Of all the tents, booths, and lean-tos I’ve been inside during the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, SMOKE wins first prize in my book as the most over-the-top barbecue location.
And I was at the very first Memphis in May barbecue contest back in the day. Behind the Orpheum Theatre, as I recall.
The SMOKE tent’s furnishings included a 12-foot S-shaped couch that could seat 18 people, two crystal chandeliers, and four electric fireplaces, which had the flames flickering in the 80-or-something-degree weather.
A large photo of pro golfer John Daly hung on the wall.
John Daly?
“It used to sit over our bar,” says SMOKE team member Andy Lamanna. “He was our homage. That’s why the bar lights up with rows of stacked Titos going all the way up. The bottles change colors. We have lights in them.”
The team has a connection to Daly, says Drew Harrison, the team’s head cook. He purchased equipment for their team’s tent “from a restaurant auction of John Daly’s old restaurant in Conway, Arkansas.”
Their tent included five refrigerators, a beer cooler with “50-case-plus capacity,” a cold table food server, hot table food server, a 125 gallon water tank with 1.5 horsepower water pump, three-compartment kitchen sink, a dishwasher, and a “military grade smoke machine.” They also had 100 amp electrical service.
Harrison, who is with Harrison Energy Partners in Little Rock, says, “I’m a nerd engineer.”
He bought the outer furnishings on Facebook Marketplace, among other places. It was an “anywhere-I-could-buy-something-I-bought-something kind of deal.”
In addition to the sofa and the fireplaces, Harrison also brought an armoire that was converted into bar shelves with custom LED under lighting. “The bar shelves, liquor shelves, two chandeliers, and two back-lit LED signs are all controlled by a single DMX controller so they change colors in unison to the beat of music.”
Daly’s photo that was over the bar was moved to another spot this year, Lamanna says, “We replaced it with our team photo when we won. We got 10th in shoulder last year.”
Their tent, by the way, was “30 by 30,” Harrison says. “The front porch was 20 by 30. And the kitchen was 20 by 30.”
Mike Thannum was this year’s team captain. Team members come from “all different places. We come from different states,” Harrison says.
But what brought them all together is “barbecue and Memphis.”
SMOKE didn’t win anything this year, but the team still celebrated the experience by indulging in their annual Saturday-of-the-event tradition, Harrison says. “Watching Top Gun on our 65-inch television.”
Around and About MIM World Championship Barbecue Co0king Contest
