The aroma of barbecue filled the air at the Greystone Mansion Sunday as vendors let guests sample their finest. The first Auburn BBQ Fest hosted new and old local restaurants and catering services like Lil Smokey’s and Mama’s Last Stand.
Attendees of all ages were invited to taste six restaurants’ barbecue while the band Alabama Avenue performed on stage. While barbecue restaurant Jim ‘N Nicks sponsored a barbecue eating contest with surprise guest Aubie acting as the timekeeper.
Six contestants were given a few minutes to test the strength of their stomachs as they devoured as many barbecue-stuffed spuds as they could. The prize was a bar tab at the festival valued at $50 and four free tickets to the next Auburn Food Fest.
In the end, Aubie called the contest for Auburn native Spencer Winters. He credited his time in the armed forces in helping him.
“In the military you were used to having to eat very fast,” Winters said. “Everybody was taking a knee, and I was like, ‘You’ve got to stand up straight.’”
Jonathan Davis, head of business at Greystone Mansion since September 2017, coordinated the similar Auburn Wing Fest in July.
“We had the venue here, and we just thought that normally it’s private but thought it would be a good thing for the city, locals and students, having something that happens in bigger cities happen here in Auburn," Davis said.
This is Davis' second food fest with the Greystone Mansion.
“With barbecue being a big thing in the South, we reached out to a bunch of the barbecue places we were familiar with and some of the ones that were established in the new up-and-coming months to see if they wanted to get involved," Davis said. "With it being the first homecoming weekend a lot of them were busy, but were excited about it.”
Vendors indicated cooking festivals like the Wing and barbecue fests were a boom to customer growth.
“[After] we did Wing Fest, we had a lot more people come in and ask for our smoked wings,” said Caleb Reeves, owner of Stinky's Fish Camp.
He opened Stinky’s Fish Camp in Auburn around a year ago and was also present on Sunday to represent his business.
Partial proceeds from ticket, food and drink sales went to the Food Bank of East Alabama. There was a food drive at the entrance to the festival where visitors could donate 10 items and receive a free commemorative T-shirt.
Davis said approximately three and a half hours into the festival, a couple hundred tickets had already been sold. He expected a few hundred more by the end of the event because their previous event, Wing Fest, received approximately 700 guests.
He said he hopes to see more college students at later food festivals, estimating that only 15 percent of tickets were sold to students at the July Wing Fest.
The Greystone Mansion's next food festival is scheduled for Nov. 17. Its featured food is yet to be determined, Davis said.
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