A Des Moines barbecue restaurant beat out 250 teams to win world championship Brian Taylor Carlson Published 1:17 p.m. CT March 6, 2017
Iowa’s own Smokey D’s BBQ took the top spot at the 44th Annual World’s Championship Bar-B-Que Contest at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in Houston Texas on Saturday. Over 250 teams from around the world participated in the event.
Darren and Sherry Warth, the husband and wife team from Smokey D’s BBQ, won both the grand champion overall prize and first prize for the ribs category. This was their third time competing in this contest for the Warths, who travel around the country and participate in about 40 contests per year.
“It’s crazy because we have a bucket list of every major competition and this was the last item on our bucket list,” Darren Warth said. “We are the only team that has come close to winning all the major competitions in barbecue.”
Judges used a double-blind system to sample ribs, chicken and brisket, and they were not allowed to speak with one another during the tasting process. The three-day contest leaves plenty of time for contestants to smoke and cook the meat, and there are three rounds of judging before the final round when the winner is announced.
There’s a 15-year waiting period to get into the competition unless a team wins another major competition from a barbecue circuit event. And the Warths did that. They won several competitions on the Kansas City Barbeque Society circuit, as well as several events in the International Barbeque Cookers Association and the Florida BBQ Association. In 2013, they took top honors at both the American Royal World Series of BBQ and the Jack Daniels World Championship, thus allowing them to gain entry into the Houston competition.
The Warths started Smokey D’s BBQ in 2006 in a trailer in their driveway. Since then, it’s become a local favorite with three locations in Des Moines — two downtown and one on the city's north side. The Warths have won over 800 category awards and 75 state competitions for their flavorful and moist barbecue.
Don't know when or if I'll get to Des Moines, but if I do, I'm going to make this joint a "must go".
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I'm actually looking at retirement property in Iowa. This gives me another reason to go there.
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