Once a pipe dream, Smoke 'N Pig BBQ is heating up in Delta Township

DELTA TOWNSHIP — Six racks of ribs, a couple of pork butts and two Weber bullet smokers were the beginning of a dream.

Gabe Jones, the "Swine Master," had no idea what to expect as he set up shop at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Jolly Road on a Friday in May of 2016.

An hour and a half later, he was sold out...of everything.

"On Sunday, I ordered two more smokers from Amazon so we could stay in stock the next week," said his father and co-owner Bryan Torok. "We would be open for four hours, and the food would be gone." 

Nearly two years later, the Smoke 'N Pig BBQ truck has relocated to West Saginaw Highway in Delta Township, east of Creyts Road.

The truck serves ribs, pulled pork, brisket, chicken, and turkey ribs, all cooked on a smoker big enough to hold 30 full racks of ribs, along with loaded macaroni and cheese, pulled pork tacos and pulled pork nachos.

Before starting the BBQ truck, Jones was kitchen manager at Outback Steakhouse and at Harrison Roadhouse. Then, his daughter was born.

"I was working like 60 hours a week and couldn’t spend a lot of time with her," he said. "I left and went to work at the Lansing Center for a little bit, just so I could have more control over my hours."

Then, one day, Jones was laying on his parent’s floor and mentioned that he wanted to start his own business. He was tired of working for someone else. He asked if they could try the BBQ business.

"Gabe knew he needed our help financially and we decided to do what we had to do in order to make this thing work," Torok said.

So Torok and his wife, Mary, invested and became co-owners of the business along with Jones.

"I never thought it would get this big, this fast," Jones said. "I worked Common Ground for a long time, took all of my tip money and bought one of those bullet smokers. I watched BBQ Pitmasters. I started trying things online, kept doing it and doing it.

"I would give my family and friends food to try. They told me I really need to do something with it. I kind of went from that to trying it out on the corner and then, boom!"

Walter "Side Master" Pops handles all the side dishes and helps to create new sides to keep the menu unique.

His brother, Charles "Chuck" Pops, is a jack of all trades and helps wherever it's needed.

Kerissah Ries, Jones' girlfriend, is the customer service manager, handles all social media, and makes the BB sauce. 

"The secret sauce is Gabe's recipe," Mary Torok said. "There are 17 ingredients in it."

Jess Turner, of Grand Rapids, was in Lansing visiting relatives on a Tuesday in mid-March when she saw the "big red trailer with the pig on it."

"I really just stopped for ribs, but I saw someone else getting the pulled pork mac and cheese and that was it," Turner said.

"The sauce on this stuff is amazing. I need to get on the road, but I’m gonna sit in my car and eat this first. And I got some ribs to take home. Next time I’m in town, I’ll be back."

The sides that set them apart from other BBQ places, Bryan Torok says, are probably the corn bread and the collard greens.

"Nobody is crazy enough to take the time to make collard greens," he said. "A  lot of work goes into them. It’s a special recipe from Georgia, deep down South, from Gabe’s grandma. That’s where that came from."

The loaded mac and cheese was a concoction of Ries'. It’s macaroni and cheese with pulled pork on top and BBQ sauce on it. Walter Pops came up with the pulled pork tacos.

Jones says the day starts between 6 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. Everything is cooked on wood, three specific types of wood.

"To smoke the ribs, it takes about four hours," he said. Then two-and-a-half hours on the rib tips, give or take, 13 hours on the brisket and 16 hours for the pulled pork."

Everything is made with a homemade, dry rub, no sauce. The sauce is optional.

And then there's the turkey ribs. Yes, turkey ribs. It's a slightly healthier option for those who don't like beef or pork.

"I did not realize until we started, how many people do not eat pork," Jones said. "There were a lot of people that turned away because we didn’t have brisket, we didn’t have turkey. They eat chicken but they’d rather have fried chicken. Or something else not smoked.

"So I started doing brisket and then I got down to Detroit for a festival and found out about turkey ribs, and we started buying and doing those."

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In 2017, Jones took first place at the Michigan Renaissance Festival for best pork ribs and first place for best beef ribs. At the Kalamazoo Ribfest, they took second place for peoples choice and third place in the sponsors choice competition. And, they took Best in Show at Royal Oak Arts Beats Eats.

"Ribs are still as good as they were on the south side,” said Dontae Griffith. “They’re good without the sauce but the sauce is the bomb."

A customer when the trailer was on the south side of Lansing, Griffith said the distance won’t let that stop him.

“It’s a little ways out to come for some barbecue, but it’s worth it," he said. "And the greens, it’s hard to beat them.”

Inside the trailer on that Tuesday earlier this month, the smokers were going. Meat was being put taken off and replaced by more. Charles "Chuck" Pops and manager Steve Fountain were wearing Smoke 'N Pig BBQ T-shirts with a slogan coined by a customer.

"A customer on the south side came and got the ribs and he sat in his car and ate them," Jones said. "He came back and said 'I don’t even need teeth to eat this.' So, we kind of went along with it, and it’s on the back of some of the T-shirts. He got a free shirt out of it."

Jones cooks and 'cues because of his love for the food.

"I'm not trying to skimp out on things and trying to make more money," he said. "Obviously I’m out here to make money, I’m not out here to give stuff away for free.

"But I love cooking. The reaction I get from people when they eat my food is very satisfying."

Contact Vickki Dozier at (517) 267-1342 or vdozier@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @vickkiD.

Smoke 'N Pig BBQ truck

6130 W. Saginaw Highway, Lansing (across from Great Harvest); 

Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; (517) 582-5100

Website: https://www.thesmokenpigbbq.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSmokeNPigBbq/