The Secret Smash Society – Memphis Flyer

The Secret Smash Society returns March 5th to cook its mouth wateringly-good smash burgers.

And you’d better get there early because the event, held this time at High Cotton Brewing Company, usually is, well, a smash.

Their last public event was in September at Wiseacre Brewing Company. “We sold out in two-and-a-half hours,” says Harrison Downing, who makes up the team alongside Schuyler O’Brien and Cole Jeanes.

And, he says, “That was the most burgers we did. Close to 300.”

“People were lining up an hour before we opened,” O’Brien adds.

But, Downing adds, “The line moves fast because the burgers are cooked fast.”

They own all their equipment, so setting up and packing down is a snap. “If we wanted to do one tomorrow we could probably make it happen. There’s not much planning. We’ve got it down to a science.”

Burger lovers don’t get a lot of notice about their events. “That’s kind of why we play on the ‘secret’ thing,” Downing says, adding, “We don’t post much on social media until it’s about to get going.”

They don’t like to hold the events too often. But, O’Brien says, “It’s not like we’re just sitting around making people suffer. We have so much other shit going on. When it works, it works, and we make it happen. That’s as regular as we can get it for us.”

O’Brien is City Silo Table + Pantry’s food and beverage director, Downing is chef/sandwich artist at Greys Fine Cheese, and Jeanes is chef/owner of Kinfolk restaurant, consultant and private chef with Jeanes Hospitality, a partner with Josh Conley in the Etowah Hunt Club dinner series, and a partner with Kyle Taylor, James Lancaster, and Tyler Porter of Bloodhound Provisions.

“I love doing it because I get to cook with Schuyler and Harrison,” Jeanes says. “We don’t get to cook often at all.”

And, he says, “When we are together I don’t have to ask them to do something. They already know the next step I need to take. If I’m busy, they know what to do. It’s like a dance, basically. If you’re dancing with a partner who doesn’t know how to dance it’s very cluttered and messy, but if you’re dancing with someone who is good, it’s very smooth.”

Using a burger press, they smash together two three-ounce patties until they’re completely flat. The burgers cook quickly. The fat goes back into the meat because it doesn’t have time to render out.

“Patty Daddys” is The Secret Smash Society’s nickname. All three chefs are new fathers. Hudson Downing is four months old, Finley O’Brien is one year old, and Luca Jeanes is 16 months old.

Their last Secret Smash Society event, a private one, was pretty hectic, Downing says. “My wife went into labor that day.”

They had to switch all their equipment, which was in Downing’s truck, to O’Brien’s Pathfinder. “I had to trade vehicles and head to the hospital.”

Downing’s new baby is one reason they haven’t held a Secret Smash Society event in a while. “We wanted to give Harry time to take in fatherhood and all,” O’Brien says, adding, “We gave him paternity leave.”

The Secret Smash Society can do other things besides make smash burgers. They were among the chefs who had to create a dish out of a piece of pig at the Hill Country Boucherie and Blues Picnic last September in Como, Mississippi. The event was held at Home Place Pastures, which is where The Secret Smash Society chefs get the beef for their smash burgers. The pig part, whether it’s the cheek, tongue, or something else, is determined by a drawing. “They literally draw your name out of a hat,” O’Brien says.

The Secret Smash Society chefs had to make something out of a pig heart. So, they came up with a Japanese-style yakitori skewer.

And, out of 17 or so chefs, O’Brien says, “We took first place.”

The Secret Smash Society will cook burgers from 2 p.m. until sell out, March 5th, at High Cotton Brewing Company at 598 Monroe.

Shhhhh. It’s The Secret Smash Society.

It consists of three chefs: Harrison Downing, chef/sandwich artist at Greys Fine Cheese; Schuyler O’Brien, who is in culinary operations at City Silo Table + Pantry; and Cole Jeanes, chef/owner of Kinfolk restaurant.

They sell smash burgers at pop-ups, which are supposedly secret, but they’re not. They post the locations a few weeks in advance at The Secret Smash Society on Instagram. “The secret is where we’re going to be next,” Downing says.

The pop-ups usually are held at breweries or other places that don’t have a kitchen. They set up their flat-top and get to work.

A smash burger is just what it sounds like. “It’s a cheeseburger,” Jeanes says. “We do two patties, three ounces each. The smash comes from a burger press. You smash it until it’s completely flat. The idea is to get as much surface area as possible. It’s thin and crusty. It’s all about texture.”

“It’s a faster cook time,” Downing says. “The fat goes back in the meat ’cause it doesn’t have time to render out.”

Their beef is from Home Place Pastures in Como, Mississippi. “We use Martin’s potato roll,” Jeanes says. “It’s a four-inch roll.”

“We toast that,” Downing says. “It’s three-ounce patties with cheese, Kraft singles. Classy. It’s got to be Kraft singles.” The pickles have to be “on the bottom. I’m a big advocate of pickles, lettuce, tomato, and really finely shaved onion.”

They then add what they call their Daddy’s Sauce — “a burger sauce we make. Duke’s mayo-based sauce, ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire. It’s similar to a Big Mac sauce.”

Downing describes their smash burger as “a sophisticated Big Mac.” The hamburger comes with a bag of potato chips. But only one kind. “I’m a classic Lays man,” he says.

They don’t know of anybody else in Memphis doing a smash burger. “We just decided to hop into it.”

The first Secret Smash Society pop-up was at High Cotton Brewing Company. “We had a lot more people there than we expected,” Downing says. “And they were ready to go the second Cole threw that first piece of meat on the flat-top.

“It helped that we all cooked in kitchens before and were able to verbalize and not look up, keep our heads down, and keep going. Schuyler, being the experienced guy he is, talked us to where we were supposed to be. We would have been in rough waters if he wasn’t there.”

“I think we hit around 120 [burgers] ’cause we had a little meat left over,” Jeanes says. “We ran 120 to 150 in two hours, two patties each. My arm was pretty much numb by the time we got done.”

Using a burger press, they pressed “about 300 burger balls,” Downing says. “It’s a handheld piece of metal that’s flat. And you just make sure that it’s greased up.”

The first pop-up was a hit. “People really loved it. Within a week after, I had almost every brewery reaching out wanting us to do one there.”

They’d like to do pop-ups “ideally, once a month,” Downing says. They all have their own work schedules, but, he says, “I think we’re moving toward getting more on the books.”

The next pop-up will be September 4th at The Hill Country Boucherie at Home Place Pastures.

In addition to sharing a love of cooking, O’Brien and Jeanes are fathers of new baby boys. Downing and his wife are expecting a baby boy in October. “Right after our first one was when Luca was born,” says O’Brien, who refers to their shared experience of fatherhood and starting their smash burger pop-ups as “the battle of the babies. We’re learning how to do all this while we’re all living the dad life.”

“Schuyler went ahead and coined our new name as The Patty Daddies,” Downing says.

Find @thesecretsmashsociety on Instagram to book a pop-up.