaurants that fail in the first year. So I took a more conservative approach and started with a fully equipped BBQ restaurant on wheels.
People in Texas who know great smoked brisket have a famous saying “That’s not fat, that’s Beef Butter” And being in Wisconsin we all know that butter makes everything great. You see, there is a very simple formula in successful foods: Fat + Salt + Sugar = Sales. Think of all your favorite indulgent foods and they probably add up to Fat+salt+sugar.
I first visited a lot of famous BBQ places. I read a lot of books, I attended paid BBQ seminars, I talked to a lot of owners. Then I developed a vision of what I wanted to bring to the marketplace and what I wanted people to think of Beef Butter BBQ. I wanted to blow people’s minds and exceed their expectations of what they were used to. Then, I decided to walk before running, so I felt starting with a trailer would be less risky than starting with bricks and mortar. I wanted to prove my concept first. I wanted to prove that people in Wisconsin would appreciate great Texas BBQ, then would they be willing to pay for great Texas BBQ. You can buy a hamburger at McDonalds, and you can buy a hamburger at Graze. Once I decided on a trailer, I researched the heck out of trailers. Then I picked a vendor in South Carolina that specialized in concession trailers. I drew out my workflow based on what I observed at successful BBQ lines. We did several iterations of the trailer. It originally was so big I would have needed a CDL to haul it. So I paired it back to just the essentials for our great BBQ. It took all winter to build, and I continued to test and smoke on my smokers.
As with any start up, time and money are always obstacles. If money was unlimited, you buy your way out of a problem. But that is rarely an option for most start ups, and when it is an option, they still don’t get it right sometimes.
Our customers favorite dish is our Brisket. Beef Butter BBQ Brisket is our specialty. Fatty or lean. It will change the way you think about BBQ. I have had people who spent 20 years in Texas and ate at over 300 BBQ joints tell us our Brisket is the best they have had. Customers also love our smoked pulled pork and smoked apple pie baked beans. We make an authentic Texas pinto bean, but up hear people like sweater beans. So we made them REALLY sweet.
We think Beef Butter BBQ is so good because we start with Prime Beef, which is the most expensive. A lot of places think if you are going to smoke it anyways, then cover it in sauce, why buy the most expensive meats? We say, if we are going to invest 12 hours of smoking, and all the other time and expense in preparing, then we are going to only work with the best meats. I catered a party recently, it was an exclusive house on the lake. We were also booked at an event so we just had to drop off the meats and set up. When we went back to pick up pans, the host said the owner of another large BBQ restaurant was at the party and he wanted to know who made the brisket, it was the best brisket he ever tasted. That compliment kept me motivated for another week of hard work. We also have smoked apple pie baked beans that gets unbelievable rave reviews and comments. We use seasoned oak wood to smoke our meats: 100% wood, no gas! We source our meats from UW Provisions that bring in meats to our specifications.
Of course we have the typical social media: web site www.beefbutterbbq.com, and Facebook, On weekends, we park our trailer between the 2 front doors of Woodmans Sun Prairie. That has led to a lot of leads.
Visit Woodman’s Sun Prairie Saturdays and Sundays from 10am until sold out. We will post on social media if we cannot be there that day because of another commitment.
I was born and raised in Madison, and did my undergrad and MBA at the University of WI, Madison
I spent 30 years in marketing at Fortune 100 companies such as Oscar Mayer and Quaker Oats. I have always been a foodie but did not know it until recently. Now we have built the best BBQ Catering in Madison. Beef Butter BBQ in Madison. Food Truck in Madison.
