Today we’d like to introduce you to Joel Carbajal.
Hi Joel, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
My name is Joel Carbajal, I’m a happily married 33-year-old BBQ food truck owner. I have 3 sons and we are having our first daughter this year; we are extremely excited. What started out as a hobby quickly became a passion. I wasn’t raised off a pit or any type of BBQ cooking. I am Hispanic so growing up, I ate a lot of rice & beans, pork, chicken, salsas, and fried foods, none of it ever smoked. I grew up very much a part of the car and motorcycle scene. Import and domestic tuning, racing, and jumping dirt bikes and 4-wheelers until October of 2008 when I jumped for the last time. I landed with such force the fork bolts blew out and I compressed my spine, shattering vertebrae and fracturing other parts of my spine. The road to recovery will never be forgotten, I still deal with back discomfort from time to time. This ended my adrenaline scene unfortunately, but I still go to events and love to spectate. Having this background, my family or myself never pictured me owning a BBQ business. During recovery, I was taking college courses at NCTC and working at Decrane Aerospace, which is where I started my engineering career. The company, unfortunately, had to shut down and I began working for a quality control and engineering company at Peterbilt in Denton, Tx. I quickly moved up to management, keeping my title throughout several other endeavors during and in between Peterbilt. I worked in retail, luxury home building in Frisco, sales, manufacturing, and logistics and started to learn the pit. So, as you can see, I was no pit master by trade. I was passed down my first smoker from my wife’s father, it was on! I started cooking in 2019, experimenting, burning briskets and ribs. At this time, I was more likely to sell a boot out of the brisket instead of sandwich. I researched, experimented, tried every seasoning, injections, brine’s, you name it. Finally, I broke it down. BBQ is a science, literally everything comes into factor, the humidity, wind, direction of the wind, cured wood, temperatures of the box, pit and meats when to flip and wrap/pull, it goes on. When the pandemic hit in 2020, I was laid off and had to find another source of income. We were a family of 5 and have 2 dogs, so as we all know, the pressure is on at this point. I applied to so many places, some way below my pay grade with no luck. During this time, I slowly began to perfect my style of slow-smoked BBQ and TexMexi-Q. I had posted it on social media when I got good at it, people were messaging me saying things like “Let me know when I can buy a plate?” or “Are you selling those?”. I decided to sit out on my driveway with 2 pop-up 12×12 canopies, smoker, and cooktop for people and neighbors to pass by and purchase, not really thinking about the food laws or anything. I ended up becoming so popular by word of mouth I had people from other cities up driving to buy from me. I even had a line of cars at one point which probably gave me too much-unwanted attention. Unfortunately, it did, and I was shut down by the city due to food laws/permitting. They say when one door closes another one opens. I was contacted by the City of Krugerville, whose staff quickly became a fan of my food after a catering order and asked if I would like to be a permanent vendor at their park. I quickly said yes. I got my tax permit ID; all my food certifications and health permits and I’ve been serving since. We have grown so much and become very popular doing events all around DFW, from starting as a pop-up in my driveway to a full-blown food truck. It’s been a road and I don’t see it ending anytime soon. Cheers Texas. Follow us on social media to know where we are next.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I own a slow-smoked Texas BBQ and TexMexi-Q food truck/ catering company. I am the pitmaster. What separates us from others is that we have unique BBQ plates and mac and cheese bowls. We offer Texas-style BBQ and TexMex, but I’ve also incorporated a lot of the cultural food and flavors into our BBQ for unique flavors and plates.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.Jcsmokehouse.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jcs_smokehouse/
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/100057488120607/
