Cranford Brothers Barbecue Chef Ben Sullivan

[00:00:02] What you want when you want it, where you want it. This is The Mesh. You will find them in this region of western North Carolina, but not all of them share space with a new thriving brewery

[00:00:41] and a breakfast restaurant that opened just this week. Three operations inside one giant old pawn shop and the city's growing downtown region today. We meet the BBQ piece of that puzzle and its culinary director, Pitmaster and chef, as I said, Ben Sullivan. We'll talk to him about

[00:01:00] Cranford Brothers BBQ here about the experience and behind the scenes details in the smoke house. We'll find out all about him and his BBQ background as well. Be sure to check out our Instagram page for

[00:01:11] pictures of the restaurant and around that area. We're going to capture them in the next little while. You'll find that at low and slow BBQ show, you can also meet other Carolina Pit Masters at lowslowbbqshow.com.

[00:01:23] Visit the website of podcast conversations. Other guys are there, subscribe to the newsletter. We'll send you Carolina BBQ news, links to our most recent podcast and blogs, recipes from our guests.

[00:01:34] Just like our today's guest. Mr. Chef Ben Sullivan now can introduce you. Welcome to the low and slow BBQ show. Hey, how's it going? Yeah, it's great. Great. So excited to have you here.

[00:01:45] Thank you for joining us in the Mesh.tv Network of podcast studio. Let's just take it from the most basic. What is Cranford Brothers BBQ? So, we're our seasonal BBQ. We're doing slow cooked meats. We're doing Eastern Carolina style.

[00:02:02] We're doing Texas. We're doing a little bit of South Carolina as well. Okay. So now tell me what is the Cranford Brothers BBQ experience all about? Is it a customer when I walk in? Take me into what that experience will be.

[00:02:15] Sure. You're going to be welcome down by the smell of that low slow cooked meat of we're using Hickory Wood.

[00:02:22] So you got that unique smell. You're going to get set down real comfortable. You can see us in the kitchen, pull on barbecue, getting the meat ready for the next day.

[00:02:32] We are all a cart menu so you can order quarter pound half pound full pound half rack of ribs whatever you want and then pick and choose your sides. So it's really you build your own experience at the restaurant.

[00:02:46] Okay. So what is one thing that I need to order off the menu if I come in if there's one thing I got to get,

[00:02:52] excluding the specials and we'll talk about that in just a little bit but what's the one thing we have to get at Cranford Brothers? I think the real sleeper and no one understands this is the smoked turkey.

[00:03:02] Okay. It's turkey breast. All we do with the meats is salt and pepper. That's all we do with the robs. Salt and pepper. And then it just really just what's that sweet second one turkey comes through.

[00:03:13] Yeah, excellent. So now tell me about the sauces that know that you've got four of them Eastern Western, Western and gold. What's that all about? Okay. So Eastern is the one true sauce. It's you know vinegar based a little bit of black pepper a little bit of citrus.

[00:03:30] Our best turn is more of a traditional like since in style. Modern styles to me have that like catch up base some extra sweet tomato. I've got a recipe that's back about a hundred and twenty years. So it's tomato,

[00:03:44] tomato vinegar and brown sugar. Okay. Still got that tomato and it's a little bit of sweet but it's still twanging. Our Western sauce is that Casey style thick sweet. Okay. Oopy goopy. Yes. Yes. Then we've got our gold sauce which is South Carolina. We've got our albamis sauce.

[00:04:02] I love that one off the list. Yeah. And then we just just dropped one called firehouse, which is five different kinds of chilies. It's a sweet burn. Yeah. And then it creeps up on you.

[00:04:15] It wants to smack you in the face and things a little bit better of it. It goes back into the background. Yeah, nice. Wow. That sounds exciting. Can't wait to try that new sauce from you guys. So tell me a little bit through what the day-to-day

[00:04:26] operations look like there at Grand Prix Brothers. How much made are you smoking on kind of an average day? Sure. We're doing between about 120, 140 pounds of shoulder day. We're looking about 50 to 60 pounds of brisket anywhere between 15 to 20 birds.

[00:04:45] Just depends on the day. Chickens. We're doing five or six turkeys. We're doing probably 10 ribs, size of ribs a day. And then we've got our sausages. Yeah. We're always getting some sausages in. We're burning smoke every day. Night time obviously we're putting in our brisket and our shoulders.

[00:05:07] And the mornings we're doing our ribs, our turkeys, our sausages. Right? To be ready for the afternoon serving that after. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So the smoke is running all the time. Yeah.

[00:05:20] 24-7. If we're not hot smoke and we're cold smoke and we're cold smoke, our vegetables, our cards, a cold smoke. We do our marapoff for our green beans of smoke. So we're, our most of our size are vegetarian or vegan. Smoker, buttermilk for a ranch.

[00:05:41] Whatever we can fit into that smoke, we're gonna smoke it. Yeah. Okay. So tell me what kind of smoke or what the equipment you're using. So yeah. You're using your using your green wood.

[00:05:52] Look what we're using old-hickery pit smokers. They're carousel smokers. We've got two, two, four carousel smokers. So we can do about 700, 800 pounds a day. Wow.

[00:06:07] If I'm, how does that compare to what the average Joe can get as a backyard barbecue or, you know, what can I get this roughly equivalent? Obviously on a volume scale difference. Right. Well, my smoker's way a ton each.

[00:06:20] That's not something I'm gonna pull around with my truck too easily. Yeah, no. And then, yeah, if you're a backyard pit smoker, you know those barrel smokers, you can get a, uh, loads or a new po. You can fit probably 10 or 12 of those in my smoker's. Okay.

[00:06:36] All right. So a little bit larger. Yeah. Give me a little bit understanding of the scale of it there. Sure. So how many people would you have more can for you guys? What's your power and the production?

[00:06:46] Uh, so in the pit itself we've got a pretty small team. It's about four of us. I've got some guys coming in doing some maintenance. Could do some cleaning and doing some trimming for the next couple days. Yeah.

[00:06:57] We talk about production while we're going to do what we're looking at for the next couple weeks. That kind of deal. Okay. And you guys are open seven days a week. How challenging is it? To keep that, um, keep that driving keep it going all seven days.

[00:07:11] You know, a lot of places you hear about are just just on the weekends. Yeah. How is the seven day operation? You know, it's like everything else in life you find that cycle. Yep. We find that cold smoke and gets in there on our down days.

[00:07:24] We can have a little bit more time. We get to a clean smoker because, you know, a clean smoker affects the taste of food. Yeah. And then we've got our specials that we do like our smoked meat loaf on Sundays.

[00:07:37] We always got to get that ready for this area. Yeah. So you kind of got to play in that way for sure. Always. Tell me about the catering business. How does that function with the rest of the operation? And how's it going for you guys? It's going well.

[00:07:48] We're really starting to uptick. We just signed a deal with LR football. It's going to be a full experience down on the field. Really fun right behind the end zone. Boosters can be able to take advantage of that. Eat some food and watch the game. Wonderful. Yeah.

[00:08:04] So that is just allowing us to hit the market and get more people exposed to it. Sure. You know, those old hickory smokers there there be George and Tammy. We named them George. Yeah. George and Tammy line that. George smokes more than Tammy. Yeah.

[00:08:20] Well, of course he does. Yeah. So we can really allow us to flex those smokers and really use the machines. Yeah. Wow. That's exciting. We'll look for you guys in the fall at LR. LR on football games. Now look over here to the website here for cramprum brothers.

[00:08:34] Barbecue is cramprumbroze.com. Hey, I look at the menu there. I wonder what inspires the menu items, the things that you've selected there for the daily day-to-day product provisions and then what kind of drives the specials that you select?

[00:08:49] Well, we want to highlight what we can do for our specials. So we do some drunken chickens which is we take our smoked chickens and dip them in sauce and then roll them off so they get nice and crispy.

[00:09:02] We want to hit a little bit of everything off the menu. So this is why we do Texas style eastern style. We've got the chicken, we've got the ribs. The size are there, they're classics with a just end of uniqueness to them.

[00:09:15] So they're still approachable but you haven't found them anywhere else. Yeah. Cool. Okay. So anything on the menu there and maybe that's that you just answer my question. But that you hold really near and dear to your heart. What's your creation?

[00:09:31] Ben Sullivan's item on the menu that he loves and then fine-tuned in what's the world to know about? Well, I think while already mentioned the smoke turkey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The lone star is really good. It's a unique look at burn-ends.

[00:09:45] You know, most of the time burn-ends are going to be like super sticky sweet. We do more of a savory style and then turn it into a filly steak. So we take that, we chop it up, we've got caramelized onions and candied jalapenos and then we do breaches.

[00:10:01] So it's like really over the top best cheese steak you've ever had. But you got that real fatty richness of the brisket, the over the top of luxurious Bree and then a little bit of the spice. Yeah, wow, that sounds wonderful. What about the sides?

[00:10:15] Any of the sides stand out for you? This has been baby for sure. I think the sweet potato and cashew rule is really nice. Okay. All right. I love the sweet potato cashew rule. Yeah, it's not too sweet. It's gluten-free so we can everybody can enjoy it. Okay.

[00:10:30] We smoke pecans and coconut, make a frucial top and other than that. And then we finish it with a local sorghum and tamaris syrup. Okay. So little salty oil sweet. Holy cow, I might have to make dinner plans there. Absolutely. There's some. Yeah.

[00:10:46] So, you know, kind of said from the outset, Bork, hickory is hickory. We've got some barbecue in town, some barbecue restaurants but they're not exactly on every corner and it's not overflowing with them but there are some out there.

[00:10:59] How do you guys, a cram for brothers compared to other that surround the hickory metro region and then maybe larger North Carolina region? How do you guys kind of compare them to? Yeah, so we're kind of the new kids on the black obviously.

[00:11:10] So we have a much more modern touch to it. We're not slapping everything and sauce. We're not over smoking. We have a light touch source smoke. All right, it told you we just do salt pepper on all our meats. Yeah. We don't hide behind robes.

[00:11:25] We don't hide behind seasonings. It is what it is. And then it's the ability to pick and choose what you want. You know? That's that all-acart style. Yeah. I really think that's what separates us. Yeah, that's great. That's great. So let me ask you this.

[00:11:41] How do you feel like the local response has been here in hickory since you've kind of been around I guess really since the early part of last year in 2022? Yeah, we open up at the very end of last year, Christmas New Years. And it's been good.

[00:11:55] It's been receptive very well. We're really starting to see an uptick. Really starting to embrace our Eastern and Texas. But stop. Mm-hmm. Okay. What do you feel like is next for the restaurant? I want to talk about the larger business here because there's a whole lot going on.

[00:12:12] For sure. For brothers hospitality. Brain and we'll get to that. But for the cranfer brothers barbecue itself, you mentioned the big weekends coming with Lenore on football. What other things are on the horizon for the restaurant? I was still just developing that depth of flavor with the place.

[00:12:30] We're still figuring out what the smokers can do for us. What my particular style of chefiness is zero waste in the kitchen. There's a little waste as possible. So, we're still developing ways to use everything that we buy and not throw anything way by reprocessing Tallow.

[00:12:53] We just opened up main chick jam and biscuits and we're making tater tots and we're pushing our potatoes with the tallow that we take off of our brisket. Oh, well, holy cow. We're just looking at ways to honor the products that we have. The most efficient way.

[00:13:10] You don't necessarily have to be always growing, but you can find new efficiency and things that you're working on. We can always get better when we go. Yeah, definitely. That's a great approach. You mentioned the main chick. Tell me all about the breakfast business.

[00:13:20] During this week, it opened literally yesterday. So, tell me all about that and we're already at as well. So that's the final phase of our project for the old pawn shop. It's main chick jam and biscuits.

[00:13:30] It's going to be open six days a week from Tuesday through Sunday. It's over the top cat head biscuits with any kind of chicken in it. Wow, we're doing fried chicken. We were making tater tots and house, smothered or just by side. We've got fresh squeezed OJ.

[00:13:47] You can have it as a beer mosa with one of our citywalk beverages and then we're doing waffle sandwiches as well. Yeah, so you tease the citywalk beverage. Tell me about that as well. Do you know how to kind of finish the three on the contemplate? Absolutely.

[00:14:00] Yeah, so that was phase one. Citywalk brewing and distilling is our brand. We're a full beer brewery and we are also making a spirit. So we're currently producing vodka gin and bourbon on the horizon is rum and eventually

[00:14:17] by the end of the year, we should be making a ruposotto. Okay. I got it. Okay. So what do you feel like how do you feel like having the brewery next door to the barbeque benefits the barbeque and vice versa?

[00:14:30] And now adding in the addition of the breakfast place, how do you feel like all three of these are working together to kind of support one another I guess. For sure.

[00:14:38] So you know, one we use a lot of beer in our cooking upstairs just to showcase what we're doing to beer and barbecue just go hand in hand. Sure. If you're cooking it, you've got to be drinking a little bit at the home at home.

[00:14:52] And then just you can spend all day now at our spot. You can come have a biscuit in a beer and then soon as the brewery opens up, go down, hang out, you can order some to go food and just enjoy yourselves out on the beer garden patio.

[00:15:07] Nice. And enjoy the outdoors, listen some music, watch the games, the Olympics going on. It's always fun to watch. Yeah. And again during the fall that's perfect time for college football to get started.

[00:15:18] If you get started over there at the main chick with your TV, I get to you guys with quick for TV's going to have a biscuit in the beer and watch the start of the early kick off ball.

[00:15:27] Well definitely having on the radio going on there you go that's all right we can always bring it along. Yeah. And check it out when they do open up. So, you know, now that we've kind of delved a little bit into the cram for brother's hospitality

[00:15:37] and what talk about Ben here for a couple of minutes. Who has been Sullivan? How did you get connected first of all with cram for brother's hospitality? So I used to go to the Sharellys stay calcine, classic standard for hickory.

[00:15:52] My buddy James Benson was the bartender over there. Sure. And he got me hooked up with Zach and the chef team over there and started doing wine dinners and the opportunity for this project at the ponshop came open and they asked

[00:16:06] me if they'd like to join and help them grow their business. And I kind of coalesced into one. Yeah. And so your as director of culinary operations, I guess it's kind of what the title is. So, I'm going to say that's out there.

[00:16:19] What all does your role in tail amongst all the food operations? For sure. So, I maintain all our kitchen operations for all our granny's kitchens. Standard oyster company, Sharellys, steakhouse. Obviously, the cramford brothers barbecue made chicken. Just ensure day-to-day, cleanliness, sanitation, execution, the help developed menus, any

[00:16:40] specialty items, any charity events I'm out there helping the community. I'm great. Wow, I'm sure that definitely keep you busy. How many locations is that? Let's see, I think there's three grannies, there's standard, there's Sharellys downtown that's eight or nine. Yeah, it keeps me busy. Yeah, definitely.

[00:16:59] Some of those cramied grays, locations are over in Bart County too. So, it's a little ways outside of Hickory. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely see a lot of the landscape. Yeah. So, how did you get into, let's take it back a little bit further, how did you get into

[00:17:13] food service and what brought you into this field? Sure, so growing up my dad threw a lot of parties. So, I was always there in the kitchen helping him cook or helping him dish food out

[00:17:25] or getting the table set and making sure everybody had a good time just came to me naturally after my first life. Yeah. Didn't do what I thought it was going to do. Right. Okay.

[00:17:37] Growing up, you know, kind of getting into it early on as a common theme among a lot of people that are in the food service for sure. So, you know, we talked a little bit early or, you know, outside of the cram for brothers

[00:17:48] and now you're very active out in the world. So, you know, talk to me a little bit about that and now you've got something that goes with some local Hickory producers in the area. Yeah, I work very closely with Raising Roots Farms out there on snow camp.

[00:18:01] They're great. They do old spot pigs. It's a rare heritage breed pig. I've helped them develop a couple of their mini-mitems. I'm also on the farmer's market board for the downtown Hickory farmers market. Right.

[00:18:15] So, I'm really always looking to strengthen and develop the food circle that's in this area. And then being involved with the vence with co-op extension and I know you've been a competitive thing to go on. I know you stay pretty busy on the weekend to bar for everything.

[00:18:30] Yeah. To my wife's sugar and I can't say no. Yeah. Yeah, so we just got done with the co-op extension for North Carolina. It just did a heritage fire which is a life fire cooking competition. Yeah, a lot of national. That was a lot of fun. Yeah.

[00:18:46] I'm sure what kind of things do you take away from events like that that you might bring into the day-to-day business at Grand For Brothers and other operations? Sure. You never know when you're going to make great connections with farmers or other chefs

[00:19:00] or sea techniques and new flavors. So that's why I try to go out there and do those. Yeah, so is there anything else that you enjoy particularly about one piece of the Grand For Prospectality work life over another. Do you enjoy the barbecue?

[00:19:15] Do you enjoy the, you know, I'm going to see me enjoy the barbecue because this is a barbecue podcast but is there one area where you're working that you enjoy maybe over another? For me it's really the problem solving aspects of it.

[00:19:27] Every day is a unique experience in every location. There's always different challenges either. Cooking wise, guess experience wise, it's always something new, it's always something fresh. I really like to see the experience from the customer.

[00:19:45] It really, it can change their day-to-day world and that experience changes my life. Yeah, wow, that's wonderful. So you know, how do you feel like you're, I know you had some former education at Johnson

[00:19:57] and Wales, how did that show up shape what you've done in the barbecue world? Sure, so it goes back to what I was talking about with the, I zero waste. So I bring a lot of technique driven where not to, be smart to anybody that's been

[00:20:13] in the barbecue business for a long time. But I bring in a lot of techniques. I like to be cognizant of what's going on in my kitchen and try to find ways to make it more efficient. How do you feel about pushing the envelope?

[00:20:28] How do you feel like you guys might do that in the barbecue restaurant space outside of that sustainability piece, which I think is really kind of pushing the envelope? Yeah, so I mean, we're always trying new things.

[00:20:40] I just a couple weeks ago, we smoked some Tallow for our Smash burgers. And we left the Tallow and the Smoker overnight for about 14 hours and when I came up around the carousel and it popped up and I looked like Coco Crispies.

[00:20:58] For the pebble or you know, Coco Pebbles. Yeah. And you know, the mindset of, so I drained them all off and I tossed them in a bunch of Coco powder and sugar and man those things slap. Yeah, I don't know.

[00:21:11] I don't know how I'm going to use it but that there's like a secret superpower in there. Always something park a light for sure. Where do you turn for advice? You know, I've got a lot of good friends. I go on online as well.

[00:21:26] I've got a lot of, I guess I like it friends and the industry has been around for a long time. So go to that, go down to the books, get down and dirty with that.

[00:21:36] And then hopefully soon here I'll be traveling to Austin to see what the other half lives. Yeah, how they do it out was. And some of those also ran barbecue steak. Right. You mentioned the online and getting advice.

[00:21:51] How much do you consider any of that unrequested advisor opinions that come out on online media, whether it's a Facebook and Google reviews those types of that? Sure. I mean, there's a place for that. You can't take it too hard too much. Yeah, because everybody's got an opinion.

[00:22:09] And with online people don't see face to face. They tend to have a little bit more bolder opinions. And definitely they may or may not be real human beings. They may or may not be real human beings. And take it with a strain of salt, you know?

[00:22:26] It is what it is. From a kind of more of a business approach perspective, how much has the influence change for things like Google reviews and your reviews and those things during the whole course of your career? Because you've been doing this here for a little while.

[00:22:40] How much is that influence change from the start to what you see now? I think from the start, it was a huge game changer when they first started doing online reviews and your yelps and your Googles and all that. It could make a break of business. Yeah.

[00:22:58] I think now you got your Karen's and your chads. And once people saw South who's a Karen in a chat, they kind of like, they can see too. They kind of, okay, okay, you got your moment, you go on and then the middle path will find its way.

[00:23:14] You know? Gotcha, and that's how you really need to cover to be successful. Yeah, absolutely. You're not going to please everybody. Yeah, so let's talk about your secret recipe and I'm glad you mentioned the Alabama sauce earlier. I can't believe we've ever got it.

[00:23:26] You know, why did you feel like you wanted to share that with the folks out in the world? Well, you know, I think it's really versatile. It goes really well with barbecue. Pork, it can go well with brisket, chicken.

[00:23:38] It's just a great, it's a good dip in sauce and you go on salads, sandwiches. It's great. It's a one-stop shop. Yeah, and we're going to include that recipe on the blog at lowslowbqshow.com.

[00:23:52] We'll have the details as well as the transcripts sort of of our conversation here or recap. You know, when somebody's making the Alabama white sauce, what did they need to keep in mind when they're prepared? Take a deep breath.

[00:24:04] It seems weird, but by the end, it will taste delicious. Yeah. What seems weird about it? Well, I think that white man is going on a bunch of hot food. Yeah. It seems a little bit weird. You're right about that.

[00:24:20] Not everybody is going to definitely be hip to do in that for sure. Yeah. So we'll have to check that out and if folks can learn how to make it themselves, they are when they check out the recipe at lowslowbqshow.com. So what's next?

[00:24:33] What's next for for chef Ben Sullivan? What's your next culinary goal? Now, just keep getting better. Keep finding those local farmers and artisans that are going to help me express what food is in the bakery in North Carolina. What keeps you going? Why do you do it?

[00:24:54] Why do you? Because that's a busy schedule that you shared. And it doesn't sound like there were any days off tucked in between there or not. What fuels you to keep doing it with such passion? This is what I was meant to do. I love it.

[00:25:07] I love making people happy. I love the hard work because it's an immediate return. It's not like you can wait six, eight months to do this. And then, I just had a baby girl and just watching her grow up and getting her involved

[00:25:23] in all this is that makes everything else insignificant. Bring it along in new generation. Absolutely. Congratulations, Carol. Thank you. On the new baby daughter then. We're going to wrap it up here with the low and slow showdown. Some quick hitters here.

[00:25:38] You know, son of yes, no one word answered. Maybe we'll get a little more explanation in some places. You mentioned Hickory's, which you guys are using. Why do you use Hickory? I think it's a good all around wood. It doesn't add too much over battery flavors to it.

[00:25:55] I don't know. Now we got a lot of it around here. Yeah. We do for sure in the Hickory Metro. What's your favorite to cook? Pour beef chicken, turkey or something else. My family's been in North Carolina since the early 1700s. Mm-hmm. Pork. That's true barbecue.

[00:26:12] What is your favorite to eat? Same answer. Yeah. I mean, I will pull a lot of stringy meat out of a pig. What is your favorite side? Sweeper taste. Sweeper taste. Yeah, the sweeper taste. What is the best state in these United States for barbecue? North Carolina.

[00:26:32] For sure. So what is the best North Carolina barbecue style? Eastern, Western or the mustard variety they've got. There's one. It's called Eastern. One, okay. Fair enough. But you've got best turn and you've got Western and you've got, but those aren't Carolina right. No, there's one. There's Eastern.

[00:26:51] Eastern style. Is it, uh, is it a meat better with it without the sauce? You gotta have some sauces. Is your favorite non barbecue meal in the hit cream atri. That would be, uh, a fun triple seven. Oh yes. Yeah man. Very popular. That's own 70 in color. Yeah.

[00:27:11] And it's the best spot and an hour and a half away. You share that opinion with many other people. I know some other people who are a big fan of, uh, of, uh, so, and you're best your favorite non barbecue meal in North Carolina. Oh, man.

[00:27:27] Anything that somebody makes for me is barbecue of Uber or now. It's a life. And that my friends is the low down from Benjamin Sullivan, the pitmaster at Cranford Brothers BBQ and the culinary director for Cranford Hospitality. Ben, thanks so much for joining us. Oh, thanks man.

[00:27:45] I appreciate it. Yeah. You've been listening to the low and slow barbecue show on the mesh.tv network of podcast. Be sure to visit us on line at low slow BBQ show.com. You'll find the blog. You'll hear other podcast episodes with our Carolina pit masters.

[00:27:59] If you like what you hear on the show, please give us a five store review that helps other people find our podcast and we hope you'll share our podcast with other people as well. Remember visit low slow BBQ show.com and subscribe to the low down newsletter.

[00:28:12] We'll send you the latest podcast blogs, barbecue recipes, some of the favorites from the mesh.network.tv of podcast so that it will come every Tuesday morning. Again, special thanks to our guest Ben Sullivan from Cranford Hospitality.

[00:28:25] Thanks as well to our producer Andrew Mousen, the whole team at the mesh.tv network of podcast. Mr. Specialty, thank you for listening to the low and slow barbecue show. Remember for the best barbecue in the best barbecue by-cast. Keep it low and slow.

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