Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to David Larlee. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, David thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Our mission at Smokedmaple – is all about community building – blessing others so they can bring their very best to the challenges they face.

Before we knew really much about COVID-19, we started giving barbecue away to frontline workers, We would feed health care workers, janitors, all people on the front lines.

I felt pretty helpless during the pandemic, until suddenly I realized I had access to good bbq and maybe just maybe, if I gave BBQ away to those on the frontlines it would encourage them to bring their very best to the challenges they face.

When George Floyd happened, which was devastating, I was talking to our off duty police officers at church, who were the exact kind of police we want and we need, good hearts, just trying to do the right thing. They were all talking about quitting just because of just how hard it was to be a police officer in Dallas,

And I said, “Well, hey, what are you doing Friday night?” They said, “Well, we’re working the night shift.” I said, “I’ll make you a deal.” “If you come by the house at the start of your shift in a squad car, put the lights on, my boys will love it, and in turn, I’ll give you 100 pounds of ribs. I will feed the night shift.” And they’re like, “Deal.”

Then through contacts I have through a nonprofit that operates community centres in the underserved parts of Dallas – Behind Every Door. – I was able to then turn around and give 200 pounds of ribs to activists in the black community.

You see what COVID did to the church is it stripped the church of its two great gifts, which is hospitality and a ministry of presence.

Using barbecue, we could reclaim some of that. It’s kind of a way to gather people without falling into the trap of church politics, or culture wars. And really, the idea is to be a blessing and really to pour in encouragement so that the people who are facing incredible challenges are able to bring the very best that they have to those challenges.

I don’t have a science background. I don’t know anything about viruses and how they transmit. But I did realize that I had barbecue, and maybe by giving barbecue to someone, it might encourage them enough to keep going.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I was on a really long drive with a friend of mine from Nashville, a great guy named Daniel Bell, who seemed to know everyone connected in the food world in Nashville. On the way back, we had this five hour drive and I said, “Daniel, I’ve been given a bit of birthday money, and I’m thinking that everyone seems to smoke barbecue. If you had $500, and you were gonna get into the smoking world, what would you do?” And he knew everything. So he talked me through all the different systems from pellet grills to the Big Green Egg and he said, “I would try the pit barrel cooker. It’s a vertical barrel. It’s a unique system.”

And on that basis, I came home, ordered a barrel, and when it arrived I started smoking meat. We’re always having groups around, you know, for church and other stuff. So it became really affordable and easy and fun to smoke some pulled pork or something to feed a crowd. They loved it and I loved it. It kind of worked.

Then we had a friend who was having a birthday party for his wife who needed a caterer. He said, “Would you cater? We’ll have 50 people at the party, it’ll be down in South Dallas.” I said, “Sure.” and then two weeks beforehand, he said, “It’s not gonna be 50. It’s gonna be 250. Is that a problem?” I quickly did the math and I realized if I’ve got a second smoker, the amount that they were going to pay me would cover the expense, and it’d be able to do both and suddenly have two smokers. So I did that and what was amazing is, we did ribs –

when you share food together, you connect on a level that you wouldn’t if you’re just otherwise. – They loved the barbecue. I’ve never seen a grumpy person eat ribs and so the baseline is joy and happiness.

Shortly after, there was a friend that I knew from [my] boys’ school who was having an SMU basketball watch party, and he said, “Hey, we were going to order in some barbecue, but what do you think about setting up a barbecue pit in our backyard? That’d be really cool.” So we do the event and it’s great

. Then I’m all of a sudden talking to people I would never have talked to before. But these are venture capitalists. They’re the best and brightest of the SMU business school and they’re talking to me about their problems as I’m slicing jalapeno cheese sausage and slicing brisket. And then they realize I’m also a pastor. And they’re like, “You know, I’ve never really talked to a pastor before. How does this work?” And I said, “Well, tell me what’s going on, eat some sausage, and we can pray afterwards.”

Then all of a sudden, I’m trying to settle up and the couple who had hired us were so generous and they say, “You’re not charging enough. You’ve been here all day so you need to add a destination fee.” She’d had a background in Events. “Add a destination fee, up these prices for their equivalent to market, and there you go.” And so I saw, Oh, wow. Okay, so there is margin here. There actually is a business to be had in this. So from that, we decided to form an LLC, get all the certification we needed, the insurance we needed, and start a pop up BBQ catering business and that’s how Smokedmaple BBQ started.

Now, we specialize in setting up pop-up bbq pits for corporate events and use the revenue we generate from those events to put on events in the community.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

At Smokedmaple we exclusively use the Pit Barrel Cooker (https://pitbarrelcooker.com/) . We didn’t start out trying to build a social media following but wanted to encourage the manufacturers of the smokers we were using at how they enabling us to do so much good in the community.

They asked us if we would post a video on Instagram of the PBC at work and so we did. Then we started capturing video and photos at our events just to have a record. Then all of a sudden once we’d given away a metric ton of BBQ to frontline workers others had picked up our story and started sharing. So we became known not just for bbq but also for the community building we were doing.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Word of mouth has been the best source of new clients for us.

Our story has shown that when you intentionally build a brand that stands for the flourishing of the community people are more than happy to do the storytelling for you.

So when something happened in our community and we prompted to give BBQ it presented with an initial cost but in the long run it has been an incredible investment.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Smokedmaple.net
• Instagram: Smokedmaple
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-larlee-3279981a0
• Smokedmaple Storefront: https://pitbarrelcooker.com/pages/ambassador-storefront?lc_ambassador_id=Y3VzdG9tZXI6Mzg4Mjc4Nw