Restaurant: BrisketTown
What: Full service barbecue restaurant, with multiple mobile outposts, and a robust catering department
Where: Brooklyn, Manhattan, Jersey City
When: 2012 - 2017
BrisketTown
Delaney Barbecue was my first restaurant brand, and BrisketTown the first restaurant. It opened as a small, counter-service barbecue restaurant on the South Side of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The restaurant focused exclusively on the barbecue of Central Texas, and at its time was the only barbecue restaurant in NYC to cook meat outdoors, entirely using hardwood. This distinction allowed us to produce notably different barbecue than the NY had seen for a while, and brought us a good amount of visibility which resulted in numerous awards, lines out the door, and selling out of food on a nightly basis.
Over time, the restaurant evolved, and we remodeled to move into a table-service model. With this change, the restaurant’s menu increased to include appetizers, brunch, dessert, and robust natural wine program.
SmokeLine
Shortly after the opening of BrisketTown, Delaney Barbecue was invited to start vending within New York’s beautiful High Line park in Chelsea. Excited about the opportunity, we jumped on it, building out a beautiful cart made from reclaimed redwood from water towers, and a whole new sandwich focused menu. The location was later moved to Jersey City, NJ where it operated for a season.
Branding
The logo for Delaney Barbecue was a fun collaboration between Drew Heffron (NY-based designer) and Todd Sanders (Neon bender / artist / founder of Roadhouse Relics in Austin, TX).
From the start, I knew that I wanted to have a neon sign be the focal point of the restaurant, and I was a big fan of the work that Roadhouse Relics made. So, getting him to make it was the only option. The two of us brainstormed, he sketched it, and Drew refined it. The end result was beautiful!
Past Locations
Store Design
BrisketTown was designed by Home Studios of Brooklyn, NY, and was built by Precision Innovations. The cozy 34 seat restaurant’s design influences were a mix of elements found in Texas and Brooklyn. The floors were made of reclaimed lumber found in a church, the walls covered in wainscoting made old redwood salvaged from rooftop water tanks, and the chairs a signature red. The team put a tremendous amount of work into every detail, down to the door handles, which were made from bleached beef rib bones that one of our first employees whitened himself!
Retail Venture:
Delaney Hot Links
What: Developed ready-to-eat version of Delaney BBQ’s Award Winning Hot Links
When: 2016
Note: Never Brought to Market
The Background
In Delaney Barbecue’s second year in operation we quietly started working with the brilliant team at Vermont Packing House to reproduce an exact replica of the Texas-style Hot Link sausages we had been serving at our restaurant since it’s opening. After a number of iterations, we landed on a version that was not only delicious, but was in many ways superior to the links we had been making in our kitchen.
The Goal
Because these sausages were being made in a USDA facility, the requirements necessary to sell and distribute them to mass-market retailers were met. It was our goal to start to develop additional flavors, to launch them with a number of retail partners, as well as directly on our website. However due to the closure of our restaurant, that goal has not yet materialized.
The Design
The design for the packaging was created by Drew Heffron with photography by me. Our goal was to create vibrant packaging that would pop off of the shelves when displayed in the cold section of a retailer. It was the ultimate goal to package in cardboard with a belly band, however the packaging we landed on was the most viable for a small launch.
Pop-Up Series: Brisketlab
What: Underground BBQ series aimed at creating the best possible Texas-style smoked brisket.
Where: Brooklyn & Manhattan
When: Summer of 2012
Dreams of Brisket
Brisketlab was the solution to a problem: I needed brisket. Specifically, I needed the type of brisket that I had fallen in love with in Texas. At the time, I couldn’t find any of it in NYC. So I set out on a mission to create it myself, an effort which would lead me to opening my first restaurant - BrisketTown. To accomplish this goal I headed to Austin, TX where I got my hands on a 18’ offset smoker, which I hauled up to NYC along with a truck full of wood and the help of a friend. Without any legitimate plan or place to cook, I popped the smoker along the side of my family’s home and set out to find hungry carnivores.
Marketing
In order to get the word out about Brisketlab I put up a super cryptic “coming soon” website, which teased out the idea that an underground BBQ series would soon be launching in NYC, and that it would have tremendously limited space. The website’s sole function was to collect email addresses. To encourage participation, I incentivized sharing by rewarding the person who shared the most with a brisket all of their own. I then sent it out to a number of major publications, who were all eager to cover it. Within a week I had gathered over 7,000 email addresses. Then it was off to pre-ordering.
Pre-Ordering
Concerned that people would bail once we launched, I was determined capture customers while they were engaged. So, I built a pre-ordering system. With the help of my good friend Johnny Benson, we launched a pre-ordering mechanism. The website included a countdown which continuously ticked down while customers shopped, which enticed people to act quickly and decisively before everything sold out. And boy did that happen! Brisketlab sold over $90,000 worth of brisket in just under 48 hours!
The Labs
With unending thanks to Hunter Augeri, Angela Coronel, and Miko Mercer we were able to put together a total of 33 ‘labs’ in just 60 days! A lab was essentially a pop-up food party where folks that had pre-purchased brisket would show up redeem a portion of what they had purchased. To attend, people would log into a website we built which would allow them to manage their ‘meat bank account’ and RSVP for the labs. When they arrived, they claimed their smoked brisket, helped themselves to sides, and enjoyed live music from a number of local hot jazz and western swing bands. We’d host the events wherever we could find free space, which meant they took place on rooftops, undeveloped warehouses, and even in a cemetery! All in, we had over 2,000 attendees. It was a wild summer.
Marketing Event:
Squarespace @ SXSW
What: I developed and executed the promotional efforts for Squarespace at the South by Southwest Festival.
Where: Austin, TX
When: 2011 & 2012
Rolling Up
In 2011 everyone was going crazy over food trucks. I was no exception. I was in the middle of producing my first web show, VendrTV, which was about the best street food in the nation. Because of this, Squarespace approached me and asked if I’d be interested in curating the menu for their promotional activation at the 2011 South by Southwest Music and Technology festival in Austin, TX. They were about to launch the new version of their website platfom (which I’m still using on this site!) and wanted to make a big splash. They thought a food truck filled with the best food in Austin, TX would be an amazing way to generate buzz.
I was excited about the opportunity, and within no time, the planning of a menu evolved into handling nearly every element of the festival
Video Series: VendrTV
What: Web Video Series about the best street food in the USA
Where: All Across the USA
When: 2009 - 2011
Why Street Food?
When I was in college in Philadelphia in the early 2000’s, street vending was rarely more than a curbside hot dog or cheesesteak. Vendors competed one on one, with largely the same fare cart to cart. To graduate art school, I decided to focus my thesis on how design could change the viability of a curbside entrepreneur. Simultaneously, I was inspired by folks like Ze Frank, RSS technology, and podcasting. I wanted to be in that club. I also felt that there was no reason that food programming on the web couldn’t match the quality of what we saw on TV. Of course, today it does. But in 2009, when I started making web videos, it was a far cry from what we’re seeing on YouTube today. So, I rallied a few buddies from college and childhood, and decided to create a show about the industry I now knew a ton about. The timing was good, because little did I know the street food scene was about to explode.
Press
Watch Episodes
