NY BBQ Favorite Handsome Devil Opening New Restaurant This Summer
During the past few years, Ed Randolph and his Handsome Devil BBQ team have become a beloved staple at NYC’s top BBQ events.
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While 2020 will be remembered for many hard times for restaurants and individuals, for one New York pitmaster, it will be the year he realized a dream — opening a full-fledged restaurant about an hour north of York City.
Ed Randolph, the pitmaster and head of the Handsome Devil BBQ team, has been a staple of New York City barbecue events for years, and now he's finally opening a large joint in Newburgh, NY this summer. Of course, now that the country is in the middle of a pandemic, his big plans have gotten a bit more complicated.
"Everything is kind of shut down until May 15 right now, but we're hoping by next week that we'll get construction working again," Randolph said. "My buildout is not that crazy, but the hard thing has been getting items such as glass for the windows. There's a backlog and lots of purveyors are shut down."
A rendering of the new Handsome Devil BBQ restaurant in Newburgh, New York.
The Handsome Devil restaurant will offer an expansive 5,400-square-foot dining space, but it will also feature a robust takeout and delivery operation given changing tastes of consumers during the pandemic. Randolph said he is clear-eyed about what the dining situation will look like given COVID-19 and has planned it out currently to open sometime in July.
"I will open up as much as I'm legally allowed to," Randolph said. "The benefit of having this much dining space is that it allows for distance. Six feet apart for tables is no issue for us. And we will have a separate entrance for takeout and delivery."
The restaurant's kitchen will also serve as a commissary, which will help the team make large quantities of food for events. However, the events and catering side of Randolph's business has been exceptionally tough, with so many events canceled and postponed.
"It's between crippling and bleeding with so many events postponed through July," Randolph said. "People are praying [that they can keep events this summer]. Many things have instead been pushed to next year."
Ed Randolph’s new book features lots of recipes you can make on a pellet smoker.
While the new restaurant and gig planning has been keeping Randolph busy, he also recently debuted a new book — Showstopping BBQ with Your Traeger Grill. (Buy the book here.)
This book is Randolph's second published work, following Smoked, which was one of the most unique BBQ cookbooks released recently due to its inclusion of great Northeastern BBQ joints and recipes. But Showstopping BBQ has a different theme, with a focus on recipes every BBQ beginner can make using a set-it-and-forget-it pellet smoker.
Recipes in the new book include Beer Can Chicken, Maple-Bourbon Pork Belly, Juicy Brined Chicken Breast, Stuffed Belly Burgers, Candied Maple Bacon, and Cuban-Style Pork Shoulder.
"Smoked was really a passion and something I wanted to do," Randolph said. "But as you go through it again, you realize not everyone has a thousand-gallon Mill Scale smoker or Old Hickory like all the restaurants have. So this opportunity was to do a book for a pellet smoker, which is versatile. You can smoke, grill, bake, high-heat, and cold smoke on the things. I wanted to do recipes the average homeowner can do."
While 2020 has been a strange year, it's nice to see a little good news for the BBQ scene and for one of the NYC BBQ scene's best pitmasters. I for one can't wait to visit the new restaurant as soon as it’s officially open and safe to travel.
Sean Ludwig
Founder, NYC BBQ
EAT ALL ABOUT IT
Here are the top BBQ and related food news stories you need to know about this week:
Third-party food delivery services have been popular during the pandemic but their high fees have been hurting restaurants.
In a bit of good news this week, the NYC City Council voted to cap third-party delivery fees from services like Grubhub and UberEats to a maximum of 20%, including marketing fees. (This was one of the three big things I noted NYC needed to do to help restaurants previously.) The mayor is expected to sign the legislation into law soon. However, whenever possible, you should still order directly from your local restaurants and BBQ joints to help them keep more money.
Even with eight out of 12 of its locations closed, NYC’s Mighty Quinn’s Barbeque has still managed to stay afloat with popular takeout and delivery options, co-founder Micha Magid told Restaurant Hospitality.
Cash Only BBQ, which recently reopened in Bushwick, was featured by the New York Times in a feature on where to get some excellent Cuban sandwiches around NYC.
Al Warr of the Hunterdon County Democrat spoke with three small NJ BBQ joints about how they are faring during this time and what food they can offer up for small Memorial Day parties.
Jim Dandy’s, the Rutherford, NJ restaurant with the nickname “The Home of Killer Ribs,” was heavily damaged Wednesday in a three-alarm fire, NJ.com reports. The restaurant will be closed until further notice.
Finally, two popular regional BBQ events for this summer have been officially canceled. New Jersey’s Rock, Ribs, and Ridges music and barbecue festival in Sussex County has been put off for 2020 but it is already scheduled to take place in summer 2021. And Pennsylvania’s 2020 Blues, Brews & Barbecue Festival in Allentown has been canceled.
IRL BBQ
NOTE: Given the coronavirus crisis, we will be leaving this section blank until things get back to normal. Some events have been canceled entirely while others have been postponed to the fall. Many events are now up in the air, but I’ll be doing my best to keep the website up to date with events and dates that have been confirmed.
Check out the full up-to-date NYC BBQ calendar here.
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