One of Texas’s favorite bbq sons, Matt Pittman has enjoyed a meteoric rise in cooking circles, winning the hearts of bbq connoisseurs and earning a place in the smoky halls of meat Valhalla. A former corporate tech VP, Matt jettisoned the suit and tie life to pursue his dream: a beloved seasoning and rub company called Meat Church. You may have heard of it. A guy so nice you could introduce him to your Southern mother, the success that he and his family have enjoyed is well deserved. After all, they are in this together. On a beautiful spring day in Waxahachie – a town about 30 miles south of Dallas that is now often a bbq destination for this reason – I was able to visit the Pittman home. Their dog Dolly greeted me like an old friend, their young daughter told me about her upcoming volleyball practice, and between introductions their son begged to ride his mini bike down to his friend’s house for dinner. Cartoons were on, snacks were being made, and the buzzer on the dryer went off. I felt at home. We sat down in the backyard, and over a few beers and many bites of freshly smoked brisket, talked about Matt’s wild road thus far, and what it all means to him. For those few hours, I was part of their family, as are so many others who come to the classes, events and cookouts that Matt and his family host at their home. When I left, he handed me an entire brisket, which to a Texan such as myself, is quite the kingly gift. Like I said, he’s a really nice guy. So next time you’re in north Texas, drop on by and tell them that Uncle Tyler sent you.

Tyler: A lot of people are likely familiar with Matt Pittman, the Barbecue Master, but we're hoping to dive a little deeper into who you are as a person. How did your upbringing affect the path that you took to get into cooking?

Matt Pittman: Good question. I played a lot of sports growing up, just through grade school. My parents divorced when I was eight, and that really shaped a lot of my life. I was born in Tennessee, and spent a lot of time there and in Alabama. Then I followed my dad to Texas at age 13 and have been here ever since. I'd like to say it was smooth, but I did go to a different school each year from the sixth grade on. I didn’t have a ton of friends when I was young. Both of my grandmothers taught me to cook, and it's taken me a lot of years to figure this part out, but what I do in cooking is take care of people. That comes from my upbringing. I used to joke that with either one of my grandmas, you would eat this huge lunch after church and by the time dishes were done, I'd be sitting on the couch about to pass out watching either baseball or NASCAR, and grandmother would come in and say, "Y'all want something to eat?" I'd say, "We just ate!"

I never intended on going to culinary school, or anything like that. A lot of what I do now was formed in college when I started grilling. Then, right after college, I had a couple fraternity brothers that had a huge BBQ pit made. Pete would call me and say, "Hey, we're going to make ribs this weekend. Do you want to come over?"and that meant he was going to smoke 30 racks, or some enormous amount of barbecue. I fell in love with that. I started going to Dallas Cowboys games to tailgate, and somebody had to do the cooking. First I started grilling, and by Thanksgiving, I was frying turkeys out there. Looking back, I wasn't trying to necessarily be the best guy at brisket, I was just this outdoor cook. I didn't want to be inside. Then I took a trip to Lockhart, Texas and had a beef rib for the first time. When I took that bite of beef with salt and pepper seasoning, my head popped back. I thought, "Whoa. I want to do that." So I started researching it like crazy, got a Big Green Egg and an offset smoker, and just started cooking everything I could outside.

Tyler: Did you have a role model through that whole process, and what values did they impart to you?

Matt Pittman: Yeah. I come from a family of blue collar, really, really hard working individuals. My dad's always been an entrepreneur, welder, pipe fitter. He taught me to save money, and work really hard. My mom's a thrifter. All of them had to make this happen for themselves, but both my parents and my grandparents were very hard working. All of them instilled a strong work ethic in me, and that's where it all comes from. That's all I ever needed.

Tyler: What were some of the events that you feel shaped you the most on this journey? Were there any particularly hard knocks that you learned from?

Matt Pittman:  I've been pretty fortunate with Meat Church, because it didn't have to work, it was a hobby. At the time, I had a really successful career as Vice President of IT in financial services. I realized after a few years that the side business could really be something special. My marriage went through a really tough time, because I had a full-time legit career, while I had this booming hobby and wanted it to be the job. It was getting a lot of notoriety and we cooked for a fair amount of well-known people. There was a point where my wife said, "I didn't sign up for this. You shouldn't be working 100 hours.” It took me nearly a year to convince her to let me leave (the IT job). "I'm not nervous anymore. We're going into our fourth year, look where our revenue is. I feel very confident in this, because I'm running this brand off the side of my desk." My wife agreed, and then I told my boss that I was going to retire. This year, I've been nominated for the Ernst & Young Southwest Entrepreneur of the Year, and ironically I'm going against the CEO of my previous company. Pretty wild stuff. The greatest thing that's ever happened to me was being able to leave corporate America. I tell people I'm living the dream, because I've turned my hobby into a job. 

Tyler: Do you find that you can be yourself in this business, or at times, do you feel like you have to be more of an idea of yourself?

Matt Pittman:  Oh yeah, for sure. Not to sound insincere, but we're portraying an image. Everyone thinks that everything I cook is perfect, and that it was Instagram worthy when you made it, and that's not the case. Some of the best food I ever made looked terrible. We're not a restaurant, we have barbecue products, and we have this product called Matt Pittman. I can make one brisket, I'll take a picture of it, tell you how I did it, teach you about it, and I walk on water with you. But truth be told, my buddies that own barbecue joints are selling 40, 50, 60 briskets a day. Every bite of every one of those has to be perfect, or they'll get slaughtered online. I’ve got less pressure than they do, but I still want to do my best.

Tyler: What makes Texas barbecue unique from other styles? Or what makes it superior? You can definitely take the gloves o f if you want.

Matt Pittman: I appreciate all the regions of barbecue, I say that all the time. But with that being said, Texas barbecue is king. When you travel the world, rarely do you see Joe's North Carolina Barbecue. It's so and so Texas barbecue. First off, beef is king. It's simple and straightforward. We say that good barbecue doesn't need sauce, so when you can take a piece of meat, season it with salt and pepper, smoke it with post oak, and it pops my head back like it did at that young age for me, that’s special. Compare that to some really good pork that tasted great but was accented or covered up with a sweet barbecue sauce on a bun and might have slaw on it. That's not the deal here. Again, having grown up on a different type of barbecue, I came here and it changed my life, literally. I just don't think there’s anything like it.

Tyler: It’s safe to say that you're famous in barbecue circles, but has that added to the pressure of your craft?

Matt Pittman:  Yeah, there's pressure in unique ways. My main pressure is to continue to try to be on top, because there's always people behind you, the next Meat Church is always coming. So trying to be sharp, relevant, and new. For me, it's about, "Okay, what could we do today that we haven’t done before?" I said this earlier, we do things seasonally, so we're doing different things at different times, cooking a variety of cuisines for each season. From comfort food, to boiling crawfish outside, to smoking turkeys on the Traeger at the end of the year, it changes. Only pressure is that people have this expectation of us. I don't want to disappoint anybody. No different than brands like Traeger and Yeti, they set a standard for a reason, and so the only pressure I really feel is just to keep turning out new, cool stuff that people are interested in.

Tyler: How does social media play into this? How do you keep it from changing the way you conduct yourself and your business?

Matt Pittman:  Social media is super interesting, and it's how we created this business, but not intentionally. The Meat Church Instagram, for instance, is basically Matt Pittman's reality TV. What you see is what you get. We have half a million Instagram followers, and I'm putting myself out there. I feel like I'm walking in front of the windows of your house naked sometimes. I put a lot of thought into making sure I say what I meant to say, whether it be in print, on social media, or in a video. There's a ton of pressure around that. Generally, our social media following is pretty positive, and if something happens, then our customers and followers usually self police and deal with it for us. YouTube is a different animal, there's a lot of savages on there and people love to tell you what they think. People have lost a lot of decency and talk to you in a manner that they wouldn't normally talk to you face-to-face like this. It bothers me. I really try to take the high road with all things, because it never ends well if you engage. We would not be where we are without social media, so I'm completely indebted to it, but it's a double edged sword. When I wake up every day, it's the first thing I check. I'm the only one that's logged into it, and every word on there was written by me. This is not a team of kids just out of college. You are talking to the expert who cooked the food, told you how to do it, and answered your questions, which is extremely authentic and I think is a huge part of our success.

Tyler: Where do you see opportunities for food to transcend just being sustenance? 

Matt Pittman: Well, I frequently say that my life centers around food, but if you think about it, most peoples' lives do. Everybody has to eat. But the reason I'm really passionate about what we do is about creating great memories, with great people, around great food. How much time have you spent around the table, breaking bread with other people? My family makes sure that we eat dinner as a family every night, and we have for years. It's important to us. I've talked about how my passion is teaching, but I say this at the beginning of my classes, my number one goal is to see you down the road, a month, two months, three month, and seeing the lightbulb go on for people, that's so rewarding. I tell people that barbecue's a religion in Texas. It's just about the joy that people get from eating really good food with their friends and family, it's a great time. Having a drink, eating some good food, that's what we're all about. Again, I don't think that my way's the only way, or the gospel, or the right way necessarily. Just go out and do your own thing, and make your memories, and have fun with it. Just don't come bitch on my YouTube channel.