The story of Pork Barrel BBQ is the story of the American Dream.

Our journey began in early 2006 during a heated budget debate in the United States Senate. We were two fatigued Senate staffers working late into the evening and discussing the late night food options on Capital Hill. While we were dreaming of a tasty barbecue dinner and wishing there was a good barbecue joint in Washington, D.C., Senators were engaged in a debate over the merits of pork barrel spending. Suddenly an idea popped into our heads, an idea that is now a reality – Pork Barrel BBQ.

In early 2008, Pork Barrel BBQ remained as nothing more than the idea we had conceived two years earlier as Senate staffers. This began to change in the spring of 2008 when we decided it was time to dust off our idea to bring high quality barbecue to Washington, D.C. In June, after weeks in the test kitchen we convened the first meeting of the Pork Barrel BBQ Kitchen Cabinet and asked our Kitchen Cabinet members to rate six variations of what would become our initial product. After several hours of eating, Cabinet members narrowed down the six variations to their two favorites, liking different flavor elements from each. The following week we reconvened the Kitchen Cabinet and presented to them a single product crafted with the previous weeks comments and recommendations in mind. That Sunday afternoon in June 2008, with the blessing of the Kitchen Cabinet, our first product – Pork Barrel BBQ’s All-American Spice Rub – was finalized and ready to take the barbecue world by storm.

In December 2008, after months of working through the world of starting a small business, Pork Barrel BBQ was officially founded. There were a lot of people who thought we were crazy founding Pork Barrel BBQ at the peak of the economic crisis, but we wanted to prove that a company not owned or operated by the federal government could succeed if it was founded from a good idea by founders willing to work hard. It was our goal to prove that the free market was still the greatest path to success for a small business and that it was still possible to grab a piece of the “American Dream.”

We sold our first tin of Pork Barrel BBQ All-American Spice Rub on December 4, 2008 for $8.00. Over the next three weeks, during the 2008 holiday season, we sold nearly $2,000 in rub – if you knew any of our friends or family you probably got a tin of our rub for Christmas.

2009 started with a bang – we got our first retail account at Let’s Meat on the Avenue in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria, Virginia. That first retail order was for a dozen tins of rub. We were so excited that you would have thought we’d just sold 1,000,000 tins to Whole Foods! That fast start slowed quickly as we spent the next six months running Pork Barrel BBQ out of the basements of our homes, selling rub one tin at a time with limited growth in the retail world.

In May our luck began to turn. Out of the blue we were contacted by a producer from Mark Burnett productions indicating an interest in casting us for a new realty show called Shark Tank that would air on ABC in the fall and we finally convinced a major East Coast manufactor and distributor to give us a shot.

In June, we formed the Pork Barrel BBQ Competition BBQ team and entered our first contest, the Safeway National Capital Barbecue Battle in Washington, DC. At this contest we unveiled our first BBQ sauce, Pork Barrel BBQ Original BBQ Sauce, in the Nation’s Best BBQ Sauce Contest and took second place. We also walked away with fourth place for our pork shoulder in the Memphis in May portion of the contest. 

In July we began retail production on our award winning Pork Barrel BBQ Original BBQ Sauce and headed to Hollywood to film for Shark Tank.

In August we landed our first major grocery store accounts – Harris Teeter, Balducci’s, Ukrops and Bloom – and announced that we would be opening the first Pork Barrel BBQ restaurant with “Mango” Mike Anderson and Bill Blackburn in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria, VA.

In September ABC aired our first appearance on Shark Tank which would take Pork Barrel BBQ to a whole new level moving us from a regional to national company almost overnight.  On the show we were able to strike a deal with New York real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran, who became the first outside investor in Pork Barrel BBQ. We also made our first appearance on Fox & Friends, getting the chance to smoke a few hundred pounds of meat at the Fox News headquarters in New York City.

ABC aired a Pork Barrel BBQ update on  Shark Tank in October so viewers could see what had happened to the company since our first show aired.

We spent the remainder of 2009 responding to thousands of inquires that were generated as a result of our appearance on Shark Tank.  We also found time to get back into the test kitchen to work on our second sauce, Pork Barrel BBQ Sweet BBQ Sauce.

In January of 2010 we headed to San Francisco to attend our first Fancy Food Show.  At the show we official launched our Pork Barrel BBQ Sweet BBQ Sauce to rave reviews and secured retail deals with Whole Foods, Safeway, World Market, and Save Mart.  We also had the opportunity to ring the closing bell at the NASDAQ with the Shark’s from Shark Tank.

During the spring we continued to grow our retail presence by securing deals with Wegmans and Schnucks, our first Midwest retailer.  In just under a year we had moved Pork Barrel BBQ out of our basements and into more than 1,000 stores in 38 states.

In April we began the 2010 Competition BBQ season at Pork in the Park in Salisbury, MD and in May we competed in our first Memphis in May and earned four top 15 finishes, including fourth place in the Beef Category with our Smoked Brisket.  In June we returned to the Safeway National Capital Barbecue Battle and took home the Chinet People’s Choice Award for best barbecue sauce with our Pork Barrel BBQ Sweet BBQ Sauce.

During the 2010 Competition BBQ season we had the fortune to get our first competition sponsor and cook with the freshest and best meat available thanks to our good friends Bill, Brian and Araon of Wagshal’s in Washington, D.C. 

Over the Memorial Day weekend we had the special opportunity to travel to New York City and cook for the troops on Fox & Friends during Fleet Week.  Without a doubt this was one of the best experiences we had in the first two years of our company.

In September we cooked at Pickin in the Panhandle in West Virginia, having our most succesful contest to date, getting top five finishes in chicken, pork and overall.

October was a busy and exciting month for Pork Barrel BBQ. We competed in our first American Royal, our first competition in our home state of Missouri, and Heath got to cook against one of barbecue’s legends, Johnny Trigg in the KCBS Grill Masters Series (and he came out victorious!!).  In mid-October we headed to Fort Riley, Kansas to kickoff our Operation Pork Barrel BBQ effort and cook for the troops with our good friend and mentor Rod Gray of Pellet Envy, the 2009 KCBS Team of the Year.

We launched Pork Barrel BBQ’s first cookbook in October at the hight of football season – The Pork Barrel BBQ Guide to Tailgating – and offered it for FREE to tens of thousands of tailgaters across America!

In November we received our biggest honor to date by being named one of “The 125 Best Foods for Men” and the Best BBQ Sauce in the Nation by Men’s Health magazine. This was a huge honor for us and helped prove that not everything that is good for you has to taste bad.

2010 proved to be a huge year of growth for Pork Barrel BBQ giving us a ton of momentum as we headed into 2011. We returned to the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco in mid-January where we introduced our third BBQ sauce, Pork Barrel BBQ’s Mustard BBQ Sauce and picked up a number of new retail accounts including Central Market and Hadden House.

In February we launched BBQ Backyard, The BBQ Social network. BBQ Backyard is the only place on the internet for BBQ’ers of all skill levels, from backyard novice to veteran pitmaster, to interact in an online social setting. The best part, it’s FREE!!!

We began a busy competition season in April cooking in Jefferson City, Missouri at the Capital City Cookoff and in Lexington, North Carolina at the BBQ Capital Cook Off. At the end of April we introduced the new 24 ounce plastic bottles of our Pork Barrel BBQ Original Sauce at Mid-Atlantic area Costco’s.

In May we headed to Memphis, Tennessee to compete in our second Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. The week after Memphis in May we won our first Reserve Grand Championship at the Middletown Barbeque Cook-off, in Middletown, Deleware receiving calls in Chicken (9th), Pork (2nd) and Brisket (5th).

June of 2011 was a huge month for Pork Barrel BBQ – we went off the beaten path of barbeque products and introduced Que, the world’s first barbeque scented fragrance to rave reviews. Que is “An Intoxicating Bouquet Of Spcies, Smoke, Meat And Sweet Summer Sweat.” Hundreds of articles and comments ran on Que in places like Sports Illustrated, MSNBC, Fox News, The Tonight Show and Glamour Magazine.

The Pork Barrel BBQ competition team had a great June competiting in three contests, the Beltway Barbecue Showdown in Upper Marlboro, MD, the Sedalia Lions Club BBQ in Sedalia, MO and the Safeway National Capital Barbecue Battle in Washington, DC. At the Beltway Barbecue Showdown we got calls in chicken (1st), pork (7th) and 8th Overall and at the Sedalia Lions Club BBQ we got calls in chicken (9th), Pork (2nd) and 9th Overall. At the end of June we returned to the Safeway National Capital Barbecue Battle on our home turf  in Washington, DC – the site of our very first competition as a team in 2009 and won our first Grand Championship giving us our first invitation to both the American Royal Invitational in Kansas City and the Jack Daniels World Championships in Lynchburg, Tennessee in October! In addition to winning our first Grand Championship we were named the Perdue National Chicken Champions and had the championship trophey presented to us by Jim Perdue. We received calls in Chicken (1st), Ribs (5th), Pork (7th), Brisket (5th), The National Pork Championship (4th) and won the Kingsford Points Chase.

We returned to the world of competition barbecue the second weekend in July and won our second straight Grand Championship at the Wellsville BBQ Cookoff in Wellsville, MO. In addition to being named Grand Champion we got calls in Chicken (2nd) and Brisket (3rd). We were also named one of the Best Barbecue Sauces in the Country by Country Living Magazine in July!

Our journey has just begun, and we pledge to stay true to our mission throughout it – to unite the nation through the great tradition of BBQ, and bring bipartisan flavor to your next meal.  We’re sure you’ll love our national award winning Pork Barrel BBQ Sauces and Spice Rub and hope you’ll reach for it the next time you’re looking to add an All American flavor to the meats, fish, poultry and vegetables you are grilling, smoking, barbecuing, or simply cooking in your kitchen. Our products are made with all natural ingredients and contain no preservatives or MSG. They do however provide a tasty and tangy flavor with the perfect amount of smokin’ kick!

We’d like to thank our friends and families, and all those we’ve met on our journey to capture our little piece of the American Dream, for your support from the lighting of the first briquette!!

For more information, visit www.PorkBarrelBBQ.com or follow Pork Barrel BBQ on Facebook and Twitter.