Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryan Hull.
Hi Bryan, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’ve been cooking bbq in some fashion for over half of my life. It’s kind of ingrained from just being raised in Georgia. My dad used to bring home Brunswick stew and cracklin’ cornbread from Harolds as every few weeks, so that’s most likely where it started. I started to pursue Texas-style offset cooking around 2012. I bought a cheap 80-dollar smoker off of Amazon and ruined quite a few briskets. The few that were good left enough of an impression that I decided to take bbq more seriously in 2018. I bought a larger smoker on a trailer, cooked for friends and family throughout the rest of the year, and in 2019 hosted a series of invite-only pop-ups in my friend’s driveways. I was set to start doing actual pop-ups in 2020, but Covid hit and meat prices shot through the roof. I cooked when I could and focused on building the Secret Pint Instagram.
In August of 2020, I started offering bbq deliveries twice a month through Instagram. From then until January 2021, I delivered bbq one or two Sundays a month to anyone who would order it. Brian Ingle of another Atlanta BBQ startup, Broken Oak Barbecue, invited me to do a joint pop-up at an Oakhurst brewery. We did 3 straight days of full bbq service that weekend, which looking back it’s a miracle we were able to pull it off as well as we did. From there I branched off into doing solo Secret Pint BBQ pop-ups and started making sausage for Sock’s Love Barbecue in Cumming GA. Including the first Secret Pint BBQ at Pontoon Brewing in March of 2021, there have been around 35 pop-up services at a handful of breweries around Atlanta.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Thank goodness it hasn’t been a smooth road. Even though CoVid caused a delay in starting pop-ups a year later than expected wasn’t ideal, it honestly gave me more time to work on cooking and building the Secret Pint brand. That isn’t to say that every pop-up went well. I was spoiled with how well the first two events went and it set an unrealistic expectation of what pop-ups would be like. I’m super thankful to every brewery that gave Secret Pint a shot and let us grow into what it is now.
Two of the biggest issues that I’ve had to overcome are costs and scaling up. The margins on bbq are incredibly slim. The general costs for me to do one pop-up are 2.5-3x times higher than other types of cuisine. That’s on top of the labor and time commitment to cooking bbq. By the time my team and I would be set up and ready to start service for a pop-up, I had often already put in anywhere from 30-35 hours of prep and cooking time into that single service. Juggling that, a full-time job, and a part-time position making all of the sausages for another bbq spot, I could really only do one service a week. In order to not burn out, I purposefully would only schedule a max of 2 pop-ups a month.
On the issue of scaling, it goes hand and hand with cost. As a pop-up, any food I didn’t sell couldn’t be repurposed or sold outside of that week’s pop-up service. My goal was to always cook enough to serve as many people as possible while still selling out. Judging how many people would be at a brewery on any weekend was always a gamble. Some weeks we sold out in 2 hours and some we were left with a decent amount of leftover bbq. Learning how to scale properly and judge the demand as a pop-up is incredibly difficult and something I was still working in year 2.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m honestly proud of everything that’s served at a Secret Pint BBQ. In terms of specialties, most people know Secret Pint for brisket, sausages, and macaroni and cheese. I’m not the first bbq place in Georgia to make sausage from scratch, but I do believe that I’ve pushed it further forward. Between Secret Pint and the other bbq joint I made sausage for, I was often making anywhere from 3-7 different smoked sausage varieties every week.
What I truly believe sets Secret Pint BBQ apart from other Georgia BBQ is a combination of cooking technique and wood usage. I cook on a 500-gallon offset cooker with no gas or electronic assistance of any kind. The only thing that fuels the smoker is locally sourced-Georgia oak wood. Most other places use a combination of wood types or use kiln-dried splits. I have an awesome supplier who brings me quality, properly aged white, red, and post oak wood. That gives my bbq a subtle smoke flavor without overpowering the meat. Between that, an emphasis on high-quality sides, and the variety of sausages, that’s what makes Secret Pint stand out in the Atlanta BBQ scene.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
It may sound weird, but stubbornness. There are definitely easier and more profitable ways to do bbq, but I’m incredibly stubborn when it comes to my vision for Secret Pint BBQ. Adhering to making sure that only freshly cooked bbq is served, going through the time-intensive process of making and smoking all of the sausages that are sold, and not taking any shortcuts on the sides are the things that make Secret Pint. It would be easier to make a standard potato salad or pre-cook the briskets and pork early in the week and heat it up the morning of. But because of my stubborn vision, I will cook briskets until midnight and get up 2 hours later to start ribs to make sure they are as good as they can be for that day’s service. But I think the results and quality speak for themselves.
Pricing:
- BBQ has very slim margins compared to other cuisines
- Brisket often costs me 12-14lb before seasoning and wood usage
- Even though 30 dollars a pound seems expensive, based on the yield and cook time of a brisket its should cost around 40-45 dollars a lb
- 8 dollars a link for sausage may seem high. That is because of the amount of labor it goes into making a batch of links. Its a 3-4 days process from start to finish
Contact Info:
- Website: secretpintbbq.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/secretpintbbq/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/secretpintbbq
Photo by Star Chefs
