A Father's Day gift that turned into a business venture 8 years later.

In 2013, I got Mike and my dad a Father’s Day gift to attend a BBQ smoking class hosted by a Champion Pitmaster. Mike loved it so much that on the way home he went and bought a Rocky Mountain Smoker. 

In the ensuing years we experimented with different kinds of meats, sides and flavors of wood. We played around with times and temps to find what worked best for each cut of meat. Our family and friends were involved in the experiments much to their delight and sometimes not so much a delight. We then started cooking for family events and holidays. When our church asked if we would cater some events, we found out that we could cook for a large crowd of people. After family and friends kept telling us we should sell what we made, Mike decided a career change was in order.

Mike took an interest in building smokers and started doing that in his spare time. The first smoker was finished in early 2019. Once we decided to get a food trailer, he started working on a new one to sit on the trailer’s porch. While working on the new smoker we took all the things we were doing and Smokey Bonez BBQ went from a pipe dream to a reality. 

We are super excited to start this new adventure that wouldn’t be possible without help from our awesome family, whom we love so much, that had no problem telling us if our cooking was not “On Point”. Another key to our success was the great friends who helped us taste test, especially the two wonderful ladies we worked with. One whose talent for detail was used to make our trailer look awesome and the other who used her talent online.

With God, family and good friends anything is possible.

- Carey Awe-Young -