It's time for Barbecue Nation with jt so fire up your grill, light the charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.

Now from the Turn It Go Burn it studios in Portland, here's jt.

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the nation.

That's Barbecue Nation.

I'm JT along with my co host and hall of famer, Leanne Whippen.

Our respective studios on each coast there, we'd like to thank you for joining us today.

We'd also like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef.

Beef the way nature intended.

And also the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission.

I have to tell you, Leanne, I did another show last week with the Crab here television deal, and I never had so many people come by the set after the segment was over.

They did.

Yeah.

Good stuff.

Great stuff.

I made.

I made crab tacos, so.

Street tacos.

They were good.

Anyway, enough of that.

We'd like to welcome to the show the, the Go to girl, the barbecue heiress, Amy Mills from 17th Street Barbecue.

Hey, Amy.

Hi.

Thank you so much for having me.

It is always a delight to be here.

Great.

I like that.

I like that.

Very few people say that by the time the show's over, but it's all good.

So, you know, you're a very busy, busy person.

What if you.

You haven't been on the show in like four years?

So I wanted to kind of first of all get caught up with what you've been doing.

Well, a lot has happened in four years for sure.

But probably the two main things are the, that we have built our factory at 17th street where we bottle our barbecue sauces and co pack for other people.

And in the front of that building, we have now a new coffee, breakfast, brunch, lunch, specialty grocery shop called Fay.

Wow.

Where did the name come from?

Faye is my grandmother.

So this business is an ode to the female side of our company and of our legacy.

But she was an amazing woman.

She was widowed, had five children.

She was widowed.

Three of those children were still at home.

And she had a six month old baby.

So she had her last child when she was 46, which is quite unusual.

And she was a college educated woman born in 1903, so very uncommon for females to be educated at that time.

But she very quickly figured out how to make a living and a life.

And she bought property and converted some of it to be rental property.

She became the first Fuller Brush woman in the country and she went selling brushes while men were away at war.

And she made our family barbecue sauce and she would decant it into Sterilized glass ketchup and mayonnaise bottles and jars and sell that to friends and neighbors.

So very industrious.

And, you know, she really made her mark on her children and, of course, on her 10 grandchildren.

So it's her name.

It's also my daughter's name, but really a nod to the feminine side of our business.

I love that.

Was that your dad's mom?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

We called her Mama Faye.

She was affectionately known by all of her grandchildren.

And until probably around her 90th year, she made barbecue sauce for the restaurant every week.

Now, of course, at that point, we had to make more to augment what she made, but she still made it and delivered it.

Is it the same recipe that you use now?

Fantastic.

Wow.

That's incredible.

Did she get to see, like, your dad's success and stuff?

She got to see a lot of his success, but she would say, you know, you could never get a very big head in my family.

And she would say, well, Mike, poor Mike.

I feel like his success has come too late in his life.

You know, I just don't know about all of this.

So he passed away in 2000, right after Christmas, in 2000.

So she did not see the opening of Blue Smoke.

She.

She really did not see the rise of the popularity of barbecue.

So she.

You know, she missed that.

I'm sure she's seeing it from above.

But there you go.

You know, a lot of good things had happened up until her passing as well.

So she was watching the rise, and she just didn't really quite know.

You know, she would never want his head to get too large.

Did she have more than the sauce but a larger effect on what you do in the restaurant or how it started?

No.

Well, I think she had really.

My.

Her husband probably had really more effect on the fact that my dad loved to barbecue because he.

His job.

He sold cigarettes and soap suds for the Palmolive Pea Company by day, and so he traveled all over southeast Missouri, southern Illinois, and western Kentucky.

And at night and on weekends, he would barbecue.

And when neighbors saw him building a fire, they would bring meat over for him to cook for them.

Anytime they went camping, which was a huge family pastime, all the people in the campground would end up at their campsite eating the barbecue that he was preparing.

And my two older uncles, there was an age range of 19 years in my grandmother's five children.

So my two oldest uncles, they lived in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, at the time, and they had a barbecue stand at the pool in Cape Girardeau.

The family actually moved to Murfreesboro when my dad was six months old.

Okay.

So for all intents and purposes, he considers this.

That he's from Murfreesboro.

Oh, for sure.

But in order to make money in high school, my dad made barbecue pits out of 55 gallon barrels and sold them to people all from that time on.

People would bring him meat and he would barbecue for class reunions and parties and different things in the sev.

In 1975, he bought a tavern.

And it was a gas station that had been converted into a tavern.

And it was really a place for him and his friends to hang out before and after work.

But on the weekends he would have barbecues and fish fries and he would give the food away and in order to entice people to come and buy more dollar beers.

Yeah.

So the barbecue is a very circuitous.

It permeated his life.

There's a.

This common thread from my grandparents through my dad to now, but it really didn't become a livelihood until the mid-80s.

Got it.

Does your.

Does your daughter help you at all?

No, my daughter lives in Napa Valley.

In that.

In Napa, California, and my son lives in Boston, so they're both on opposite sides.

I do have a vegetarian brother and he's helping me too much either at the moment, but you never know.

Was he adopted?

As my agent said, anger manifests itself in many ways.

Oh, my.

That's like, cannot make.

Yeah, I. I don't think so.

That's like.

I'll tell you a really bad joke.

A vegan and a vegetarian climb to the hike of the top of a mountain and they both jump off at the same time to see who gets to the bottom first.

Who wins?

Nobody.

Society.

You can use that one.

Feel free.

Amy, to do this.

Or not.

Or not.

Your.

Your legacy, you're tied so close to your dad.

About that.

How.

I mean, this is going to sound like a really almost dumb question, but how close were you?

I mean, everything I've ever seen about you and I.

And I met you last year, but you guys were just like hand in glove, so to speak.

Well, we really were.

And I feel so fortunate that I was able to move to the Boston area and have a very big life in Boston, really, before coming back into the family business.

But I still lived there and worked for 17th Street.

I.

As long as I had a cell phone and a computer and FedEx, I was able to work from pretty much anywhere.

And I did a lot of flying back and forth or Also meeting up with our team at different barbecue events across the country.

You know, being able to write books together was really awesome.

The first book, we really traveled all over the country and hung out with friends, and I would record them, ask them questions and get them telling stories, and I would record them and then come back and transcribe all these little tiny cassette tapes and then try to craft vignettes from that.

But, you know, really, when you are an adult and head of your own household, you really rarely have that much time.

Time to spend that much time with your parents.

So it was truly a gift.

Have you thought about taking those pieces that you took, the video and putting it together and, like, putting it out so people could see it?

No, but I could.

You know, wishes and wishes, but the sound quality is so poor on those.

But you never know.

Yeah.

Probably have something cleaned up and maybe.

Yeah, it would be interesting, I think.

Yes.

Oh, they.

They have technology now that could help you with that.

Amy.

Sure.

Yeah.

Go through it.

Who knows what's on there that I would have done?

Realm.

A lot of bleeds.

Tapes, too.

Leanne.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I figured.

Yeah.

Well, you know, it's.

It's.

Things have changed in the broadcasting business now, Amy, So something that probably shouldn't have.

Couldn't have been played, you know, 15 years ago.

Nobody.

Nobody cares anymore.

It's.

Oh, well, I think you could get canceled for some things now.

Yeah.

Things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I feel really fortunate to have had just this incredibly close relationship, you know, working here every day.

There's not a day that goes by that I don't invoke his name or think about him in some way.

But for years, I could.

Would always say, for every 100 great ideas I had, I got to maybe execute two.

I was very much the gas and he was the brakes.

But we had such a great relationship, and in fact, we were, you know, approached by people to do shows, and we did sizzle reels and did all kinds of things, and people would always say, you know, we need more tension and more drama, and we didn't really have that.

Yeah.

Certainly disagreed with, like, any family, but we really had a special relationship, and I'm forever grateful for that.

Yeah.

But I know he hasn't been gone that long, but do you.

What would you guess he would think about today's barbecue media?

Well, I think he would think the same thing he did four years ago, really.

I think, you know, he's.

He's forgotten more about barbecue than most people will ever know.

And I. I think he would be a fan of some of it.

I think he would roll his eyes at some of it.

You know, he was.

Was a very plain spoken man.

He certainly understood the need for media and he understood the need to put on a show and to do all of those things.

You know, he really was not.

He didn't even have a computer, so I would have to pull things up on a computer and show him or pull things up on my phone.

He did really not understand social media.

He would see things that people put on there and he would say, do they know that's there?

And I would say, well, not.

He's not big on grandstanding or any of those things.

But he didn't have to be.

He didn't.

He didn't have to.

He was Mills.

So, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

We're going.

A quick break.

We're going to be back with Amy Mills from 17th Street Barbecue, among other titles, right after this.

Stay with us.

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Welcome back to the nation.

I'm JT along with my co host Leanne Whippen.

And today we're talking with Amy Mills from 17th Street Barbecue.

How is 17th street evolved?

I mean, when your dad first started it and you were there and all this, and that's been a while now.

So how has it evolved?

I don't want to say to keep up with the times because you were always in the forefront of things.

But has.

Has the menu changed a lot?

Has the techniques changed?

I mean, your dad was such an icon for developing techniques and knowing what to do.

And, you know, when you buy a tavern early on in your life, you get the feel for things.

And I'm not being facetious.

I know a lot of people that own bars and stuff that are probably some of the most brilliant people I've ever met, and that's without alcohol.

So how is 17th street evolved since your dad first started it?

Well, in the very beginning, it was really a lot of home cooking with barbecue.

And the menu evolved.

It got larger.

When we opened all those restaurants in Las Vegas, we had quite a large menu.

Everything from it's shrimp.

We had fettuccine Alfredo and we had.

We had all kinds of Things, fish.

And for a while we had, we ran with the exact same menu so people could have the same experience in either place.

Then we took some of those things away and really got back to barbecue basics.

After we, you know, closed for a little bit during COVID and reopened.

We reopened with a one page menu that was very much strictly barbecue.

And we really got rid of all the fluff and we did a lot of soul searching.

Everything we took off the menu was somebody's favorite.

But things had to have earned their place on the menu.

We looked through all kinds of product mixes and really figured out the best items and the worst items and we got rid of a lot of items.

And it was a, a little difficult because, you know, in the beginning you're, you've taken away something, you're a loyal customer.

That's right.

But we are, are very conscious at 17th Street.

Half of our business is out of town, out of state, out of country.

Every single day.

I took a picture of one of our chalkboards last week.

We had someone from India, France, Belgium and Portugal in the restaurant that day.

So that is.

So you're, you're a totally destination.

Exactly.

So those people are coming for barbecue.

I always look on social media and I look at all the features other people are having.

And every time we try to have something that's a feature doesn't always sell very well because people are coming for the tried and true favorites.

So it's, it's hard to be inventive with that menu.

That is what's been fun about Faye, which is a very different kind of a menu.

In fact, this weekend we launched a biscuit Benedict that is over the top with these amazing biscuits that we make that are all hand formed and laminated and beautiful tall layers.

And then we are using our chopped brisket, poached eggs and a hollandaise.

And it is over the top.

It's sold out every day.

So that's where we're able to have a little bit of fun.

But we have really just decided that 17th street is, is what it is.

I mean.

Right, right, right, yeah.

Are coming well, especially when they're traveling so far.

They aren't going to try the off things.

They're there and then they have to leave.

So they have to try the, you know, the basics.

Even the locals and my dad used to say this all the time.

People eat two or three things off of a menu.

They rarely eat all around the menu.

So I think, you know, we have worked on some sandwiches that incorporate more than one barbecue Meat.

I think we could do some things like that, but we're not going to come in with something that's totally different and get people to jump on the bandwagon.

In the winter.

We tried doing prime rib on the weekends, and we have amazing prime rib.

Could barely sell.

The prime rib.

Isn't that something.

We sold it on Monday is shaved prime rib sandwiches.

And they couldn't get it.

I don't know.

I don't know what people want.

Not that they don't want that.

Did you find that when you.

When you trim down your menus, but the items you kept were those already your top sellers, even though you looked at other things and, you know, the Alfredo's or what have you, and I'm sure they sold well just because of the notoriety of the restaurant.

But the top ones were, you know, brisket and links or whatever.

The top for sure is a pulled pork sandwich.

Ribs, french fries, baked beans.

It's all your top favorite barbecue.

Yeah, yeah.

So that is what.

That's what we have now.

Interesting, interesting.

What's your favorite, by the way?

Somebody just asked me this the other day, and it's hard to choose a favorite, but if I'm just eating on a daily basis, I eat a lot of our cheeseburgers.

We have an amazing little tavern quarter pound delicious certified Angus beef cheeseburger or a very humble pulled pork sandwich.

I eat a lot of sausages and pimento cheese, and I eat a lot of turkey.

I don't eat ribs even weekly, probably, but every time I eat ribs, I think, oh, my gosh, why don't I order these more?

Yeah, for sure.

You know, the pulled pork sandwich and the ribs are the.

And then, of course, I love pork steak.

Yeah.

These amazing smoked and then grilled off pork steaks that are over the top.

Yeah.

You guys ever make or try a.

A brisket and link sandwich?

There's a.

There's some barbecue.

There's a barbecue restaurant out here.

They've got three locations and they make a brisket and link sandwich, and that's their top seller.

It's all good.

That's kind of what we're working on, is some different, you know, pork, brisket, link pork, different combinations of barbecue meats.

Yeah, I would look for that.

Maybe in the fall or winter we'll have some of those things.

We have our kitchen working on those.

But again, it's.

It's really hard to do creative things when we're so busy just doing the normal things.

Right.

Or you can empathize with this in A kitchen.

Leanne?

Yeah.

I don't have a person whose job it is to be creative and come up with things because we're all just doing the normal thing.

We're busy doing the normal thing.

How many employees do you have?

So right now we have about 65 employees across all of our seven businesses.

And we only have 1 17th street now.

So we had as many as four in the early in the aughts.

And in October of last year, we closed a restaurant that was about 20 miles away from us in Marion, Illinois.

Just the business climate had really totally changed in that area.

And we had so much going on right here in these two blocks with all these businesses and especially the factory, that it just.

It became, you know, an untenable situation.

Tried to run that well.

So we had 105 employees.

And really, after Covid, we could never get that restaurant.

Required 60 to 65 people to run.

After Covid, we never had more than 38.

And when we closed, we had 25.

Wow.

Very difficult to not open seven days.

It was just.

Yeah, it was hard.

So we have a much better.

I bet you have a lot less stress in your life.

I mean, it's still there, but you don't have that.

Yeah, absolutely.

We're going to take another break.

We're going to be back with Amy mills along with Ms. Leanne and myself right after this.

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Check it out.

Welcome back to the nation.

That's Barbecue Nation.

You can hear us on a whole ton of radio stations across the country and of course, the podcast versions that come out right after the radio shows drop.

You can go to barbecuenationjt.com you can listen to the shows on there, and you can find us on Facebook and Instagram and all the social media platforms.

I'm kind of like your dad, Mike.

Unfortunately, I've had to live with and learn how to utilize this stuff.

But the social media aspect, I just as soon do something else, you know, not spend my day working on that.

We'd like to thank also again, the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission and from their motto is From Sea to Plate and Painter Hills Natural Beef.

So I want to ask you.

You, too.

Now, I've got two television stars on the screen with me right here.

Leanne the Barbecue Brawl together.

She was one of the judges.

Yeah.

How do you.

How do you like working in television when you do that?

And how do you.

How do you put up with somebody like Leanne who you know very well, and I'm sure you know a lot of them very well, but, you know, it's as a production value.

There are long days and things like that.

I just wanted to get your take on that.

Television is really an honor and a privilege.

It's so much fun whenever you get to do it.

It's definitely not all glamorous there.

It's so hard, very long hours.

It's a lot of hurry up and wait.

And I don't think people ever realize that you might start at 4:30 in the morning and not finish until 9 or 10 at night.

And they only see 22 minutes of what took a whole day to produce.

So it's very difficult to really explain that to people.

You know, there are people, lots of opinions about what went on behind the scenes, and they really have no idea.

But I have to just say, and I talk a little bit about that barbecue brawl experience because the finale was all women, and I have never been prouder.

I'm getting goosebumps talking about awesome that was to watch Leanne and Susie just take over the show, hang in there and win.

But I really saw Leanne perform a miracle that day, was in awe because that, the final.

The finale of that was smoking a hog or it was like a little suckling pig, really.

But it caught on fire.

And I watched her put that fire out, manage the, you know, manage that whole experience when that could have just.

You could have just walked away because that was a dire thing that was happening, and.

And it still tasted good and she still pulled off the win, and that was huge.

Well, thank you.

Yeah, it's kind of a fog right now, but, yeah, a lot of barbecue prayers.

A lot of barbecue prayers.

And I sat there with Chris Lilly and Mo Kace on watching that, and we were just in an awe of the talent.

And, you know, only experience can guide you through something like that because things go wrong all the time when you're cooking barbecue.

But if you don't have the foundation and the experience, you're just going to throw up your hands, you're not going to know what to do.

Or you're going to do something instinctually that's the exact opposite of what you should do.

You know, adding too much oxygen or, you know, doing all of those things.

So she managed that like a pro.

And I, I sad that they cut this out of the kind of finale.

It didn't belong, but it was a moment that we all shared at a communal table at the very end.

But the fact that it was women were the last ones standing.

I, I actually like being a female.

I like it when somebody underestimates me because you can really go in for the, the zinger, you know, all these people on these shows.

So it's a very tight knit community and you know, quickly you have to learn that.

You just have to, you can't do anything in favor or really in disfavor of someone.

You have a whole panel of people who are deciding things.

You know, you would get a reputation very quickly if you tried to manipulate.

Shows are not manipulated.

You know, there it's very much the chips fall where they may and it's very, it hurts to send someone home who you know is a fabulous cook, but they just happen to not cook something great in that particular.

Yeah, they just had a bad day because everybody has them.

Yeah, it's not even a bad day.

Just like one bad cook.

Yeah, part of that whole day could be horrible and, and there that person goes.

And it really stinks when that happens because very beginning everyone says, well, we know who's going to win and it's never who you think.

That's so true.

Any show I've ever been on.

So interesting.

Do you have any upcoming shows?

I don't.

How about you?

No.

I mean, Jeff and I did grilling at the Green, which is, you know, like a lifestyle barbecue golf show and that'll be streaming hopefully in the fall.

We've already done what, six.

We did seven.

We did seven.

Seven.

So that'll be coming out soon.

But other than that.

No, no, I'm, I'm ready anytime.

Or almost any.

But it's good to get a break.

But yeah, you just kind of miss it.

Yeah, well.

Plus, the best thing is television is the gift that keeps on giving because the reruns are running all the time and they're always new to somebody.

So I can tell by my online store when episode of something is airing because orders start coming through close together.

So you know something is happening or somebody will text you a picture or put it on social media on TV right now.

So it's, it's always a Thrill.

Yeah.

And it's a thrill for other people to see, you know, their hometown friend or, you know, hometown girl or guy on tv.

So that television has been a huge boon to the barbecue world.

I will have to.

I'll tell you a cute story.

Leanne will appreciate this because she's met my wife.

We were out yesterday, and we were talking to a young lady that we know, and she was talking about food shows, and I kind of talked a little bit, just very briefly.

I did one a long time ago, and my wife looked at me.

She goes, you know, I finally saw that show.

It's been like eight years since I did it.

I said, you did?

She goes, yeah.

It wasn't a very good show.

I do, however, think Amy's right, that it definitely helps business because even with all the Pitmaster shows, whatever.

I definitely, you know, Dad's pig powder, it gets a hit all the time.

I almost always know when a show is aired from the sales.

And, you know, Leanne, the show that you filmed here with Pitmasters that season, where everyone was traveling.

Yeah.

And hooked a hog here.

And that show keeps airing, and our contest has changed and grown so much since that time.

It's kind of amazing.

But some people see that and they think it's.

That happened last year.

Like, they don't know.

Yeah, they don't know.

So.

Interesting story about that particular show.

We had to do Memphis and May Rules and KCBS because it's a multi, which makes it one of the most difficult contests that I have ever experienced.

I mean, I actually had the spreadsheets, and it was amazing, but I knew I was going to have to do Whole Hog, and I did not.

I couldn't do it on the pits that I had.

And your dad had a pit ready for me.

Even with Fuel, everything ready to go to do a Whole Hog here.

I was expecting I'm going to have to, you know, set this up.

It was in place completely.

It was a rotisserie.

He had them, like, I don't know how he had them stuck together so that it would fit the hog and it was ready to go.

And I was just absolutely blown away.

I still think about that time that he did that just out of the kindness of his heart.

I mean, I just.

Well, he was so proud of you, and he loved putting you out there.

He was.

Yeah.

It was just.

It was an amazing experience.

Your dad was your dad here.

Your dad was here.

I don't think he was there for that one.

I don't think he was there for that Show.

I don't think Kathleen were here to judge that contest since you were here.

Maybe, I don't know, I'm not sure.

But it was.

And that's one of my favorite all time contests.

I mean the setting is so quaint and it's always full and everyone's close together and you have the twinkle lights at night.

It's just really, it's a beautiful contest this year.

So that contest is coming up the 19th through 21st this year and we have, we're going to have a hundred teams.

So now it's tri sanctioned.

It's nbn, KCB steak.

The stake is a double header.

So we have nine teams who are cooking both NBN and kcbs.

I don't know how many will be also stake because the stake people take their own registrations.

So at this Moment I have 74 teams signed up combo NBN and KCBS.

And then we'll have easily 25 or more Cook off team or steak team.

So we're just trying to figure out where to put everyone.

We actually have a wait list which is crazy.

Yeah, I'm surprised that you could fit that many teams.

Yeah, they're all around.

They're in our restaurant parking lot.

They're in front of the restaurant, they're on the side.

They're taking over the town back of the building.

They're everywhere.

It's crazy.

That's awesome.

Are you judging Amy?

No, no, I'm producing so I can't.

We're running around the whole time.

We have, you know, a whole fleet of judges.

We'll have over 100 judges who will come in.

Oh good, it's a big one.

And when is that again?

It is the 19th through 21st of September.

September.

The Thursday night is really sort of fun and efficient.

Wing ancillary.

Friday night is steak, the first of the stake.

And then of course the other two contests are running concurrently on Saturday and then there's another stake on Saturday.

Wow.

So the key to this contest too is that you can be a person who's just on autopilot at an NBN or a KCBS contest and you have your timeline down.

But now you have to finagle your timeline because if it's spread out more so that if people do want to cook both contests within a 30 minute period, they're turning in two different sets of ribs and then two different sets of pork.

And obviously NBN doesn't have brisket or chicken, but the timeline is different and so it messes people up sometimes.

Yeah.

And then you get into finals, and.

Yeah, it's.

It's a nightmare.

I think this year we have eight hogs so far who are cooking, and we go down.

I don't know if we go down five or six places.

I'm confused now.

I think we call six.

So two people won't get their name called that.

Wow, that's great.

And then on Sunday or Monday, do.

You just kind of collapse over after awards Saturday night?

Okay.

Oh, that's.

That's.

Then we have to clean it up.

Although we have an amazing cleanup, volunteer cleanup crew, but it's a lot of stuff to put away and sort out the next day.

Do you close the restaurant during that time, or are you still running the restaurant?

We're still running the restaurant.

It's super busy.

And this year, I don't know what people were thinking, but it's also SIU family weekend, so we get a bump from that, too.

There you go.

We're going to take another break.

We're going to come back, wrap up this part of the show with Amy Mills and, of course, Leanne and myself in just a minute.

So stay with us.

You're listening to Barbecue Nation.

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Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

I'm JT along with Leanne Whippen and Amy Mills from 17th Street.

She's got a.

A big bash coming up.

I don't know.

You call it a bash, A contest, a kabash.

What do you want to call it?

It's a contest, and it's a fun one.

Okay.

And so if you're in the area there, I would recommend you.

Can.

Can people just come for free, or do you have to buy tickets?

Admission?

What?

So people, you can wander all around for Free.

We have free live music on Friday night, but the ticketed events are a fish fry on Thursday night and a grand champion big buffet meal on on Friday night.

And those are opportunities for our sponsors to come through.

And we have a, you know, giant array of food that they can eat and free draft beer.

And then people sort of spill out into the street and listen to the music and wander up and down and look at the teams and look at the rigs and have a great time.

Might have to show up not this year, but I'm gonna have to show up there one of these times and experience that I've not been there.

So isn't, isn't that byline like Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lard Murphysboro Barbecue Cook off.

When I was trademarking Praise the Lard, I had to trademark it in all these different categories and so we called the contest that too, so it could be trademarked as an event name.

So yes, and it's, this is its 37th year.

A unique thing about it this year too is that Illinois soy has come on as a main sponsor and there's a separate points chase that's happening.

It's where the culmination where the fourth contest in this little grand slam points chase event.

And it's going to be the call the combined scores in chicken, chicken, pork and ribs who will win separate trophies, separate money for this Illinois soy.

We're calling it the field of beans.

I like that.

Really kind of a cool, a cool thing that is happening this year.

Yeah.

Are you still doing your consulting work?

Yes.

So I'm not doing as much private consulting because I don't have time, pay a lot of money for that if I'm leaving the building.

But we have our classes and we have one coming up at the end of October.

We had one earlier this year at the beginning of March.

So we do a catering master class, a business to barbecue class and a whole hog extravaganza class.

And people come from all over the world to learn about the business of barbecue.

Some people are very new, some people are, you know, mid professional level.

And some people are very, you know, legendary in their own right.

But people know, smart people know you could come to an event and learn just one or two things that could really transform your business or, you know, make you a lot of money or just, you know, be a great idea or an easier way to do something.

So we are really proud of the, the barbecue restaurants that we've helped incubate all over the world and really the success that people who are alumni of our class have had.

It's really awesome.

And how do they register for that?

On our Shopify store site, shop17bbq.com, there is a seminar tab and you register right online there.

That's great.

Do you miss being at the pits with your dad?

I mean, he must have been just incredible to hang with and yeah, I know you're the daughter dad thing.

I get that.

It must have been great.

Just the, the, the knowledge he just kind of oozed out of his pores there.

Oh, totally.

I totally miss it.

Yeah.

Do you ever take somebody under your wing there at 17th street and say, this is the way my dad taught me.

I don't know that I have necessarily done that, but we are really fortunate here to have about a quarter of our staff has been here from 9 to 25 years.

Wow.

So everybody that's in charge of something was here when my dad was here and was taught the Mike Mills way.

And we talk a lot about doing things the Mike Mills way.

And every now and then something will go off and I'll think, you know, how did this happen or what happened here?

And we realize, well, we're not doing it the way we were taught to do it.

And you know, constantly when you have new people come in, everybody thinks that they will have a new, better, different or easier.

Easier is always the thing way to do something.

And we've already tried all those ways and they didn't work.

So we have to gently take people back to the right way, which is the Mike Mills way.

What did Amy, put on your prognostication hat for a second here?

What do you see coming up for 17th street, say two years and five years down the road?

Well, that is a great question.

We are really deep in making sure that our two new businesses have a solid foundation and are grounding and thriving.

So I see our factory being busier and busier and our sauces and rubs on the shelves of more and more stores, not only here, but all, all over the world.

And I see our coffee shop, you know, continuing to grow and thrive.

That was an eye opening experience.

And I know that Leanne can relate to this, but I really expected it to just be as smooth and, you know, as smooth and as profitable as 17th street right off the bat.

And I'm realizing that that is not the case.

It's a very different.

It's a different clientele, it's a new.

It's growing a whole new business.

And you really.

There are no shortcuts to that.

And so every day we're still working on.

On both of those businesses.

So are you.

What's good is, I think.

I would think, is that you're hitting all the meal periods, you know what I mean, from the morning to the night, you know, so that helps.

But, yeah, it's.

It's two different beasts.

Yeah, totally different.

And, you know, we really had the opportunity to, in opening this restaurant, price things where they should be from the beginning.

You know, at 17th street, sometimes we're still catching up.

You.

It's hard to.

When I even look back at 2018 prices and what they are right now, it is very shocking to me.

It's shocking for your clients, as on your guests as they come in and they see that creep.

But at Fay, we were able right off the bat, to say, this is what it costs to hand make every single thing in here and do it really well.

And so it's not cheap.

It is not a five or six dollars giant farmer's breakfast with all, you know, things that are not made from scratch.

So people who care about that are coming and people who don't, there are other options for that person, too.

What's the greatest, greatest joy?

Something you look at, excuse me, every day and just kind of smile, you know, quietly off to yourself.

You just kind of smile about something there.

My greatest joy is the people, and the people who've been here for all of this time and seeing how proud they still are to be part of 17th street and to be, you know, such fervent Mike Mills disciples, that I just is a thrill.

And it's a thrill to me to hear people talk about my dad and talk about why we do the things we do.

I love sitting in the restaurant each evening and hearing our servers.

Many.

They're all newer people, obviously, to our team, but people who just take so much pride in being part of something that's bigger than themselves.

17th street has been an economic driver in our little town for years.

Our contest was started as an economic driver because our town was really faltering.

And we continue to be a rural town, you know, on the lower economic end of things in our area.

And we don't, you know, we're.

Our little downtown is starting to grow and thrive, I think, you know, rural America is definitely making a comeback.

And Main Street America is making a comeback.

But throughout all of this, 17th street has been a constant, and people have come here daily from all over the world.

And the fact that they still do that, we're still getting on the best of barbecue lists and still getting all of those awards.

And of course, none of that can happen without all the people who make it possible.

So it's, it's still always about the people.

Excellent.

Amy Mills, real quick, how can people find you if they're, you know, if they're not in Illinois, but website, social media, all that?

Our website is 17bbq.com.

Super simple.

You can shop from that website.

It'll take you over to our Shopify page or you can go to shop17bbq.com and then all over the socials.

We're at 17th Street street, spelled out BBQ.

Okay.

Excellent, Amy.

Thank you.

Amy is going to stick around for a few minutes for the after hours, but we thank her for joining us here on the nation.

So for Leanne and myself, we will be be back next week with another edition that you won't want to miss, I guarantee it.

Go out there.

Remember our motto, turn it, don't burn it.

Take care, everybody.

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