Russell's BBQ earns four top 10 finishes at world championship
Keith Gushard, The Meadville Tribune, Pa.
Mon, June 3, 2024 at 9:46 AM EDT
3 min read
LINESVILLE — Jon York has at least four good reasons to smile.
The reasons are four top 10 finishes at the recent Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest in Tennessee.
“It’s cool to win. It’s truly a team effort,” said York, owner of Russell’s BBQ, a barbecue-focused restaurant in Linesville, and head of Russell’s Dam Good BBQ Team.
“It’s cool to win.
It’s truly a team effort.”
The team earned honors in four categories at the multi-day competition held in mid-May.
This year’s competition had 129 teams from 22 states and five foreign countries vying for honors in what is called “the most prestigious barbecue cooking contest in the world.” The competition dates back to 1978.
Russell’s earned seventh place in the seafood category; fifth place in poultry; another fifth place in the booth category; and second place in the Kingsford Tour of Champions.
Being a part of the Tour of Champions is prestigious because a team has to qualify, according to York.
“There were only 18 teams out of 129 total” as part of it, he said. “You have to have either won a category or placed within the top 10 in the previous year. If you’ve ever won the grand championship, you’re always welcome.”
Russell’s earned the right to be part of the Tour of Champions based on its 2023 showing — its first year competing. Russell’s smoked chicken wings had earned first place out of 111 teams competing while its ribs earned seventh place out of 80 teams last year.
“The Tour of Champions is really a people’s choice award because it’s mainly derived by the votes of judges” in the contest, York said. “They are going to be judging other categories, or had judged already, or would be judging a category the next day.
“A lot of the judges are coming in from all over, but they want to get the full experience, too,” he continued. “They’ll sign up for the Tour (of Champions). A lot of them are executives from Kingsford (the charcoal company), but they don’t tell you until afterward.”
“Everybody on the team there was helping,” York said of when the judges came by. “We gave them our story, our background on the process of our pulled pork. Showed them how we do it. Gave sides with it and gave schmoozation with it.”
It all combined to earn the second-place finish in the Tour of Champions.
“We’re already qualified now for next year and we earned a $1,250 check for our efforts,” he said. “We also got invited to do the VIP tour of which only six teams got the opportunity to do.”
The Memphis competition helps with building the business overall, too, York said, both in making new contacts within the barbecue and food supplier industries as well as team building for Russell’s BBQ itself.
“We had six employees come along and they got to experience what it was like,” he said. “It’s truly a competition, not a food festival.
“It’s a lot of work — a different kind of work than we do here at the restaurant. And, a lot of fun,” York said.
