Smoke 'N Peppers BBQ

08/09/2025

Looking for venues for an event that allow on site catering/cooking.

Thanks!

08/08/2025

Food costs are crushing folks. Be blessed out there peeps.

08/07/2025

The way zero sugar Green tea is has taken over my life makes me fear my Southern card will get revoked soon. 😂

08/03/2025

Seafood & Grits using the beautiful Jimmy Red Grits from Marsh Hen Mill.

Calabash Fried Rainbow Trout
Sauteed Shrimp with bacon
Blackened Patagonian Scallops

Served with 4 cheese Grits & Scrambled Eggs

08/02/2025

"The Breakfast Boys"

Never been big on breakfast but San Diego has a really awesome breakfast/diner scene.

It's growing on us.

08/01/2025

This was around the time a couple happy mistakes during back to back cooks led me to experiment with some techniques that took our brisket to the absolute next level. I'm excited to share our brand with the world one day.

07/28/2025

Buc-ee's is an amazing business model.

This guy owns a convenience store. And it made $275M last year.

His name's Beaver. Here's how he did it.

1/ Early days

Rewind to 1982. Beaver just graduated college. And he's working at his dad's construction company.

But he's itching to build something for himself.

He's driving to work one day. And he notices something weird.

The convenience stores in his town are no good. They're actually terrible. Filthy restrooms, crummy food, and shabby service.

And even then, these places are printing cash.

That's when little Beaver gets a big idea. What if I just build a better convenience store?

So he gets a bank loan, buys a piece of land, and builds a small shop.

He calls it Buc-ee’s. And he gets to work.

2/ Growth

Beaver's store is doing okay. He just needs a little more brainpower.

So he teams up with another young hustler, Don Wasek. Don’s been working at gas stations and car washes for years.

The guys open store number two. Then three. Then four.

Within a couple decades, they've got a nice little chain of shops around Texas.

And then Beaver's phone rings. There's a piece of land for sale nearby. It's just off the highway. And it's huge.

Does he want to put a Buc-ee's there?

This is kinda nuts. Because this Buc-ee's would need to be the size of Walmart. Way bigger than anything they've done.

But Beaver says yes.

And Buc-ee's is about to blow it up.

3/ Going big

In 2002, Beaver and Don open the first Buc-ee's mega store. And right away, it’s a hit.

→ It's got 50+ gas pumps, compared to the usual 10

→ It's got huge washrooms that are cleaned 24/7

→ It's got brisket, fudge, and an entire wall of branded merch

If 7-Eleven and Disneyland had a lovechild, it would look a lot like this place.

In year 1, sales hit $10M+. So they keep opening more locations. Each time, just a little bigger.

Today there are 54 spots. With more on the way.

4/ My take

Buc-ee's takes a mundane business and makes it delightful.

Highway rest stops aren't supposed to be fun. They're just supposed to get the job done.

But Beaver and Don go overboard. Turning the rest stop into a destination. It’s a part of the road trip that everyone loves.

And it comes down to a simple business principle: ‘upgrade the blah.’ Take something people don’t care for, and turn it into a highlight.

It works for so many businesses. And it works for Buc-ee’s.

That’s how you make $275M with a convenience store.

PS. Want to grow your business? Grab my playbook, Social Media Selling Machine. It's free and it’s fantastic 📕 https://jondavids.com/social-media-sales-engine-lander

07/28/2025

Want to take a moment to give some flowers to some of my favorite internet voices:

Monty J Wilder, Teonny Kardashian, Uppity Negress Redux and The Hungry Black Man

I've said before in our business building talks how "the Internet has democratized the exchange of value" and they are each splendid examples of this theory in action.

Entertaining, informative, culturally relevant, and most important: accountability producing.

These creators not only bring joy and light, but foster safe digital spaces where conversations, growth, and learning can occur in the ways that only inclusivity and non-centering around normative viewpoints allows.

I'm talking typical cisgendered, white male viewpoints.

Of which as a heterosexual black male, my community is often guilty of mirroring to an even more toxic level.

Black erasure is real, minority erasure is real, LGBT erasure is real and they do good work to serve as a balancing mechanism against this erasure.

I bear witness to it as evidenced, through the disproportionate representation of black barbecue pit masters in the barbecue Hall of Fame and through my own struggles against the biased, social media algorithms (outside of my own admitted distractions as a creator due to my obvious conflict with my Naval service and family life ).

I've been discouraged through watching content that I have receipts for be repurposed by other creators in this lane almost bar for bar and watched it catch fire and takeoff.

Despite this, I've looked to these creators and their own admitted struggles as inspiration and motivation.

As I said before, we will return with more clarity and focus both in the digital and the physical world, and I triple down that our brand is for everyone and that at the end of the day, no matter how much money you spend with us or how much access You're given through this platform at no point will that ever be license for talking to me or the followers of our small brand any kind of way, nor will it be license to think that I don't represent nor will speak on the erasures and non credit that creators and businesses like mine experience.

Thank you each for being a light and inspiration to smaller brands like mine.

07/28/2025

It's not "goodbye." It's "see you later"

SNP Peeps. Habit 7 of Dr. Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is "Synergize" or "Sharpen the Saw".

I'm going to be taking a couple months away from the page to put a few priorities in order:

1. Finishing up school support for my big guy.
2. Finishing a Navy qualification.
3. Picking orders for what is almost certainly my last tour in the Navy.
4. Coaching another season of Fall baseball.
5. Stepping back from posting content to work on obtaining much-needed clarity for the future of Smoke 'N Peppers BBQ.
6. Taking some vacation time and completely shutting off from what is essentially two full-time jobs.

So it's not goodbye, it's see you later.

I'll pop back in in a month or so when I'm done publishing our digital cookbook to drop the link.

If you're still following the page, then that's awesome and if you unfollow or move on, then it was a pleasure to have you.

Be well, be blessed, and see you when we bounce back.

With love,

Mally

07/28/2025

Nice to know I can still smoke a mean brisket...