Fireworks and trendy red, white, and blue garb aside, the best part about the Fourth of July is the abundance of summertime snacks. From grilled to chilled, we’ve gathered a few recipes that will be sure to mix up the menu at this year’s Independence Day cookout.

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Eddie’s North Bethany Potato Salad
Crab, corn, and Old Bay—the trifecta of emblematic Charm City ingredients—are fused into this hometown-inspired summer side dish from Eddie’s of Roland Park. “This salad is the essence of summer in Baltimore and at the beach,” says Eddie’s chef Stan Levy. “It’s a great way to use up summertime leftovers.”

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 large baking potatoes cut in wedges
• 1 tablespoon Season All seasoning
• 2 cups fresh white corn, cut from the cob
• ½ cup red bell pepper, diced
• ½ cup sweet onion, diced
• 1 lb. jumbo lump crabmeat

For dressing:

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• ¼ cup Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2-4 tablespoons Old Bay

 

Directions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350°.
2. Heat vegetable oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry potatoes until golden.
3. Transfer potatoes to a sheet pan and bake for 10 minutes until fully cooked and tender.
4. When potatoes are done, sprinkle with Season All and chill.
5. When cold, cut wedges into quarters.
6. In a small bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, mustard, lemon juice, and Old Bay. Set aside.
7. In a large bowl, combine corn, bell pepper, celery, onion, and potatoes. Add dressing and mix well.
8. Fold in lump crabmeat.
Serves 8

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Kooper’s Tavern’s Napoleon Salad:
Watermelon is essential for any summertime soiree. But instead of slicing up triangles or mixing chunks into a fruit salad, try this recipe from Kooper’s Tavern that combines the juicy treat with fresh goat cheese. “Our Napoleon salad is light and refreshing, perfect during the sizzling Maryland summer,” says Kooper’s chef Tom Hawkins Sr. “The fresh goat cheese pairs perfectly with the watermelon, and it makes for a great side to go with any grilled fare.”

Ingredients:

• 1 quart balsamic vinegar
• 2 cups arugula
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 3 1/8’’ slices watermelon cut into round pieces
• 2 oz. fresh creamy goat cheese
• 1 pinch sea salt

Directions:
1. To make the balsamic reduction, cook balsamic vinegar over medium heat and reduce to approximately one cup.
2. Build arugula base by mixing arugula, sea salt, and olive oil on a small square plate.
3. In center of plate, stack melon and goat cheese to make six layers.
4. Drizzle balsamic reduction over stack.
5. Finish with pinch of sea salt on top.

Serves 1

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Mission BBQ’s Backyard Baby Back Ribs
Hamburgers and hotdogs have their perks, but the finger-licking, fall-off-the-bone kind of barbecue goodness can only be achieved by throwing some smoky ribs on the grill.“Nothing makes a backyard barbecue better than ribs,” says Steve Newton, co-owner of Mission BBQ. Perfect the art of the baby back just in time for the holiday with Newton’s signature recipe.

Ingredients:
For rub:

• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 5 tablespoons paprika
• 6 tablespoons kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 2 tablespoons table grind black pepper
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (optional)
• 1 teaspoon white pepper (optional)

For mop:

• 1/2 c. apple juice
• 2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. of your favorite BBQ sauce
• 2 racks baby back ribs, each 21/2 lbs. and down

Directions:
1. In a medium bowl, mix all rub ingredients. Place in an airtight container and store inside a dark cupboard.
2. In a spray bottle, combine all mop ingredients and mix well.
3. Rinse the ribs and pat dry. Starting at one of the first bones on the thinnest side of the rack of ribs, slide the tip of a table knife under the membrane covering the back of each rack. Lift and loosen the membrane until you can grab a corner of it with a towel. Slowly pull it off removing the entire membrane.
4. Using a serrated knife, score the undersides of the rib in an “X” marks the spot pattern four times across a full rack of ribs.
5. Evenly season over the entire surface area on top, leaving a little bit of the meat visible under the rub. Season the undersides lightly. Then wrap the ribs in heavy duty plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight before cooking the ribs using your preferred method.

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Mussel Bar and Grille’s Deviled Hen Eggs
This appetizer always seems to be a crowd favorite, and Mussel Bar’s rendition kicks things up a notch by throwing prosciutto, feta cheese, and chili flakes into the mix.“Deviled eggs are one of the greatest comfort foods we know, and evoke memories of carefree lazy summers,” says Mussel Bar corporate chef Brian McBride. “Our version makes use of the traditional style with some upscale ingredients to modernize the presentation. They’re a perfect ice breaker for a party, or for a nice light meal.”

Ingredients:

• 1 dozen eggs, hard boiled and peeled
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoon red onion, minced
• ½ teaspoon Tabasco
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Pastry bag

For garnish:

• 2 ounces prosciutto, julienned
• 4 pepperoncini, seeded and julienned
• ¼ cup red onion, finely julienned
• 2 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
• 1 tablespoon chopped chives
• Pinch of chili flakes
• Extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

1. Using a sharp knife, cut each egg in half, lengthwise.
2. Gently remove the yolk and place the white halves on a serving platter.
3. Using a fork, mash the yolks in a separate bowl and add mustard, mayonnaise, red onion, Tabasco, salt and pepper. Mash until you reach a creamy consistency, add more mayonnaise if necessary. Check seasoning.
4. Place mixture in a pastry bag with a star tip and pipe mixture into the white halves.
5. To make the garnish, place prosciutto, pepperoncini, and red onion in to a small bowl and drizzle with olive oil and a little salt. Mix well and sprinkle over the eggs.
6. Sprinkle feta cheese, chives, and a chili flakes over the eggs well.
7. Finish garnish with a drizzle of olive oil and serve.

Makes 24 eggs

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[Editor’s Note: 7/3/2024: This piece was originally reported and published in 2015. Mussel Bar & Grille has since closed.]

The nine-foot long, five-foot tall fiberglass pig isn’t quite visible from space, but you can’t miss it from York Road. Next comes that smell. As you approach Andy Nelson’s Southern Pit Barbecue, the alluring aroma of hickory smoke fires neurons in your brain that remind you: Not much is tastier than smoked meat. Around 11:30 in the morning, the ritual begins. As they have for 33 years, men and women, old folks and young, black and white, regulars and newbies, flock to Baltimore’s first purveyor of bona-fide barbecue for pulled pork, ribs, chicken, and brisket that’s been in the smoker since before most of them rolled out of bed. They’re drawn by the flavor, sure, but also by the romanticism of a form of food preparation that’s been around almost as long as mankind.

“There’s something about cooking with fire; it’s primal,” says David Newman, who owns the new Blue Pit BBQ and Whiskey Bar in Hampden with his wife, Cara. “It’s an American thing, one of our true native cuisines.”

Although Andy Nelson’s is ground zero for Baltimore barbecue, in recent years, the area’s smoking scene has exploded. From take-out joints like Big Bad Wolf’s House of Barbeque to locally owned restaurants like HarborQue and Midtown BBQ & Brew, chains like Maryland-based Mission BBQ, and food trucks like The Smoking Swine, carnivores have more places than ever to feed their smoke fix.

It’s a bad time to be a pig near Baltimore.

“While there is some very noticeable blue smoke rising above Baltimore, it doesn’t currently get its due in the bigger barbecue coverage around the country,” says Roy Slicker, president of the National Barbecue Association. “Of course, neither do other places outside Texas and the South. Baltimore has some fabulous barbecue places, and several others are doing a great job spreading the word about our shared passion for great barbecue.”

Let’s dig in, shall we?

Barbecue has been around since man first stuck an animal on a stick and held it over a fire. Speak with Andy Nelson Sr. for a few minutes about the art of ’cue, and you’ll start wondering if he was at that first feast.

“I learned the trade from my father, who had a barbecue place in Athens, AL, called the Hoggly Woggly,” says the former Baltimore Colt, who, at 81, still works—and eats barbecue—nearly every day. “When I came here it was the [pit] beef, and I liked that. It’s a good product. But it’s not like a pit with a big hickory fire.”

In the strictest sense of the term, barbecue is a form of cooking in which burning wood creates smoke to indirectly heat meat at a low temperature, over a very long period of time. Low and slow, as the saying goes.

For most of its humble barbecue life, Baltimore has been known for pit beef, an entirely local—and delicious—form of cooking meat (historically not done in a pit, but on a grill over charcoal) that barbecue enthusiasts insist isn’t barbecue at all. To call it such, some purists sneer, is akin to describing canned tuna as sushi.

“I absolutely love pit beef, but it’s not barbecue,” says Drew Pumphrey, owner/operator of The Smoking Swine. “Some people also try to pass off meat that’s been in a crock pot for a long time then topped with sauce as barbecue, but it’s not. Unless your meat is smoked, you’re not making barbecue.”

At Chaps Pit Beef, owner Bob Creager has been serving one of the juiciest versions of Baltimore’s homegrown grilling tradition since 1987. He uses both wood and sauce to differentiate his pit beef, but in a decidedly nontraditional barbecue way.

The steel grill in the back of the beef hut on Pulaski Highway is heated with chemical-free wood charcoal. Massive hunks of bottom-round flat are grilled at 500 to 600 degrees for about two hours, before being sliced thin and cooked to order. Sandwiches usually are topped with Chaps’ tiger sauce, which is some kind of combination of horseradish and mayonnaise. Voilà! Barbecue, Baltimore-style. Or is it?

It’s a bad time to be a pig near Baltimore.

“When you talk to the barbecue aficionados, the competition people, they say it’s not even close to barbecue, which really doesn’t bother me,” says the easygoing Creager, who worked seven days a week, 15 hours a day for about 15 years to get the restaurant up and running. “I never called it barbecue, I called it pit beef. I’ve gotten messages on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, from the so-called experts, nasty messages that I should be ashamed of myself for calling it barbecue. Most of the time, I ignore it, but after a while, I started responding, saying, ‘Dude, I called it ‘pit beef.’ Guy Fieri called it barbecue, so call him and give him a hard time.’”

Fieri is the spike-haired, goateed star of the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. After he visited Chaps in 2008, Creager’s business jumped 30 percent. The Travel Channel soon followed, bringing even bigger crowds. On a busy Saturday, Chaps grills up to 40 of those roughly 25-pound pieces of beef. But Chaps isn’t the only game in town. Jake’s Grill in Cockeysville, The Bull Pen in Dundalk, and Charcoal Grill in Parkville, to name a few, are other tasty options.

Of course, if you’re at Camden Yards, Boog’s could be calling. Even Andy Nelson’s serves pit beef, but they smoke it. Let’s not get started. . . .

“There’s seven billion people on the planet, and I’ll bet you one billion of those people have something in their yard that they cook on that they call a barbecue,” Slicker says. “It isn’t necessarily a smoker always, sometimes it’s a grill. We like to say in the barbecue association, ‘If you’re doing direct or indirect heat, you’re in our family.’”

Baltimore has its fair share of barbecue traditionalists. Using hickory, Rick Smith, co-owner of Big Bad Wolf’s on Harford Road, smokes his brisket for about seven hours. Andy Nelson’s pork shoulder stays in the smoker for 17 hours, at 225 degrees. Pumphrey puts his meat in an electric smoker (an apparatus purists deride, he admits) the night before his truck hits the road, and at his new place, Blue Pit’s Newman plans to use local mulberry wood for his pork and post oak for his Zeke’s coffee-rubbed brisket. (“I’m stealing from all around the country and calling it Hampden Barbecue,” he says.)

There are four major barbecue regions in the U.S.: Texas, the Carolinas, Kansas City, and Memphis. (A fifth hub is emerging on the central coast of California, where Santa Maria-style beef tri-tip barbecuing is becoming popular.)

“When you talk about regions, a lot of people think that they’re doing their meats differently,” says Slicker, who owns Slick’s Que Co. in Bend, OR. “For the most part, everybody has the same meats. The flavor profiles come in two forms, the use of wood and the use of sauces.”

Barbecue may never have been as ingrained in the social fabric of life in Baltimore as it is in, say, Birmingham, but it’s gaining such steam, or should we say smoke, here that on August 8 and 9, 30,000 people are expected to “meat” in Bel Air for the annual MD State BBQ Bash. At last year’s event, 62 competitive ’cue teams throughout the country battled for more than $12,000 in prize money. Hess Barbeque Catering sold 1,800 pounds of pork, which weighed 4,000 pounds before it was cooked.

“Baltimore’s scene is small, but growing quickly,” Pumphrey says. “We’re almost one state too far north to be considered true southern barbecue people. But everything I’ve tasted that’s come out of Baltimore is nothing to turn your nose up at.”

Barbecue is a culture unto itself.

Aside from staples like pulled pork, chicken, turkey, and ribs (both the smaller, fattier baby backs and St. Louis-style cut spare ribs are prevalent around town), Baltimore barbecue lovers can find beef ribs at Big Bad Wolf’s, brisket tips at Andy Nelson’s, and an array of free-range, locally sourced beef barbecue at Midtown in Mt. Vernon. Co-owner Tony Harrison makes homemade kielbasas and wild boar sausage, butchers whole cows twice a month, and hangs his beef for three weeks.

Try doing that in your backyard or basement.

Next, he dry rubs the meat for 24 hours, smokes it, then—gasp—throws it on the grill?

“I finish everything on the grill because I love that little crust that forms,” he says. “I know they’d want to hang me from a high pole in South Carolina, but I love it.”

In a way that pizza, hamburger, or say, cheesecake connoisseurs could never imagine, barbecue is a culture unto itself. So-called “’Cuetourism” draws thousands of visitors to the tiny town of Lockhart, the barbecue capital of Texas. For years after their meals, people speak with mouths watering about the ribs they ate at Rendezvous in Memphis, or the burnt ends (brisket trimmings) at Arthur Bryant’s in Kansas City. ’Cueheads fire up smokers at college football tailgates, and competitive teams vie for very real cash, prestige, and trophies at national competitions.

“People love barbecue for several reasons,” says Slicker, who ought to know. He travels 25,000 miles each year crisscrossing the country, trying as much barbecue as he can. “First, it’s all about the camaraderie. There’s nothing like standing around the smoker or grill with family and friends enjoying each other’s company. It’s about unplugging and really connecting.

“I also think barbecue is appealing because of the science,” he continues. “Whether you’re obsessed with creating the perfect rub or sauce, or finally perfecting your pork recipe, people love the marriage of science and art. Last, I think people appreciate the variety. From pork to chicken to beef and game, not to mention fruits and veggies, you can grill or barbecue most anything. There truly is something for everyone, and that makes for an automatic party.” In other words, barbecue is the ultimate egalitarian food.

Back at Andy Nelson’s, two older women enjoy brisket in the little red building with the big pink pig perched on the roof. Between each bite, they carefully place their sandwiches down with two hands, and pause to chew. The conversation is light, their smiles wide. Two cops stop in for ribs to go. An older gentleman, a regular, swings by to pick up his standard order, smoked turkey. A family of six takes a picnic table outside and dives into seemingly everything on the menu. Such disparate people, all drawn together by the sultry seduction of smoking meat. Hungry yet?

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Can’t get enough Barbecue?

Check out our web exclusive gallery of additional images below that will be sure to make your mouth water.

It’s high noon along Ritchie Highway, and inside a brick building where the walls are lined with pictures, patches, and paraphernalia from World War II, Vietnam, and other conflicts, a group of soldiers stands beneath Old Glory singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The anthem, crooned daily as part of a midday ritual, is packed with power and passion. When it’s over, there’s thunderous applause and a round of whoops and cheers.

An American Legion or VFW post perhaps? Guess again. It’s just another day at a local smokehouse known as Mission BBQ, where, alongside heaping helpings of brisket, pulled pork, and baby-back ribs, there’s patriotism on every plate. As the restaurant’s name implies, it’s service first, barbecue second. Co-founders Bill Kraus and Stephen “Newt” Newton set that goal when they opened their first Mission BBQ in Glen Burnie on Sept. 11, 2011.

While committed to making the most mouthwatering spareribs this side of St. Louis, Kraus, a former senior vice president of marketing at Under Armour, and Newton, a former Outback Steakhouse executive, are all about putting your money, quite literally, where your mouth is. Through donations and special events, Mission has helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for numerous noteworthy causes and organizations, including the Wounded Warrior Project, the USO, and Toys for Tots.

“Our mission at Mission BBQ is to serve,” says Kraus. “The world didn’t need another restaurant, but maybe it needed a place that stands for what’s right and that makes you feel good if you have served or are serving.”

On his lunch break from Fort Meade, Chief Warrant Officer Ismael Martínez sums up an atmosphere that exudes all things American—from the retro glass bottles of Cheerwine cherry soda to the Craftsman tool chest that functions as a condiment holder: “The food is great,” he says, “and we feel right at home here.”

Kraus and Newton go out of their way to make the soldiers and others in the field of service feel welcome, often offering them a complimentary sample. “When anyone in uniform is here, they’d better like fudge brownies,” says Newton with a laugh. “We’re not a nonprofit, but we like to leave a little bit on the table to share. It’s just a way to say thanks.”

Of course, the gratitude goes both ways. “I love those guys,” says Adam Silva, chief development officer for the Wounded Warrior Project. “Bill Kraus and Steve Newton are not only great Americans and patriots, but they recognized their desire to give back in the genesis of Mission BBQ. They committed to us early on, and they’ve never stopped. And I kid you not, it’s the best barbecue I’ve ever eaten.”

Another supporter is Kraus’s former boss, Under Armour founder Kevin Plank. “Bill has done a tremendous job building the Mission BBQ brand, integrating his passion for the military, law enforcement, and the Wounded Warrior Project as part of the brand DNA,” he says. “I see a lot of parallels to the work he did at Under Armour, where he played an instrumental role in leveraging great people and a great product to tell a great story.”

It’s a concept that resonates not only with Glen Burnie locals, but also at Mission BBQ locations in Perry Hall; California, MD; Canton; and its latest outpost in York, PA, which is slated to open in November. And while the restaurateurs won’t discuss exact revenues, Kraus says that the average, 3,000-square-foot restaurant in America today racks up approximately $1.3 million in annual sales, “and we are way, way above average.” The founders’ ultimate objective is to open 40 stores by 2018—a relatively modest goal by chain-restaurant standards, notes Newton. “The majority of my adult life has been spent with OSI [Outback Steakhouse Inc.],” he says. “With OSI, I saw a machine in which they’d open 50 Outback restaurants in one year. They got off the rocket pad pretty quickly.”

As it was for many Americans, 9/11 was a watershed moment in Newton’s life, and the day he became a true patriot. “I was going to a meeting at Outback and showed up early that day,” he recalls. “It was that day that I shut down all the [Outback] restaurants in Maryland and said, ‘Go home and hug the ones you love. We’ll come back tomorrow.’ This was personal. This was my country being attacked.”

For Kraus, his path to patriotism began on the home front, where his oldest son, Andrew, 27, recently finished two tours of duty with the Marine Corps, and his younger son, Alex, just started at the U.S. Naval Academy. Though Kraus never served himself, his maternal grandfather, Frank Shinners, was a gunner in WWI, and his father, Al, fought in Korea. “I had never considered serving,” says Kraus. “I grew up during peacetime, but when Andrew first started talking about it, it was hard not to be proud and to respect the fact that he was a college grad, and he was willing to enlist in the Marine Corps and do some heavy lifting. At the same time, the more we were around the military community, the more it raised my desire to ultimately find a way to serve myself.”

Though Mission seeks to make the world a better place through barbecue, that couldn’t be accomplished if the “q” (hand-carved and slow-cooked over white oak) wasn’t so staggeringly good. On any given day of the week, a line forms outside before the lunch shift even begins, and the parking lot (replete with a refurbished deuce-and-a-half military truck for catering, special events, and deliveries) is filled with Anne Arundel County’s finest, who arrive in fire trucks, squad cars, and minivans from nearby Fort Meade. (Mission has other fans, too, including President Clinton’s Secret-Service team, Charm City Cakes owner Duff Goldman, and Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti.)

It’s no surprise that Kraus and Newton have hit on a successful model. The two best friends seem sprung straight from the streets of Mayberry (and use words like “gosh” and “folks” in ordinary conversation). When they met through their Ellicott City parish shortly after Kraus moved to Maryland in 2001, they quickly bonded. Both hail from the Midwest (Kraus is from Milwaukee; Newton grew up in Columbus, OH) and were born a year apart (Kraus is 49; Newton is 50); both married young and have three children, two of whom went to school together, and both share a nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic, toiling from young ages at everything from newspaper and pizza delivery to car washing. “We were fortunate enough to share similar values in terms of business but, more importantly, in terms of life,” says Kraus. Newton gets to the heart of the matter, saying, “I love the guy like a brother.”

Despite the fact that they were neighbors, the men most often crossed paths while traveling for business. “Because Steve was so busy doing the Outback Steakhouse thing, and I was doing the Under Armour thing, we’d bump into each other at the airport,” says Kraus. “But when we’d get back together, we’d share stories, and through all those conversations, we found out there was a mutual love of barbecue. We knew it didn’t exist here. We stored that in the memory bank and thought, ‘This is a true business opportunity.'”

Over several years, the more the duo discussed it, the more they believed that barbecue could be the next big restaurant craze. “Steve felt the barbecue business was in the same place as the steakhouse business 25 years ago,” says Kraus. “And then suddenly, we had Outback and Texas Roadhouse and LongHorn building these enormous businesses internationally around the cuisine of steak. We started to think the same thing could be done in and around barbecue.”

By 2009, despite a lucrative career with Under Armour, Kraus was ready for a change. He took time off to regroup, but continued to press Newton about the idea of starting a business together. “I started getting calls at 10 in the morning,” recalls Newton. “‘Hey, man, what are you doing?’ And I’d say, ‘I’m working. What are you doing?’ And he’d say, ‘Well, what are you doing later this afternoon?’ He just kept tugging at me all the time.” Adds Kraus, “Make no mistake about it, the only reason we’re here is because he said, ‘Yes.'”

And so began Bill and Newt’s excellent adventure of chasing the scent of barbecue from Mississippi to North Carolina to Kansas City, MO, to Alabama. “The maiden voyage was to Austin, Texas,” recalls Newton. “Our favorite place is Franklin Barbecue. We showed up at 9:22 in the morning, and they open at 11. We got in there, and it was the best brisket I’ve ever had in my life.” Gorging on boffo barbecue around the country inspired them to develop winning recipes on their home turf. “On these trips, within the first bite, Newt knows that what we’re doing is better than what he just tried,” says Kraus. “But every now and then, you’ll see the steam and smoke start to come out of him because somebody is doing it better. At that point, we come back here and roll up our sleeves because we need to figure out why their brisket is better than ours and how do we ultimately get to where we are not only on par, but maybe just a little bit better.”

While Newton is more of a foot soldier in the kitchen, Kraus is the big-picture guy. “He’s an incredible visionary,” says Newton. “He’ll say, ‘This is the summit run, and that’s the mountain peak we’re going to, and here’s how we’re going to experience it along the way.’ I’m more of an X’s and O’s guy. I’m just a restaurant guy.”

Both men have taken what they learned from their previous careers—in Kraus’s case, the branding of a multi-billion-dollar athletic-apparel company and, for Newton, as an insider at an equally successful restaurant empire—to hawk a product they’re proud of. “We’re not embarking upon this to just be the best in Baltimore or the best in Maryland,” says Kraus. “If you’re going to be in business and you’re going to do the hard work, why not try and be the best?”

And because success can’t happen without the support of loyal troops, the Mission BBQ staff meets a half hour before the restaurant opens its doors each day at 10:30 a.m. (and also again in the afternoon). On a late summer morning, Newton and one of his directors of operations, John Turner, fire up the staff for the busy day ahead. As the smokers (nicknamed Annabelle and Beverly) add heat to the small open kitchen, Newton and Turner pass samples of juicy “yard-bird” chicken and house-made fries as a way of ensuring firsthand knowledge of every menu item. There’s talk of Mission’s 9/11 commemorative-cup campaign to raise funds for local fire, police, and EMS personnel. Already, the register is humming with sales. “To think that we raised $6,000 in one week,” marvels Turner. “Li’l ol’ Mission BBQ, starting in Glen Burnie, MD.”

These days, Kraus and Newton are proud to have joined the ranks of those giving back to their country, despite the long hours and the never-ending appetites of crowds who queue up for their ‘cue. “When those American heroes who have raised their right hand and are either protecting our community or protecting our country or, in some cases, both, and they’re trying to thank us for what we’re doing, we almost kind of laugh,” says Kraus. “A bad day for us is when the mac-‘n’-cheese goes bad. We have the easy job here.”