Taste of Grand Rapids BBQ - July 14-15

[bbqbull]

Kurt, call Rich Berry, He is the orginizer of said contest.
1-616-459-1919. He may know or can get the exact address of the zoo.
Heck Im from Michigan, and never been their either.
Mike

 

[cmcadams]

thanks... and good idea... what a concept... call and ask!

BTW... address is 1300 W. Fulton, GR, MI.

 

[Jeff_in_KC]

Here's those directions:

[FONT=Paramount+6+1,Bold]If you are traveling to Grand Rapids from the Lansing area (East):


[/FONT]Take I-96 West to I-196 Downtown. Get off at Exit 76 (Lane Avenue). Turn left onto Lane, then turn right at the second traffic light. This will be Fulton Street. The next traffic light will be at Valley Avenue. John Ball Park will be on your left side, on the corner of Valley and Fulton.


If you are traveling to Grand Rapids from the Muskegon area (West):


Take I-96 East to US-131 South. Follow US-131 South to I-196 heading toward Holland. From I-196, get off at Exit 76, Lane Avenue. Turn left onto Lane, then turn right at the second traffic light. This will be Fulton Street. The next traffic light will be at Valley Avenue. John Ball Park will be on your left side, on the corner of Valley and Fulton.


If you are traveling to Grand Rapids from the Kalamazoo area (South):



Take US-131 North to Exit 85B, Pearl Street/Downtown. Turn left onto Pearl Street – which will change its name to Lake Michigan Drive. Follow Lake Michigan Drive to Lane Avenue. Turn left onto Lane Avenue, then turn right at the first traffic light. This will be Fulton Street. The next traffic light will be at Valley Avenue. John Ball Park will be on your left side, on the corner of Valley and Fulton.


If you are traveling to Grand Rapids from the Holland area (West):


[FONT=Paramount+5+1]Take I-196 East to Exit 75, Lake Michigan Drive. Turn right onto Lake Michigan Drive. Follow Lake Michigan Drive and curve to your right. John Ball Park will be on your right side.
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[Neil]

It's near the zoo

 

[cmcadams]

We loaded up all non-food items last night... I'm not excited about the weather, but I'm excited about getting up there. We're going from driving in with an old landscape trailer loaded with breaking-down chargrillers to a trailered, painted rig and a box trailer with a side door. I want to continue on the box trailer to maybe even add a kitchen and a/c!

 

[Jeff_in_KC]

Brothers, I'm outta here... leaving for Michigan in about 45 minutes. We hope to roll into the in-laws house by 11pm tonight latest, get a few hours sleep and head on north in the early morning. See you guys at Grand Rapids tomorrow! Have a safe trip and let's let 'em know the Brethren were there! (in a good way)

 

[cmcadams]

We'll be there by 1:00 am, I'm hoping.

 

[bbqbull]

I hope to be their about the time they open the gates at 9:00 am. See ya there
Bull

 

[sfisch]

I got over there a little early Friday, about noon and everyone was setting up. I got a chance to meet Jeff and his wife who was working very hard, his wife I mean. Very nice people. Looked for Curt but didn't see a banner. Didn't want to bother anyone since they were pretty busy. Its a drag I couldnt be there today to help taste test the food! Oh well.
Hope you all score good.
Scott

 

[Jeff_in_KC]

We're back... at least back to the in-laws in Michigan. We're exhausted and got to meet some Brothers I hadn't met previously (Mike, Curt and Scott). Brother Neil and his wife Marcie came up and had dinner with us. Got to know Mike and Beth from Bar-B-Quau who were next to us. I learned a few things about competing from a 2005 top ten KCBS team of the year (the education continues!).

This contest was a little different for us. Not the level of service to the teams that we're used to im Missouri and Kansas where organizers are competing for the teams to attend. Wasn't bad but we didn't have water and ice service to the degree we usually do. No showers and the restroom had no paper towels and rarely toilet paper. The lack of electricity was a challenge for us.

Anyway, we got 4th place in beans, 5th place in sausage (jap and cheese stuffed fatty scored!), 8th place in ribs and 3rd place in pork (used the same turn-in layout in the box that got us 2nd in pork at Cameron). Overall, out of 56 teams, Big Creek finished 10th. We thought we could pull a top five finish but learned the hard way that if BBQ isn't sauced heavily in Michigan, it won't score well. There were MAYBE 5 to 10 CBJ's from what I was told. We only saw one. Most judges were local celebrities.

Props and congrats to Curt and Bucky McOinkums BBQ! They finished 5th in brisket (their first walk to the stage ever!!!) and I think 14th overall. We were proud to get to see another Brethren take their first walk!

An interesting note... in a stretch of six cook spaces including our's, we had the GC, RGC, 10th, 6th and 7th overall.

Grand - CancerSucksChicago.com
Reserve - Bar-B-Quau

I'm sure full results will be posted soon. I'm just too tired! I have showered, had a two hour nap and now I'm up sipping a Woodford Reserve Bourbon and visiting with the in-laws. Gonna hit the sack again real soon!

Great to meet new Brothers and see old ones again!

 

[Neil]

Congratulations Jeff & Tammy and to Curt. The wifey and I drove up to G.R. friday night after work and we got our first glimpse of a real competition. It was good to see Jeff again and nice to meet his wife, Curt (cmcadams), and Mike (bbqbull). Jeff and Tammy fed us some very good spareribs and outstanding beans. The pulled pork was pretty good too. Wish we could have stayed and helped out on saturday but too many projects at home needed to be started and finished. We are definately going to have to take a serious look at having our comp cherry busted next year at this event.

 

[The_Kapn]

Congrats to the Brethren teams.

Bet it was a hot one :lol:

TIM

 

[fnnm358]

CONGRATS to Curts team for there finish and a special thanks for letting me help them and get familiar with doing a comp.
I couldnt stay for the awards due to family but Curt and all the brethren were great I am very glad to be a part of this board and to now know some of you, I am looking forward to this all again in the future maybe with my own team. Again thanks to all.

 

[bbqbull]

Brethern Brothers.... Im almost awake here now. I had a blast at this contest. Unbenoance to me I was right next door to Curt and his team for over 12 hours before I knew who the heck he was............ I was introduced to him by Jeff in KC. I found him and his booth due to his Brethern Flag. I got to meet Neil and his wife. I also met Fnnm 358 too. Another Brethern memeber whose also a retired firefighter/emt same as me. Im sorry that Im so terrible w/me remembering names. Think they call it CRS Disease. Im in the advanced stages now. It was great to meet some new Q brothers/sisters as well. We didnt score in the top ten when it all shook down but thats ok, we had a great time. The heat and humidity was extreemly oppressive but we managed thanks to little generators and fans. Wet towels around our necks helped a lot also. Im thinkin maybe Ill try another contest or two in the future. Just because I had a really great time. Oh I gotta get me one of them Brethern Banners for our little tent too.
Great to meet faces that ive only chatted with on this forum..
Mike

 

[sfisch]

Man, now I'm really bummin that I didn't get to meet you guys. Sounds like you had a blast without me.
Scott

 

[voodoobbqIL]

Hey Jeff, Congrats on the 3rd in Ribs...

Keep it up see you soon!

 

[cmcadams]

We had a GREAT time in Grand Rapids, and the heat was high, but not as bad as I expected. Mike, sorry you didn't get to stay, but I hope you got some good rest. And we owe you a HUGE thanks for helping us out with the generator, and everything else. We enjoyed the wee hours of the morning talking with you.

And Jeff did really well, with lots of calls.

Our first top half performance (our 4th comp), and we got 14th out of 57... REALLY thrilled, and the 5th in brisket felt INCREDIBLE!!!

Scott, my teammate forgot our banner in his garage, which I made fun of all weekend... His new name is 'Banner Boy'... But we were right next to Mike, and you could see us right in right field from Jeff's site.

 

[bbqbull]

Curt, Yes I made it home ok. Danged near ditched the rig w/in 20 miles of home a couple of times. Im sorry but Im not capable of handling no sleep for almost 60 hours of life, surviving on one hour of sleep. Jeesh, guess AARP is whoopin me hard.....Usta be able to go 96 hours straight.......Then lay down and dissapear outta life for about a day of ..............well ya know....sleep and sleep..... It was great to have you as next door neighbors....Telll Bannerboy I said hey......How do I obtain one of them way cool Brethern Banners???? Phil directly? I apologize in advance for the substanderd ammenties at this said contest. First time Ive ever seen a porta pottie level full w/human waste as high as the seat. Hope to never participate in a contest where they love to take your money, then they leave you a gift as that....WTF that just aint right. If I was in charge that surely wouldnt never happened. Im glad your home safe and sound.
Mike

 

[Jeff_in_KC]

Ford from Great Lakes BBQ and Feed Co. comp team has suggested drafting a scoring system for competition teams to score contests similar to the way judges score us. I think it's a cool idea. At the very least, it would help people decide whether or not to attend a certain contest they'd never done before. As good as DeSoto, Cameron and the GAB were, Grand Rapids and the Royal are probably two of the worst as far as service to the teams. I agree with Mike... those port a pots were farking SICKENING!

Oh and guys, I SERIOUSLY apologize for not making it over to say goodbye before we rolled out. We got busy with the last clean ups and were all about getting the fark outta Dodge and getting to the in-laws for a shower, meal, pool and BED!!!

 

[cmcadams]

I was tempted to just use the tree line a few times... but I hear in MI, you can be listed as a sex offender for that (really)!

Jeff, I know exactly what you mean... that sun was hot... we'd packed up everything but not loaded before awards (which they changed from 4:00 to 3:45 but didn't do until 4:00... still don't get why the change). After sitting in the sun for the awards, it was tough to get the energy to load up!