What brought you to St. Pete? When I closed the family trucking business in 2000, I had to tap into the only other thing I knew how to do. I bought a 20-foot trailer and moved to Lakeland to sell barbecue in a parking lot. I would come down to Lakeland for a big barbecue cook off every January and thought, “These are nice people, they will probably let me sell barbecue on the side of the road.” I lived there for 10 years. I met my fiancée, Sandi, at a mutual friend’s house. She’s a St. Pete native, so I moved to the area to be with her and have been here 7 years now. We live in the house she grew up in. How did the Dr. BBQ restaurant come to be? Suzanne and Roger were looking to do a restaurant in St. Pete and were inspired by barbecue after spending a lot of time in Texas, where their son goes to college. They called me and asked if I'd be interested in doing it with them. The truth is that I wouldn't want to do a restaurant, except with them. I’m not a restaurant guy, but I always had in the back of my mind if someone would call that really knows what they are doing and wanted to do it right, then I’d be on board. It is particularly cool to do it here, where I live. It's basically a dream-cometrue situation. How would you describe your barbecue style? I don't like to simplify barbecue by a limited number of regions. The reality is there are probably 500 barbecue regions. I grew up in Chicago where there really wasn't barbecue so I'd drive to Kansas City to learn barbecue. My style is deeply influenced by Kansas City, but I have learned from Memphis, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Dr. BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich, Ray cooking on a Big Green Egg, Apricot Baby Back Ribs 16 localsDISH SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
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