[SpotOn Series] How To Become a Master of Barbecue With Andy Husbands of The Smoke Shop BBQ

Chad Franzen 13:37

Well, those are some those are some interesting tactics. Those competitions are serious, huh?

Andy Husbands 13:41

Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s prestige and money. Absolutely.

Chad Franzen 13:46

So when you’ve kind of been been acclaimed for this kind of your food, and you’re kind of regarded as an expert in barbecue. What do you find still exhilarating about you know, running a restaurant?

Andy Husbands 13:58

What do I What don’t I find exhilarating? You know, so I’m in this new chapter of my life where I have multiple units. So I’m a Well, I’m a single unit guy. That’s all I’ve ever worked in all my life. That’s what I trained for. So to make this jump to multi unit was really crazy. I really didn’t feel comfortable. I’m going to say for about two years, I met with a lot of people in my area. You know, Joanne Chang from Flower bakery, Steve, the flip of Davos, these guys have multiple units very successful. And I met with so many people just trying to find out what was important to them and what they do and what does their day look like because I had no idea. Like, I wasn’t even really allowed to be in the kitchen anymore. You know, like they’re like, and I couldn’t be you know, what they call chefs passionate, couldn’t be passionate, right? Because I have all these units and people don’t know who I am and they don’t know my expectations. So it’ll learn a better way to communicate. So for me personally, I just love learning more and like, I feel like I’m masters with my last restaurant. And now I’m getting my PhD and I love learning second The, you know, we have this woman, her name is Amy Magner. She’s our VP of ops. And working with her has really been an eye-opener, what she does, and how she builds teams is just phenomenal and how she’s zeroes in and gets to the kind of the core of what needs to be done. And I’m just, you know, tickled by the House of the team. So I don’t know, I just love every day, you know, I want to tell you once, one thing, one thing that I do that I’m gonna bet the most, probably 99% of your listeners don’t do. This is the one thing I do every Monday morning. I respond to every Google and every resi, we use resi review, every single one, we have 1000s. And I’ve responded probably to 98% of them. For a while my buddy did it because I was busy. I was opening a restaurant for another guy and one of my managers did it. But every single one, and this is kind of something that I find really important. And I love to my favorite challenge is trying to win customers back. I love to try to get them to come back. That’s my favorite.

Chad Franzen 16:01

What do you find? What do you consider that to be so important?

Andy Husbands 16:05

Well, studies show that if you get them to come back that, that they’ll become super fans generally. But that’s not why I do it. And both times they’re like, well, we’ll take the interview and like I don’t even want you to take the interview. It’s not why I’m doing this. I do it because I really believe in our our product. I really believe in our teams. I love our teams. And I love what we do. And I it’s kind of like you know, when you’re a band that you love, and you’re like, I don’t understand how everybody does doesn’t love this band. And so for me, that’s really what I want is to show people like yeah, all right. We are out of tune for that moment. But we are back in tune with your jam and strong. Come check this out.

Chad Franzen 16:45

So how did your restaurant which now has multiple locations? But how did The Smoke Shop come about?

Andy Husbands 16:51

Well, I mean, as I mentioned, I’m partnered with a guy and I known him for years, we you know, we had mutual admiration for each other. And he’s what’s really great is, you know, he frees me up to do whatever I want to do. What I want to do is marketing, and not in this order. But I like marketing, food and hospitality. That’s what I love. That’s all I want to do. And when I had my small restaurant, I did everything as you can imagine, chief bottle washer to HR to, you know, check writer to the other stuff that I mentioned. I’m good at I’m really good at some stuff. I really am. But I’m really bad at some other stuff. And what’s great is we had a slight lease thing happening. And I you know, they the landlord emailed us and my partner’s like, just quickly off the top of his head like, no, that’s not what the lease has the lease says this, this, this and this, and he just takes care of that stuff. And to me, that frees me up not to worry. And personally trust him. He’s got it going on, you know, he takes care of the the HR the office, well, I play a part in HR, but that takes care of the office, the payroll, the insurance, the all that stuff that I didn’t want to deal with. So far, it’s been great because that’s what helps us grow. You know, we both have focuses we focus on separate things do or get a job job done.

Chad Franzen 18:14

For those not in the Northeast or who might be going to the northeast. What can a customer expect when going there?

Andy Husbands 18:20

The smoke shop?

Chad Franzen 18:21

Yeah.

Andy Husbands 18:23

I didn’t know he meant going to New England. Oh. You get a bunch of rabid Celtics fans these days. With you in the stairs, maybe not. So, you know, you’re going to walk into a light sweet smoke smell, kind of a raucous room not too loud, but definitely a little bit excitement going on. We have cow walls with towels are painted on them. And you’ll see you’ll no matter where you are, you’ll see our large bourbon bourbon menu. It’s really great friendly, not over the top service. I would encourage you to get our wings. These are phenomenal. They’re gonna they’re mind blowing. They’re not like your standard. Buffalo wings are just amazing. You know, our sides are always changing and really good. Get the cucumber salad of that from the menu or to potato salad. Sounds good. But what’s funny is we get a lot of like, wow, we can’t believe great barbecue in New England. And that’s a nice compliment. But I would point out that great barbecue can be done anywhere. There is no copyright on it for the South or anything like that. Just like great Japanese is found wherever you are and great Italian can be found where you are no reason great barbecue can’t be here.

Chad Franzen 19:38

Hey, tell me about your cookbook. pitmaster recipes, techniques and barbecue wisdom. What would somebody who buys that beginning?

Andy Husbands 19:46

Obviously we get little bit. Well, they’d be getting the best barbecue book out there. I mean, I’ll put that book against anybody’s it’s an it’s an amazing, amazing cookbook. You know, it has kind of our journey. in there, but really, it’s about about a bunch of different tip pitmasters from around the country talking about their region or their style, Bill journey from hometown in New York, Sam Jones, North Carolina, really cool stuff, a little vignettes, little stories, plus just great regional recipes from American barbecue around around the country. And a little bit of competition stuff, but not much pictures done by Kenneth Goodman photography, if you haven’t looked at his website, you should, if you need food pictures, he’s the guy you need. It’s just a really, I mean, it’s a solid book, it’s sold 70,000 75,000 copies so far, which is good. You know, it’s, it’s a good good solid sell. So we’re very proud of it. Very proud.

Chad Franzen 20:48

Very nice. Hey, you also drive awareness for Share Our Strength, and you’re involved with your community in many ways. Tell me about some of those things that you’re doing.

Andy Husbands 20:57

Yeah. So you know, my mentor, he really put into me about being good with your neighbor. And he didn’t mean that just your next door neighbor. But that was important to him, too. But it was being part of the community. I also had a professor his name was dip brush actually is. And it was a funny name, but that’s his name in college, and he pulled me aside and he said, I can tell you’re really smart, you’re going to ace this class. He goes, but you gotta get involved, because I would just sit back in the corner and be quiet. I didn’t really, I don’t know, I had my own agenda. And, you know, so between kind of that, and then another guy, his name was guy, Abelson, Unfortunately, he passed, he was my boss at a place called the improv that I n that I m. I N. ‘s and Nancy Prague in Providence. And he was involved in shear strength. And he got me involved with them. And, you know, just doing events and stuff like that. And then when I started working on my own, I got heavily involved with knows what you’re saying, which sort of rebranded into No Kid Hungry, so I’ll use those terms in and out but No Kid Hungry, you know, believe it is now one in four children are at risk of hunger in the United States, which is crazy. Before the pins pandemic, it was one in five. You know, I used to be one of those children that got that cheap school lunch. And I remember having in the 70s, funny money, I grew up with a single mom, federally assisted single mom, now I can eat whatever I want y’all this trip I want. So, you know, I think it’s really my duty as a person in hospitality to give back and be involved with the community. And since good is my kind of love and forte, I think aligning with hunger charities, it was kind of a no brainer for me to definitely check out nokidhungry.org strength.org You’ll see what a great organization they are. They created this cool thing called breakfast after the bell and started Colorado. But basically, if you remember, if you went to public school, you probably remember there were a couple of kids eating breakfast in the school lunch in the cafeteria in the morning. Not many though, probably maybe 510. So what it is that’s a federally assisted program. And the problem was is it was the stigmatic. And it was early. So kids, a lot of kids couldn’t get there. They took the bus, the bus didn’t get there early enough, right. So even though there was this free breakfast, kids weren’t taking something like 10 or 20% of people were taking advantage of those those eligible, tender draperies that were taking advantage of. Don’t get hangry came up with this idea. Let’s do it after the bell. First period, they had to get they had to work with Genesis unions, they had to work with the teachers unions. And they got it passed and what magically happened after feeding all children after the bell. attendance went up. Disciplinary went down. Test scores went up. So just by feeding children breakfast, how cool is that? And I think everybody like I think there’s a lot of like, finger pointing and maybe that person screwed their life up so they don’t get anything or whatever people think I don’t really care. I think we all can agree that children should be fat. Let’s give them a chance to screw it up. You know what I mean? And hopefully not, right? So. So how cool is that? I mean, that’s why I’m really involved with it. Rodman Rodman celebration. I’m a board member of that. That’s really cool. They do all sorts of children’s charities, and stuff and I’m a sucker for kids. I got four year old twin girls and it works. I’m just a sucker. Great.

Chad Franzen 24:49

What was that website you referenced again?

Andy Husbands 24:53

frank.org

Chad Franzen 24:54

Okay. Hey, how can people find out more about The Smoke Shop and everything else you have going on?

Andy Husbands 25:01

Thesmokeshopbbq.com, andyhusbands.com you can follow me on Instagram @andyhusbands you can follow Smoke Shop on Instagram. Yes, that’s why, you know, Twitter maybe

Chad Franzen 25:14

if I feel like it. Last question for you. I’m sure you’ve been asked this a million times. If you were to go to The Smoke Shop, what would be kind of you as a customer what would be kind of your like, go to item.

Andy Husbands 25:26

I think everybody wants the wings, wings and butter cake if you haven’t had our butter cake otherwise known as St. Louis Gooey, gooey cake. It’s amazing, but the wings are probably in probably a glass of Angel angels envy on the rocks or perhaps Whistlepig on the rocks. That’s good for me. But I’ll tell you something I’ve been grooving on we have the ultimate fried fish sandwich. And I designed it after a fish switch or whatever McDonald’s calls their freakin fish sandwich. I designed it up to that just a lot better. And you’ve been eating that melon. Man. I try not to eat too much there. It’s so good. I can’t like it’s it’s a little overwhelming. Yeah, sounds

Chad Franzen 26:09

good. And your website will get you hungry right away too. Hey, go ahead. It’s been great to talk to you. I really appreciate it real appreciate your stories. And thank you so much for joining me.

Andy Husbands 26:20

My pleasure. If you have anything reach out, you know to get me. Okay. Thanks so much. Thank you. This has been great.

Chad Franzen 26:24

I appreciate it. So long, everyone.

Outro 26:26

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