Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Treitman.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Brian. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I started in fine dining, after graduating the CIA. I have cooked all over the country New York, Boston, Florida, and Napa Valley. When I moved back to MA, I was a chef at Spire in Boston on Tremont St, but I was living in Brimfield and commuting the hour and twenty minutes each day. The Position at Spire was temporary to help them transition to K.O. Prime with Jamie Bissonnette and Ken Oringer.
While working at Spire I began building a bbq trailer to use as a concession stands at the Brimfield Antique Show, the largest antique fair in the world, that happens three times during the summer. The trailer was just supposed to be a side gig, but after the first show of the summer May 2007 and thinking about my commute and just starting a family, I decided BBQ was what I wanted to do full time.
I was able to set up my trailer at the campground as you enter Brimfield and worked out of it year round for the next two and a half years. While doing so I also opened a little spot next to Yankee Spirits in Sturbridge for more exposure. At the end of the summer in 2009, I was able to purchase an actual brick and mortar space. The Country Creamery in Sturbridge soon Became B.T.’s Smokehouse’s permanent home.
We started in that space just before New Years in December 2009. Since then we have expanded the restaurant from its originally 3 booths and 4 counter seats with just over 40 seats and three outside picnic tables. We’ve also doubled the size of the kitchen and added two 1800 lb capacity smokers to the original one that held 750 lbs.
It’s been a fun ride over the past 10 years. In that time we’ve been written up as the best BBQ Joint in New England and #20 in the nation.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has definitely been a journey. It’s much smoother now than when things first got going. Working out of an un-winterized trailer in zero degrees weather definitely has its challenges. Besides the idea of trying to get people driving by at 50-60 miles an hour to stop at a tiny shack on the side of the road in Western Mass for BBQ of all things. The town also had no idea how to deal with me and at times that was difficult to deal with.
The next big challenge was trying to teach people what BBQ is. I remember one of my first interactions with a customer about a rack of ribs.
I handed the rack to them out the window and they just looked at them funny. First I was told, “that’s not bbq.” Next was “how are you charging $20 for a rack of ribs? I can go to A**&^#@@s and get ribs for $9.” My reply was, “Well then if that’s what you’re looking for you might want to go there. I dry rub my ribs and smoke them. They are cooked here onsite by my hands. The ribs you can get over there are cooked who knows where drowned in sauce and then microwaved when you order them. Their “rack” is 7-9 bones mine is 12-14. So if that’s what you’re looking for you’re probably not going to like these ones anyway”.
Brisket was also something people didn’t know much about. We used to outsell brisket 3-1 with pulled pork, and the pulled pork was good, don’t get me wrong. But the brisket, the brisket is just delicious. It took some time and I think some education by me and my staff and also BBQ TV shows kind of exploded around that time. But now we sell 1.5 times more brisket than pork. The learning curve wasn’t just for our customers, but for me also. I had never cooked BBQ in quantity before.
Never ordered 250 lbs of spice rub at a time. I was used to cooking at most 5 prime rib roasts or strip loins at time, not 450 lbs of brisket. It took a little bit to figure out the process and the meats we serve today are way better than those first few weeks in the trailer.
Please tell us about B.T.’s Smokehouse.
B.T.’s Smokehouse is a little roadside bbq joint that specializes in “Southern Style” BBQ. We are best known for our brisket and in particular, our Brisket Reuben sandwich which was just named one of the 12 best comfort foods in New England by Yankee Magazine and has been ranked as the #7 bbq sandwich in the country by Johnny Fugitt in his book “The 100 Best Barbecue Restaurants in America”.
It’s been pretty awesome watching this little BBQ joint grow into what it is today. I used to cook three briskets a day, at most, now we cook 30. We serve upwards of 1000 ppl a day. I always wanted to be like one of those bbq joints down south that has a line out the door before they open and runs out of food daily. I quickly realized that that doesn’t work here in New England.
We open with a line most days, but we just keep finding a way to increase production so that we have enough. I’m pretty proud of the fact that 85-90% of what we serve daily isn’t reheated bbq, which is what happens in most places. We have done a really good job of knowing how much to prepare the night before for the next day’s service.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I’m not sure I would’ve changed much. I’m pretty happy with how it all worked out and where B.T.’s is today. I started small and each expansion was just the right size for the time. Little steps forward really helped make it what it is today.
Contact Info:
- Address: 392 Main St. Sturbridge MA 01566
- Website: www.btsmokehouse.com
- Phone: 508-347-3188
- Email: brian@btsmokehouse.com
- Instagram: @btsmokehouse
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/BTSmokehouse
- Twitter: @btsmokehouse
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/b-t-s-smokehouse-sturbridge-3
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