My name is Zachary Grillo.

I am the general manager and will cook a barbecue here in Warrensburg.

Been here 23 years, but I love to cook alone, to smoke meat.

I'm just a normal type of guy.

We opened in May of this year, so May 2023.

Real quick.

Barbecue got started.

It was a vision of Ben Pierce.

He wanted to start a food trailer.

He visited a bunch of Texas barbecues and he just loves the style of Texas barbecue.

So him and Bryan, Sam's my other owner, got involved, proposed that they open up a restaurant and kind of how mule cooker became.

We make our own sauces and robes in-house, so we put all of our seasoning together.

We do all of our our sides are all handmade from scratch.

So, no, we take the hard of what we do.

We have a lot of passion in what we do in cooking.

So when you come in, you come to the counter, you order at the counter, you can see our meat carvers carving.

So you get to actually see what the process is to put your place to go.

We get to showcase what we do on a daily basis.

When it comes to the menus, it's a simple, basic menu.

You get to choose your pound meat, you get to choose your side, you get to choose whatever kind of muffin you want or how a peanut popper or if you just want, you know, okay, I want three things.

A banana pudding.

We got we offer pork ribs, we offer dino ribs.

There are beef ribs, and then we offer brisket sliced and chopped.

We offer turkey.

And when it comes to almost a favorite thing on the menu, I mean, I eat the stuff every day, you know?

So if I'm actually going to have some fun, if I'm drinking at the bar, I'm going to order what's called our party barge.

It's nothing but a party.

It's a mac and cheese full port pub, mustard based sauce, and our sweet house sauce on top.

Three weeks ago, I competed out on holding with two other individuals that I work with Here.

We place 10th in brisket and we got 19th and pork loin for our very first competition ever.

We look forward to doing more and we're just going to keep evolving on that and it's a great camaraderie too.

You get to meet a lot of people that have won big competitions and it's just an honor to talk to some of these guys and figure out what they're doing.

We are a proud sponsor of the Meals.

Saturday was a great opportunity for us to outreach to college students.

We did a lot of advertising for us.

We really enjoyed catering on Saturday.

We enjoyed having the college kids out there.

We enjoyed the alumni out there.

So I mean, I would love to do more for the university.

You know, I just got to make that connection down there and see what we've got to do.

I rely a lot on my crew, you know, it's just not me.

I mean, I have a great staff behind me, so I wasn't from my staff.

I couldn't produce what we do today.

You know, I maybe the general manager, but I'm still I'm still one of them.

If I can't do what I ask them to do, then why should I ask them to do it?

So, I mean, I put myself in those positions to better my staff, and that's why I've got the respect of my staff.

But we're also a very close knit crew.

We're a small crew, but I think that's better for us because we all get along.

I've done the restaurant business for 23 years and I've seen too many restaurants where somebody will get a manager position or role and then let it get to their head and they don't want to help out their crew.

My crew is my second family.

They jump in all the time whenever I need it, and there's a lot of times where they know I'm super stressed out and they take that upon their hands, you know, to relieve me of stress.

So, I mean, it's a stressful environment sometimes, but I think it's just the camaraderie with my crew.

You know, I bend over backwards for them and they do the same for me.

So trying to to introduce a new style of barbecue, it's been a tough road, but at the same time, we have people here, they're going, Oh my gosh, this is a different taste.

But it's amazing.

You know, they said they say support Warrensburg, support to support local business and there's a lot of local businesses out here that need support and people are supporting them.

Some people have some, you know, amazing food in these little restaurants.

A lot of local businesses put their heart and soul on it, sometimes their livelihoods.

I've seen plenty of businesses close in this town.

I've been here for over 20 years, you know, and there's people who've been here longer and they've seen it.

And it upsets people about businesses closing.

And they want to talk about businesses not closing.

But you don't want to support.

All we're asking is just give us a chance.

And I'm speaking on behalf of every local business here in town, not just me.

Okay?

You're having the heart and passion to know that somebody is going to like your food.

It's going to elevate you more to keep doing what you're doing.

There are days I come in here five, 6:00 in the morning.

I don't need to file four or 5:00 in the afternoon.

You know, it's just not the responsibility of the general manager.

It's just the passion of smoking it.

That's where my heart is, is on a bit.

Physically, I can't.

I can't explain what we do every day because you got it.

You got to witness what we do every day.

You got to be in our shoes to do it.

A lot of people will just give you some mumbo jumbo or, you know, try to try to sugarcoat everything.

And, you know, sometimes it's wrong if you don't find a lot of jobs that you do that you love.

We take the hard to what we do.

And that's why it's so hard when people sit there and talk negative and negative.

Negative.

And it just it kills your demeanor, it kills your self-esteem.

And, you know, but we're always here to pick people up.

And that's what we do.

We're very passionate.

What we do.

When you start your own business, I mean, if you have not taken a business class or any type of business seminar, I would definitely go and do that.

What you got to understand is that sometimes you don't make profit within three years of opening a restaurant because you're paying all the additional costs from the beginning.

So it's going to it's a struggle in the beginning sometimes, but you just got to push your way through it.

You've got to trust your people that you should be able to do this.

I mean, if you have the heart and the passion to do it, then go for it.

You know, just understand that it is it's a bumpy road.

Just make sure you got your business plan intact and what you want to do.

Honestly, man, like I said, just come and supporters locally, you know, I mean, we got we got a lot going on up here.

And if you guys just give us a chance, definitely just come up here.

You know, like I said, we can have a good old time at the bar.

We can have some good old food just supporters, local, everybody, everybody praises, support, local, support local.

Then start doing it.