How did a Florida guy become a highly acclaimed expert at Texas barbecue?
Exhaustive research — including the most appealing kind: eating. Unbridled passion for cooking and making customers’ mouths salivate in anticipation of the first forkful. And a Florida Gulf Coast University professor who saw a prodigy and ultimately became his inspiring mentor.
This year, USA TODAY Network Florida food writers named Tyler Goguen's food truck, Beau’s BBQ (named after his bluetick hound), one of the five best in the state.
"We’ve grown steadily every year. We don’t go out to the public as often as we used to because there are only a couple of breweries that host food trucks now, compared with about six when I started. But our catering and event business has grown about four to five times since I started the business in college."
"We’re doing multiple caterings most weeks — sometimes four in one week. Last year, we also got into wedding catering, and we’re now on the preferred vendor lists at a couple of wedding venues. We’re growing as steadily as a one-man band can."
Exploring the taste of Texas
Goguen’s first barbecue job was at Reuben’s Smokehouse, a once-acclaimed now-defunct Fort Myers restaurant that featured Southern cooking with a mix of Memphis and Kansas City barbecue styles. When he started catering on his own, he researched barbecue to figure out which style he found most appealing.
Austin, Texas, barbecue pitmaster Aaron Franklin — of Frankin Barbecue fame — hosted an instructional series on YouTube that exploded into mainstream pop culture in 2015 when it was expanded into a national PBS broadcast series, “BBQ With Franklin.” And Goguen was hooked.
"I really liked how he presented the meat and how detailed — almost scientific — he was about every part of the process. I’m very detail-oriented with our barbecue, so that approach clicked with me."
But the food truck might never have happened if he hadn’t changed his major from business management to entrepreneurship.
"In the Introduction to Entrepreneurship course, I had the serendipitous opportunity to study under Paul Evans... The course’s final project called for students to create a business plan."
"I asked him, ‘In a perfect world, what would you want to do?’ ” Evans recalls. “He answered, ‘Barbecue.’ So I said, ‘Let’s cook barbecue.’”
Goguen started catering, but the learning curve was steep.
"He realized that he was losing money every time he sold a plate because he was giving too much food away. I told him, above all else, that he needed to know his numbers..."
The learning never stops. Goguen regularly visits Texas to refine his cooking and expand his menu offerings beyond the "Texas Trinity" of brisket, ribs and sausage.
"We try different barbecue spots, get inspiration and talk with pitmasters. My favorite is InterStellar BBQ in Austin. I get a lot of inspiration from places like them and Leroy and Lewis Barbecue, which is doing that newer, craft-style Texas barbecue."