Background:
Are you a BBQ fanatic? Well, if you ever find yourself a little north of Nashville in Hendersonville, TN you will find the most mouthwatering, juicy, and flavorful Texas-style BBQ in the area – The Meat Sweats BBQ. This family-owned and operated Texas-Style BBQ restaurant established its first brick-and-mortar store in 2018 and with the help of FWE’s heated holding equipment, Meat Sweats BBQ has continued to grow.
1st Location – Hendersonville, TN
Martin Tudon, owner and operator of The Meat Sweats BBQ, was born and raised in Texas and was a BBQ aficionado through and through. After a move to Tennessee, he felt a piece of him was left behind. He missed the smoked brisket, pork ribs, sausages, and everything else prepared in that classic Texas-style tradition.
Top Left – HHS-IR-2-1220-2 | Top Right – The Meats Sweats BBQ Store Front | Bottom Left – PHTT | Bottom Right – Owner Martin Tudon
He decided to start smoking his own meat and quickly realized that people loved his product. Not too long after, he and his wife started catering events. Then, after being asked time and time again if they were ever going to open their own restaurant, The Meat Sweats BBQ opened their first official restaurant in Hendersonville, TN. But something was still missing…
FWE Equipment
Having delicious recipes is only half the battle when it comes to operating a successful restaurant. If you don’t have the right equipment to bring recipes to life, you won’t get far. It can be difficult for operators to know exactly how much product to prepare. You want to have just the right amount to ensure every customer is being served, and that none is going to waste.
This can be especially difficult for low and slow items such as BBQ. Operators typically begin cooking their meats early in the morning to have everything ready for the rush. Sensitive products such as brisket, pulled pork, etc. are prone to drying out or losing quality if they are not properly managed.
Mr. Tudon was searching for a solution that allowed him to prep many of his products early in the day and then be able to focus on his hungry customers during his busiest hours. He found his solution through FWE’s PHTT Clymate IQ series with the following pieces of equipment:
Our PHTT Series of precision heated moisture cabinets are designed to hold products at exact temperature and humidity levels to ensure products are held at their “just cooked” quality for extended periods. Perfect for Mr. Tudon’s BBQ! You can learn more about FWE’s moisture holding equipment in our “Guide to Heated Moisture Holding.”
Furthermore, he utilizes our HHS-IR-2-1220-2 to hold his delicious, crispy, mouth-watering chicken wings. This heated holding shelf is equipped with our infrared heat system and is specially designed to keep crisp products at their optimal temperature and texture. To learn more about this unit and FWE’s other heated holding shelf solutions follow this link – Heated Holding Shelves. This is what Mr. Tudon had to say about FWE:
“The FWE equipment has been instrumental in what we do, and it helps us keep the food where it needs to be, so when we present it to the customers everything comes out perfect. As soon as the BBQ comes out of the smoker, we finish it off in the oven. Once it reaches temp, we pull it and put it in our deep pans and that’s where FWE comes in. We put our product in their warmers, and I tell you it comes out hours later as fresh as when we first pulled it.” – Martin Tudon (Owner)
Food Truck
Meat Sweats BBQ – Food Truck
After having resounding success in their initial year, they introduced the Mobile Meat Sweats food truck to better serve the surrounding community and cater events. Quickly, they found their new food truck business thriving and were being asked to attend events across the state. They found themselves in a situation familiar to many food truck operators:
- They have limited space to operate inside the truck.
- BBQ requires hours to cook, and they are typically a good distance away from their brick-and-mortar, so they are unable to easily replenish their stock.
The cost of preparing food for an event, traveling, paying staff, and operating a truck can be immense. Operators want to serve a consistent, high-quality menu and have enough product to serve and ensure they’re not leaving any money on the table. The Meat Sweats’ owner reached out to us looking for a solution to keep large quantities of various products hot and ready to serve to high-volume crowds. We knew right away that we had the perfect piece of equipment to solve this common problem – FWE’s HLC line. Since these compact heated holding cabinets allow users to serve different combinations of food from the same cabinet, we knew our HCL-7H-21 was the right tool for the job.
Here’s what their Mobile Division Director Richard Boyles had to say,
“We do BBQ, everybody knows that BBQ is kind of low and slow, so obviously we can’t do it on site. So, we’ll pull all our pork and put it in half pans and load them up in the warmers in the truck. We do baked beans, mac and cheese, corn casserole, a variety of items, and anything we need to keep warm we go ahead and prepare it in the comfort of our [main] kitchen, then load it in half pans, put it in the warmers and it holds to temp as long as I can serve.”
2nd Location – White House, TN
Using FWE Equipment, The Meat Sweats has been able to successfully cater hundreds of events and on June 1st, 2022, was able to open their second brick-and-mortar location in White House, TN. This new location brought on two more pieces of FWE equipment from our PHTT Series to give them even greater precision holding:
These precision heated moisture cabinets are designed to hold products at exact temperature and humidity levels to ensure products are held at their “just cooked” quality for extended periods. You can learn more about all FWE’s moisture holding equipment in our “Guide to Heated Moisture Holding.”
We’d like to thank The Meat Sweats BBQ for using FWE equipment to serve all their delicious BBQ and if you ever find yourself in the area, or see their truck working an event, make sure to stop by and give it a try! Pro tip: The corn casserole is to die for. We’ll leave you with these parting words from Richard Boyles:
“People ask me all the time how I do what I do, and my answer is food warmers from FWE”
