Atlanta Bar-B-Q Festival promises fun, food, community

Seated at a table at Pit Boss BBQ in Hapeville one recent afternoon, Bob Herndon hands out his business card with an unusual request.

“Smell it,” he says. Then he waits a minute and asks, “What does it smell like?”

When the answer is “smoke,” Herndon lets out a sly laugh and explains that he regularly fires up batches of cards in his Big Green Egg, pointing out the grill marks on the backs.

Herndon is the president of the Atlanta Bar-B-Q Club and founder of the Atlanta Bar-B-Q Festival, where a mix of professional and backyard barbecue teams will gather Aug. 14-15 at Atlantic Station to compete for more than $15,000 in cash prizes, trophies and bragging rights.

Pit Boss, locally owned by pit master Wade McSwain, is one of the restaurants that will sell barbecue to festivalgoers over the weekend. Herndon and Patrick Jones, the head judge for the festival, are noticeably excited when plates of McSwain’s pork back ribs, chopped pork shoulder, and signature sliced beef brisket arrive at the table.

Jones, who is certified to judge barbecue by both the Kansas City Barbeque Society and the Memphis Barbecue Network, regards the bounty of meat with a combination of curiosity and hunger.

“This looks really good,” Jones says, grabbing a rib. “If we were at a competition, we’d be judging it for appearance, texture and taste, which is obviously going to be the biggest thing. Ribs and brisket are probably the hardest, because of the texture or tenderness issues.”

Herndon started the Atlanta Bar-B-Q Festival at Turner Field, before moving it to Atlantic Station, where it will celebrate its seventh annual festival this year.

“It’s 50 teams competing, 10 restaurants serving food, a kids area, live music, beer, bourbon and plenty of tents and umbrellas for shade,” Herndon says. “It’s a festival and it’s a lot of fun. We really cater to the festivalgoers. That’s what I think sets it apart from some others. But there’s some serious competition going on with the teams, too.”

“This is a sanctioned event by the Kansas City Barbeque Society,” Jones says. “It’s all blind tasting and we abide by all the KCBS rules and regulations. The great thing about the competition here, though, is that it allows a lot of the festivalgoers to try samples and see demonstrations from the teams.”

Beyond all that, though, Herndon thinks there’s something a bit more noble the Atlanta Bar-B-Q Festival offers the community.

“Martin Luther King Jr. said he had a dream that one day the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners would sit down together at the table of brotherhood,” Herndon says. “Well, what are they going to eat? They’re going to eat barbecue. Our festival is one of the most racially diverse events in Atlanta. And I think it’s really nice to see that, especially during a time when there’s been so much racial tension.”