We were lucky to catch up with Charlie Eblen recently and have shared our conversation below.
Charlie, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear a story from back when you were an intern or apprentice. What’s a memorable story you can share with us?
I believe that my career has all been a internship. I have always wanted to learn everything i can about leadership and the hospitality industry. The more i learned the more i wanted to learn. The lessons learned from washing dishes, serving/bartending to managing multiple locations across multiple states have been extremely valuable. One of the best lessons learned through the years has been there is no substitute for hard work and true hospitality. You have to have a passion for serving people and a genuine love for making someone’s day better through your food and service.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
As a adolescent I spent a lot of time at my grandfathers farm. He always wanted to have a restaurant and never took the leap into the industry. So when I lost my Restaurant Executive job due to the pandemic in 2020, I started Single Tree BBQ. Named after the family farm, Single Tree BBQ is a company founded on a mission to help build community through the perfect plate of BBQ. We strive to sell the perfect plate of craft BBQ to every guest we have the pleasure to serve. Everything we serve is handcrafted from scratch with no microwave of freezers, all of our products are made fresh with only the best ingredients available. We believe that its our responsibility to impact our community in a positive way everyday. Its how we do this that is important, true genuine hospitality and amazing BBQ is how we accomplish this everyday. All of our BBQ is cooked low & slow with hickory wood, carefully loved through the entire smoking process.
How’d you meet your business partner?
My wife and I lived in Alabama for 6/7 years. During this time I would come back to Murfreesboro to see family and friends. When we would come to visit some friends of ours would get together and play cards until the early morning hours. My partner Brent would come to the card games and we developed a relationship quickly. At the end of the night Brent and I would always finish out the night with a couple games of high card. He always won, but it was a great way o end the evening with just a little more excitement!
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
From the inception of the company I knew that I would not do something that we could not execute flawlessly. To begin with we have kept our menu very simple and focused on executing our cooking techniques exactly the same every time. We have slowly added menu items that we can sustain a extremely high standard. Our guest pay us with their hard earned money and only deserve the best possible product we can serve them.
The second part of our equation is to have genuine hospitality. Its one thing to smile and say thank you, it is a completely different thing to truly be grateful for someone spending their money and time with you. Its our mission to help grow community through the perfect plate of BBQ. You can only do that if you are genuinely passionate, thankful, and grateful for the guest that choose to visit your restaurant.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.singletreebbq.com
- Instagram: https://www.instgram.com/singletreebbq/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/SingleTreeBBQ/
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/single-tree-bbq/
- Twitter: @EblenCharlie
- Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCcdltRbqsUtVD7gABvZ5IA
- Yelp: https://m.yelp.com/biz/single-tree-bbq-murfreesboro