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 Don't Burnet 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 co pilot, Leanne Whippen.

Camaro Dave and Commander Chris are roaming around here somewhere.

And we're coming to you from the Turn It, Don't Burden it studios in Portland.

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

Beef the way nature intended.

If you don't have Painted Hills in your area across the country, you can go to their website and they have a store locator there and you can buy stuff from them direct.

That's Painted Hills Natural Beef dot com.

Well, we've got a couple of characters from New York with us today.

And it's normally when people.

Guys, when people.

I'm going to introduce you properly in a second here, but we don't think about barbecue in Brooklyn very much.

But you guys are making it happen.

Matt abdu and Shane McBride from Pig Beach.

They've got a new cookbook out.

And again, I'll do it.

I don't know if I can do this with this.

Never works with the green screen, but it's there.

It's a great book.

So just take my word like a ghost book.

I like it.

Yeah, yeah, it's there.

Anyway, there you go.

Fantastic.

Leanne doesn't use green screens like I do that.

She locks her cats in her bedroom right now.

Yep.

Mine roam around in the house here.

So first of all, guys, I gotta ask you.

I know, Matt, you're from New York, but what made you guys think that barbecue would work in Brooklyn and Queens?

No, that's a great question.

I think the really interesting thing about both my path and Shane's path to getting to barbecue.

Shane obviously has been doing barbecue much longer than I have from a very small town in upstate New York where when I was a kid, a barbecue was.

And for those of you just listening, I'm doing air quotes.

A barbecue was like backyard growing up, hot dogs and hamburgers.

Right?

And for all those listening, we all know that obviously that's not barbecue at all, but that's what I grew up thinking.

It was that and like spaghettini culture.

Because from where I am in upstate New York, the chicken or steak on a skewer was, you know, the biggest barbecue culture that we had in upstate New York.

Uh, my.

I'm A classically trained fine dining chef that primarily focused on Italian food for the majority of my career.

And I met our current, our business partner and one of my best friends, Rob Schager.

We started doing this as a hobby on the weekends, fell in love with it, had a ton of fun with it, and just kind of progressed that hobby into a passion.

That passion led us into finally competing.

And, well, we started off first competing in like, local small New York Long island barbecue competitions.

And then we somehow finagled our way into Memphis in May, back in like 2014.

2014, yeah, it was 2014, and our first year down there, we left with a second, second place whole hog trophy.

We finaled, which was insane, and a first place poultry trophy.

And we sort of were like, wow, we're onto something here.

And we sort of took that catalyst of Memphis to open up Pig beach as just a pop up, a summer pop up in Gowanus, Brooklyn, where we currently.

Just to see if we had what it took to do it.

And obviously we had a lot of growing pains getting to where we are today and a lot of learning things to do, but we finally got to a point where we made great, great friends.

And one of the greatest things about barbecue for us is that barbecue family of just how amazing all the people are that we've met along the way.

And we've become really, really close friends with like, some of the greats, like people like Chris Lilly and Tuffy Stone and Skip Steel and John Wheeler.

And I mean, the names can go on and on and on and on.

And we got a chance to cook alongside these guys and they really helped progress us into where we are and what our program is today.

And we just had so much fun with it that it was, for me, an opportunity to escape the sort of rigorous pressure cooker of a fine dining environment and get to having a chance where I could really just enjoy doing what I love to do, which is cook for people, put smiles on people's faces and embrace that love of family.

I like to Matt how you kind of integrated some of your Italian background in your dishes into the book.

I mean, you got some lasagna in there and you got some other stuff in there.

And maybe Shane did that, I don't know.

But I thought that was pretty cool that when I was going through the book, I went, oh, yeah, there you go.

What we wanted to do with this book was obviously, you know, we're from New York and we certainly recognize that.

And one of the first and foremost things that we wanted to do with this book was, you know, give the praise and the homage of where barbecue culture comes from, all the specific regions, and sort of just boast about how great barbecue is and how those regions have really sort of influenced what it is that we do in New York.

And since we are from a non traditional barbecue region, it gave us the opportunity to be able to say, all right, we're going to study and learn from the best guys or the guys that we know that do this really, really well in these specific regions and find out how that makes it authentic to that area.

And then we wanted to come back to New York and do our version of that and do our sort of best representation, taking our sort of chefy mindset and palates, and not to say that we're doing anything better because these guys are the best in the crafts and best in the business of who we've gotten the chance to work with.

But adding that sort of fun flavor profile of what we're able to do here in New York and doing dishes like smoked duck lasagna, where we're taking duck thighs and we're smoking them, confined them in the smoker, and then finishing them on the smoker and then pulling that meat to put it into a lasagna or doing it, whether it's a bowl of ramen or having like, really, really fun flavor profiles.

Like, we have an entire chapter in our book called Fun with Ribs where we're taking that sort of obviously very signature iconic barbecue dish of a baby back rib.

But we're adding some flavor profile notes that are certainly non traditional in barbecue, but being inspired from the amazing melting pot of cultures that are within here in New York City of some of the most iconic flavor profiles of dishes, things like Al Pastor and Mojo.

We have some Mediterranean seasoned ribs, Char Sioux ribs, and so on and so on.

So we're just able to have a lot of Swedish ribs.

Well, the Swedish ribs didn't make the book.

They were very delicious, though.

Well, I'm from New Jersey and now in Florida, and I'm bummed out that I don't live up there, so I can come visit your restaurant, but I definitely will.

I think you were kind of striving for a more upscale beverage program when you started your first restaurant, I think, because I noticed in the book that you have some amazing craft cocktails in there, too.

Oh.

You certainly do.

And the cocktails are.

I'm not going to be all take up all the air, she's got to talk.

But the cocktails are part of the One of the best things about barbecue are the drinks and the people you get to hang out with while you're doing it.

Right.

So we had to definitely have a chapter about that in there.

Yeah, I mean, we have an amazing cocktail program we kind of built.

I'm a big whiskey and wine drinker, and I like a good cocktail here and there.

And I think the one thing, you know, it's interesting that you brought up the subject about, you know, we tried to do, you know, barbecue in New York City.

Like, you know, there is some sort of religious ritual that we have to take it out of the dead hands of a southerner.

So, you know, I wanted to have.

In New York City, you know, you have to have a good drink program no matter what.

If you want to have a successful restaurant to pay your, you know, they always say the food pays the rent and the drinks make you money.

We needed to have the right drink program to go along with our barbecue.

And we just have fun with it.

You know, we're not serious about it.

We're not.

We're not mixologists.

You know, we just like to have fun, kind of beachy drinks that go great with barbecue.

I think people forget that in restaurants.

Sometimes they just.

In barbecue, predominantly, they focus just on proteins, and they don't take a look and try to make the sides the best, the desserts the best.

But I really.

Yeah, because we couldn't agree more.

And as.

And again, as being chefs moving into this amazing culture that is barbecue, like, we love it all and we want to eat it all.

And just like you guys, I'm sure when you go out to a barbecue restaurant, you want the protein, but you also want the collard greens.

You want the Mac and cheese, you want the cornbread, you want the baked beans, you want a froze or a big batch fun cocktail or a perfect glass of rose or something that's going to go with it, or craft beer, ipa, you name it.

And then finish it off with some, I don't know, banana pudding or key lime pie or some sort of fun, super delicious.

Exactly.

Some sorts.

We wanted to put that all together, and that's really what we strove to do, strived to do.

Shane is much a better writer than I.

That's definitely the one thing that sets.

If you go to the temples of barbecue in the south, you know, none of them have cocktails, you're lucky if you can get a beer right, you know, because it costs money to have those liquor license too.

And it's not a.

There's also you know, people have religious views that don't allow them to have drinks and things like that, so.

Well, I think that being New York, I think that it lends itself to you being able to have a successful program.

I had a place in Chicago and I did the same thing.

It just goes hand in hand with, you know, the people that are coming to your restaurant and it kind of rounds it out.

So it's cool.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I have a.

What's that?

You said you were from New Jersey.

Now you're in Florida.

Tampa.

And I see you haven't opened up your West Palm beach yet, but very soon.

I'm rocking the Florida hat as we see that.

So we'd love to have you come down and check us out, let us know if you're free.

Oh, for sure.

You guys did pop ups there first, right?

Yeah, because we found this great space and we were doing pop ups out of it.

And then the pandemic hit and slowed this entire project down for about two years as it has just sort of derailed everybody in this business.

But we're almost there.

The space has come together beautifully.

It's going to be an amazing spot.

So we're super excited to get that one up and running.

So who's going to.

Who's go.

Who's moving to Florida?

Back to my hometown.

That's where I'm from.

Oh, are you?

Yeah.

You couldn't get me to move back there with a.

God, it's gorgeous down there.

Gun to my head.

So I got a question for you.

You talked about, you know, you and I read about it in the book.

You take these trips to the, the major meccas of barbecue.

How did those boys and girls in West Texas feel about two guys from New York coming in, Stuff like that.

So how were you received?

Well, I think that's a really great question and to be very honest, and I'm not going to speak for Shane on this, but for me personally, that's again, it's one of the greatest things I've loved about this barbecue family is that nobody ever rejected us to say per se.

Nobody ever was kind of frustrated with the fact that we were from New York.

They were more of welcome.

Check.

Check out what we're doing now.

I guarantee not everyone was showing us their secrets and they were whatever expect them to, but the hospitality is just.

It's been amazing and it's been awesome to just sort of wiggle our way into this space, a sacred space, and have these amazing people take a liking to us.

In the sense where they're willing to show us or tell us a few things here or there's.

So it's been really, really great.

Okay, we're going to take a break here on Barbecue Nation.

We're going to be back with Matt and Shane right after this.

You're listening to Barbecue Nation on the USA Radio Network.

Hey, everybody, it's jt and this is a special version of Barbecue Nation.

It is brought to you in part by Painted Hills Natural Beef.

Beef you can be proud to serve your family and friends.

That's Painted Hills Natural Beef.

Welcome back to.

Excuse me, Barbecue Nation.

If you'd like to email us, it's really easy.

You just go to the website instead of giving you 20 email addresses and just.

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that's bbqnationjt.com.

there's an icon there on the bottom of the main page.

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And if you've got complaints, I send them to Leanne.

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We're also on Facebook, Twitter, and a gazillion other platforms.

And so it's not hard that.

Not too hard to find.

We're talking to Matt Abdu and Shane McBride.

Pig Beach.

Guys, they've got a new cookbook out here.

It's a great book.

It's a beautiful book.

And I gotta tell you, we get a lot of books.

We do a lot of cookbooks.

They're all nice like that.

But when I look at the quality of this book, and I'm not talking about the binding or anything, but just the quality of effort in the writing and the photography.

I knew you guys were serious about this after I went through the book, so congratulations on that.

I'm sure you'll do very well with it.

I do have to say that you talk about.

You didn't, but I do stereotypes.

And I just always had this vision of barbecue in New York where some guy comes up, I want some grilled onions on that, too.

You know, like, you know, I've been to the hot dog carts in Manhattan and stuff, and I'm like, oh, okay, how big of a change was it, you guys?

The both said, and it's very well documented that you're both classically trained chefs, but how big of a change was it to perhaps either integrate those skills that you learned over the years or let some of them go when you're jumping into barbecue?

That's a good question.

We've asked that people have asked that one about.

I'll touch on the letting go thing.

The things that I've let go is like wearing pants to work.

I get to wear shorts every day.

I don't have to put a chef coat on anymore.

I don't have to wear a silly hat.

You know, those are the things I've let go.

Everything that we learned is applied to what we do every day.

I mean, sure, the restaurant business is always a restaurant business.

And if I can make something better with a technique that I learned in, you know, fine dining, that's what I'm going to do.

I'm not going to forget those things.

Right.

I've had.

I've had more fun doing this restaurant stuff with Matt than I've had in decades in the restaurant business.

You know, I don't have to.

Other things I can say.

I don't have to worry about buying wine glasses or expensive silverware, you know, plates that cost $100 each.

You know, I.

I have a question just from having a restaurant background and I.

I don't have the experience in fine dining like Italian, French and what have you.

Do you find that barbecue is more difficult as far as keeping the quality because it's longer, slower process?

Do you find it's more difficult and I guess more challenging than the other cuisines?

I think that's an absolutely fascinating question.

And this is kind of how that I equate all of that, is that there are certainly more variable to completely ruin a day in the restaurant doing barbecue, because as you just said, if your briskets didn't come out right or something happens, you're not making them on the fly to have them ready for service.

So.

But in the same token, if you are able to have that sort of great, solid core team along with you, and you really, prior to opening, invest a lot of time into that team and making sure that they know the program, how you like to do things, and you have that sort of attention to detail.

It's from my experience, it's been easier to have that sort of consistent cook than having in fine dining.

There can be like a.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but there can be sort of like a rotating musical chairs of who's on which station for the night.

And each person that's on a station does things differently.

And most fine dining restaurants are set up where you have a meat roast cook, a fish roast cooked, an entremat, which is a person that does the sides for the meat and entre mat.

The person does the sides for vegetables and so on and so forth.

And those schedules, people rotate around pretty frequently, and each person can be doing something differently and putting together multiple components by a different person.

The variable for error can certainly expedite much higher.

But however, there is an ability to correct that faster than there is in barbecue.

So there's.

There's give and take, I think, on both sides.

But yeah, it.

That.

The reality is that either side can make some pretty serious errors if there's not a lot of good training and sort of attention to that detail to eliminate those variables for error.

But I found it easier to keep a consistent product here within the barbecue realm because we're able to focus primarily on a much smaller menu where the guys that are working the pits, they have their, you know, five or six proteins that this is your responsibility, focus on these.

And it's usually one guy's primary role with like a backup, like understudy that works his days off kind of thing, versus having five or six different people that might rotate into that rotation of cooking that same sort of.

You.

Did you train these pit masters, or did you recruit them from areas of the country that you know, I wish.

We were able to recruit them from certain areas of the country.

All the guys that we've had here with us at Pick beach have been people that we've taken in.

We've trained them with Shane and my program of how we like to cook our barbecue.

And we've been really, really fortunate, which is kind of insane to consider New York City.

But we've.

The majority of our culinary team that's been with us has been with us since day one.

And it's made it really, really great to, as we opened up our locations and expanded upon, of making that transition be that much easier and that much consistent.

Because we've had people since the very beginning of this project seven and a half years ago now that, you know, we took.

I took people left with me that wanted to come and get out of fine dining.

Shane had some people that wanted to get out of his echelon of fine dining to come with him.

And these amazing.

Like our chef, Steven Fugatti.

Fugate, I call him Fugatti because I made him Italian, even though name is pronounced Fugate.

But he's been with us since the very beginning, and he's now like a partner with us, executive chef with us, you know, and then just.

Are you going to take some of your New York crew down to Florida then?

I.

You know what?

That is a great question.

We're hoping to get one or two of the guys that want to transition down to Florida.

But that's primarily the reason why I'm moving down to Florida is to we've got a great chef and a great sous chef lined up with us already down there that are from the neighborhood in the area that are friends of of ours that are super pumped for the program that I've had a chance to cook with for the last couple of years.

So they were starting with there, but it's primarily going to be, you know, we're training people over again to get those pits fired up and it's going to be me and the smokers, you know, for the first, however long it takes until we're at a point where I feel comfortable to let the proverbial rains go on.

We use primarily old hickory pits for the bulk of our barbecue.

Those guys, they do, I mean, as far as like commercial barbecue restaurants go, they're one of the best in my opinion.

One of the best in the business of consistent.

Yeah, that's what I started with.

Love them.

And then we've got a couple of moberg mobile trailers from.

We do some off sites as those fun showpiece cookers.

We're doing some briskets and some long cooked things on.

There you go.

There you go.

We're going to take another break here on the Nation on USA Radio networks and we'll be back with Matt and Shane from Pink beach in New York right after.

If you're enjoying GT and his show, come check out my podcast around the House with Eric G where we talk home improvement and design.

Right here.

Where you catch this podcast, head to Aroundthe House online dot com.

Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

I'm JT along with Leanne Whippen and today we're talking with Chris, Matt abdu and Shane McBride from Pig beach in New York.

They've got a new cookbook out.

It's called Pig Beach Barbecue Cookbook.

Go figure.

It's a great book.

But how much time do you spend with Hollywood?

I caught that in the back of the book.

Don't you have a guy named Hollywood, you nickname Hollywood?

Yeah, I just spent the week with him in Memphis.

You all right?

He is.

No, not him.

You.

If you spend a week with him.

I'm good.

It usually takes Shane a month to recover from the week of Memphis.

I was, I had to be barbecue dad this week.

I was the most responsible I've ever been at Memphis this year.

So I'm sorry to hear that I forgot something here.

We'd like to thank Painted Hills natural beef again, beef like your grandfather used to raise.

And also David Malik and his crew over at Gunter Wilhelm Knives.

We appreciate their support for the show.

Now we got all the have to stuff out of the way.

There's who decided to sit down and write a book.

You don't just sit down one day and say, oh, hell, I'm going to go write a book.

I mean, it's a big project.

And it takes actually, because I've done it and Leanne's doing it, and it takes a lot of time.

You've got to get a lot of input.

I mean, you kind of are, you know, author centric on these things, but then all of a sudden you've got photographers and food stylists and editors and, you know, proofreaders, and you've got all this stuff.

Kind of walk us through that process that you went through.

But whose bright idea was it in the first place?

So I think I was the one that pushed for it more than Matt.

Matt was working with somebody else on something.

But my friend Judy Choate, who helped us write this book, was in my ear about doing something.

I've been trying to get something with her for years done.

Matt and I both have been fortunate enough to help other chefs write books, and I did one with Judy in the past, so she's amazing.

I was kind of pushing for it because it's something that I would want, that I've always wanted to do.

I'm a cookbook hoarder.

I have like 4,000 cookbooks.

Good man.

He has a whole room in his house, like a legit room, that probably.

That'S why he can't move to Florida.

He has too many books.

Never gonna go, never gonna make it.

So it's always been a dream of mine to have a cookbook.

And I think what Matt and I have done at Pick beach is special in the sense that we've.

I've always called it non barbecue barbecue, where I've kind of used smoke as and, you know, slow and low as kind of a technique and a flavor where it's not just, you know, I'm not cooking ribs and brisket and pork shoulder all the time.

It's all the other fun stuff that's in the book has always been my focus on.

On what barbecue is.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

And I think what we have is a special thing.

Judy had the time to do it.

Matt's other project wasn't working out.

Bada bing, bada boom.

Here it is.

That's a New York thing, isn't it Shane out of Bing Bada.

Okay.

I learned that up here from Matt.

Okay, so how long did it take you to do the book?

Well, I'm sure as you know and you're finding out the interesting thing about the book is that when the time came it was, you know, you work on putting a proposal together.

We did that with Judy and we sent to the publisher.

Was it like 15 recipe ideas, some with photos, some without.

And once it got picked up from publisher, they basically gave us three and a half months to write and shoot the entire book, thankfully, which we already had the bulk of the recipes already done because we've.

That's how we catalog our restaurant.

And the business is that every single thing we do has already been reciped basically to the gram.

It was more about converting from grams to like cups and ounces and whatnot, all that kind of stuff.

So yeah, we were basically given a three and a half month window to turn around the entire book, including photography.

And then from that time it was a year from submittal to release of.

Today, which we did before.

Three and a half months.

Oh, good for you.

The photography is absolutely fantastic.

By the way.

That's a big shout out to Ken Goodman.

He's an incredible photographer.

He's done a lot of barbecue cookbooks.

He's a fellow barbecue guy himself and he's done, I mean, basically everybody's books, barbecue books.

He's an incredible guy and we love him.

And then we had the amazing talents of Katie Ceelo and Anthony Contrino who are friends of mine from Today show.

They're actually the food producers, food stylists for the Today show team.

And when it came time to do this book and we needed photographer and we needed food stylists, they.

Ken is a good friend of ours.

We called him up right away and Anthony and Katie were like super excited to be a part of it.

So it just, it came together really well and it was just an exciting time to be able to work with all those guys to make this happen.

Good for you.

Good for you.

How did you select the recipes?

I mean, you had a bunch of recipes when you did the pitch, I get that.

But there's a lot of recipes in this book.

I didn't count.

There are, there's probably half of what we actually submitted because they're like, we can't do A cookbook with 120 recipes.

Wanted to be this big.

Yeah.

So a lot of, a lot of the recipes that were chosen, some were picked out by.

It was basically honest conversations of what do you guys think is best fit for this first book?

And we laid it out into the chapters that are in there, because in every chapter that's there, there's probably another 20 recipes that we had that could go in there.

And we just chose the ones that we thought were the most special and the most fun.

But again, it's like trying to choose between, like, your favorite child, like, which recipe is your favorite kind of thing, because we're just super proud of all of them and hopefully, God willing, have another chance to do well.

You know how you said that some of the people that you learned from probably kept secrets to themselves?

I want to know if you're, you know, world champion.

First place mustard sauce.

It's in the book.

Is it the real recipe?

Yeah, it is.

It is.

But the irony about that competed in Memphis, you know, what was first place last year could have finished dead last the next year.

And it's the same exact thing that you've ever made, so who knows?

But we've won that with that recipe twice.

So anybody that wants to try to.

Submit it, I found it interesting that it has ketchup in it just a wee little bit.

Gives it a little bit of, like, an orangeish.

And speaking of ingredients, you use a lot of accent, which, you know, in.

In today's world, people kind of are scared of accent, you know, the MSG thing.

But you seem to be almost proud of using it.

Well, here's the thing is that I think that particular ingredient is something that's gotten a lot of bad PR and a lot of the bad rap to it.

And scientifically, the amount that one would have to ingest in order for that to produce sort of the stereotypical malefacts is more than anyone would possibly be able to humanly consume anyways.

And a little bit used in a very responsible way, just adds this layer of flavor of that umami feeling that really kind of makes recipes jump and pop.

And the one thing that I could say to everybody listening or using the cookbook today is that everything in moderation is a great way of cooking, eating and using.

And certainly using a little bit of that accent goes a real long way and really kind of helps that flavor profile, sort of.

I agree with you.

I happen to be a fan of accent.

I am, actually.

I have issues with msg.

I have.

It does something to my hearing when I.

When I ingest it.

And I still ingest it.

Well, there you go.

You stand by your work.

I do, yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I'm happy that you enjoy using as well.

And I, like I said, I think it's.

I think it's just that extra little thing that you add to a dish, and then it has people being like, what is this?

It's like, it's so savory and delicious.

I can't put my finger on it.

And then it's like, well, you know, it's just a little quarter teaspoon of that accent mixed into that rub that just kind of gives it that pop.

And you know as well as we do that everybody still uses it in.

Barbecue, but it's just in a different bottle.

Yeah, perhaps.

So nobody knows pixie dust.

Yeah, I just got, you know, Bob, go get the secret ingredient.

Yes, there you go.

There you go.

Like that.

So I had a question about one of your ribs.

You have some pineapple ribs in there, did you?

And I thought they looked great.

And next time I come to New York, which might be a while, but I'm going to come by and I want to try some of those, if you have them on the menu.

But some people kind of like pineapple on pizza.

They have a fit about it, you know.

And how has that been received?

And were you ever hesitant when you first started it or using that, or did you just say, heck with it, this is really good, and we're going to run with it?

Well, I think for that particular recipe, along with many of the other fun with ribs recipes in that chapter, they're all inspired by iconic flavor profiles of dishes that when you live in New York City long enough, you're absolutely going to have one way or another.

And then you have your version of that from that spot, one or another that's your favorite or what you think is the best.

So that recipe is a spin on an al pastor taco, which is typically traditionally done with, like, achiote paste, vinegar, some oregano and herbs marinating pork shoulder that's been, like, slow cooked and roasted, shaved off and put into a taco with a lot of charred pineapple and that, like, vinegar sort of achiote sauce flavor profile, but just served in a corn tortilla.

So what we wanted to do with that chapter was take these iconic flavor profiles.

And this was all inspired by.

There was one summer where we just wanted to do a different flavored rib every month and feature it for a month of being like, you're going to have our typical, like, peach and honey glaze baby back ribs of what is on our menu, which we do every day.

And then once a month, we're going to feature a new rib, we just call it the rib of the month.

And we were basically giving an ode to all the classic, iconic dishes of New York City, of things that Shane and I loved eating in our time off away from barbecue restaurants.

So that Al Pastor flavor is probably one of the more iconic dishes in New York City that one would get from either their favorite taco truck or local taqueria that they'd go to often and just sort of extrapolated on, taking those same flavor profiles, adding it to a baby back rib with some of that smoke love, and eating it up with some charred pineapple on top.

And for the people that were here in New York that understood it, they loved it.

And I would encourage all those people out there that might be a little unsure.

Try it before you hate it because the flavor is actually really stinking good.

Yeah.

If you like Al Pastor tacos, it's pretty much the same thing.

Well, one thing we've.

In fact, we just did this with Meathead a few days ago.

We all love grilled pineapple, the three of us on this show.

And it's got such a unique flavor with, you know, the sugars and this and that and all that.

And so I was really.

I was happy to see that in the book because I thought it was different.

And yet now, like, you couldn't get my wife to eat anything that's above, like, two on the Scoville scale.

Okay?

She just.

Her nickname around here is Lily Lips, so something like that.

I actually showed it to her last night.

She goes, can you make that?

I said, yeah, I can make that.

She goes, why don't you do that this weekend?

So you've got a fan out here.

You know, that's all good.

We're going to take.

We're going to take another break, and we'll be back with Matt and Shane from Pig beach in New York right after this on Barbecue Nation.

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Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

And the terrifying subject for Matt and Shane of barbecue, you just heard it here first.

They're from Pig beach in New York.

If you were watching the Today show this morning, they were on their frequent guests on there.

What do you think is your biggest.

How would I phrase that for both of you here?

The.

You've had success, obviously, but what brings you the biggest pleasure in Your restaurant and then doing this book, you go first.

So I would say, for me, the biggest pleasure is, like Matt said earlier, we're going into our eighth year.

We have an incredible retention of employees.

Things like one of our managers, catering people, was a cashier when she started.

She was a teenager.

Now she's a manager.

To have people come up through our program, it's really gratifying to have that happen.

Same thing we're going to take.

We're working on a restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky, and we're going to take people that work with us here in New York, and we're going to move them there, and it's going to be their shop to run so that, you know, doing things like that, we're having people that we've kind of brought with us, brought them up with us, and having them do their own thing.

Now.

That's really always what I've liked about the restaurant business.

I've had dozens of people that work for me that are now successful chefs, which is always amazing to see as well.

You know, you feel like dad type of thing.

Well, that's just all of it, right?

You are like a proud dad to see family.

It's a family across the board and, you know, and even with the people that have been with us for a long time, and they get to a point in their lives where, for whatever reason it might be and they need to do something different or leave, whether it's because of a family thing or opportunity thing or whatever, you know, the best thing in the world is to say, we're just proud of you.

Just best of luck.

Whatever we can do to help along that journey, like, we're always here to resource.

So that is certainly a very, very gratifying part of what it is that we get to do in the position that we're in now, previously of just being the person grinding it out and sweating it with every aspect of your being in a kitchen, just trying to just keep swimming like Little Nemo.

So it's certainly a.

You guys know that.

And obviously, you have a lot of presence and time that you spend at your restaurant.

And now you're obviously moving to Florida.

It's hard as a restaurant owner to keep the consistency.

And now you're expanding to Louisville, there's only two of you.

And I know you've brought these people up and that sort of thing, but it's still different from being an owner.

Do you think it's.

And I don't know what's on the horizon.

Do you plan on even Expanding further.

Beyond Louisville, I certainly think that is always an option that could exist out there.

And if the right place and the right time and the right opportunity presents itself, it's certainly something that could be explored as we continue to grow.

But the biggest thing for us first is that before we ever expand upon into a new footprint is making sure that we have the right structure behind us and underneath us before we build on top of it.

And what you said is an excellent and absolutely fair, honest question.

And the great thing about what we're done to our point that we're making earlier is that we've literally been able to create a program and have a retention of employees, which makes this expansion possible.

If we didn't have the people with us that have gotten to a point with us where we feel that they're ready and feel that we're comfortable with them having it, we wouldn't take on those opportunities.

But we've been very blessed and very lucky to have this incredible family in this team with us that's grown with us that gets to the point where we're able to do these other projects, and we want to encourage that and we want to promote them for that.

Whereas far as we offer opportunities for people to become a partner in the business when we expand, when we grow on, because we want them to stay with us, we want them to fantastic grow in this program that is us.

And we want to create an environment for many of these core people within our lives that make them, you know, want this to be their forever career.

That's something that coming up through in the fine dining like we did, having that kind of offered to us was never.

It never happened.

You know, there's never like, I want you to stay.

Here's a piece of what happens here that was never, never, ever, ever an option.

And now that we have the ability to do that, it feels really good.

To be able to do that.

You know, we both have been.

I mean, everybody on this has been through the restaurant struggle.

It's.

It's a hard business to be in, to start with, especially financially.

So if there's a way that I can help somebody get on and succeed, I'm going to do it because I've been the person not doing well, for sure.

Well, one thing I can say is you'll fit in well down in Kentucky because you know how to pronounce Louisville correctly.

It's not Louisville.

Well, in addition to his cookbook hoarding, he's also a hoarder of some rare and incredible bourbons, too.

So you better be able to know how to pronounce.

Yeah, well.

Yeah, that'll count.

That'll come in handy.

You guys are quite a dynamic duo, which is really refreshing to see because I haven't picked up anything today where it's all about ego or attitude.

You guys just want to make it work.

I think that that's really.

Because I've interviewed thousands of people in my career, and it's very refreshing to see the enthusiasm.

And you obviously get along well.

And it seems to me.

And you can address this.

We got a couple minutes left here.

If there's a point of.

I won't say contention, but a point of something that needs to be worked out, you guys probably sit down and work that out.

You don't start throwing crap at each other, you know?

Oh, I would be so terrified if Shane started throwing shit at me.

Run.

I'd run.

No, I think the greatest thing about.

And I'll let Shane, I.

I just get excited.

I call him Super Chef because I grew up.

Not grew up, but I came up in New York City working as a line cook in restaurants when he was already established chef of Tom Colicchio establishment.

So I've always had the utmost respect and admiration for this guy.

He's one of the best at what he does, and he's amazing to have as a counterpart to work with.

And I think the cool thing about our relationship is that it's almost brotherly, where the point is I look to him as like a big brother, and he certainly mentors me at times as a little brother.

And it's just a great dynamic of what we have.

And when we have any sort of issues, which we rarely do, because we're both very.

Just honest about, and we figure it out and we work it out.

That's another great thing about pig beach and barbecue.

And it's sort of just being.

Is that for the most part, it's a lot less stressful to begin with, and it's just a lot more fun to begin with.

So we're able to really focus on those nuances.

More so than.

Did this person do this perfectly straight line with this perfect dollop?

And was the acid, like, completely crisp in this particular sauce to this, like, minutiae of a window of acceptability?

You know, we're just able to have a lot of fun and do what we love to do, which is put smiles on people's faces through our food and drink.

And it's what I love doing every day, to be able to come back and have a chance to work with him just makes even more fun.

Matt Abdu and Shane McBride, Pig beach in New York and their new cookbook, Pig Beach Barbecue Cookbook.

I recommend it.

It's out now and so people can grab it online, I'm sure from multiple sources.

But, guys, thank you.

What?

Anywhere you buy books.

That's what they coach to say.

Okay.

Anywhere you buy books.

I usually just call the publisher, but we're special here.

Anyway.

Anyway, guys, thank you.

I know you're going to st around for after hours.

That's going to wrap it this week for the radio portion of Barbecue Nation for Leanne and myself.

I thank you for listening, guys.

You're doing great back there.

And we'll be back next week with another edition of Barbecue Nation.

Remember our motto here.

Turn it, don't burn it.

And try to do something nice for somebody out there.

Take care.

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