From Private Equity to BBQ: The Inspiring Journey of Urban Smokehouse Founder Andrew Buehler
I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew Buehler, a Chicago native turned NYC transplant in 2013. He spent 10 years working in private equity and financial service, before hanging up the suit and putting on the apron to start Urban Smokehouse in 2022.
Urban Smokehouse is a direct to consumer barbecue brand that enables customers to make things like ribs and brisket in minutes, instead of hours. Urban Smokehouse makes BBQ the right way, low and slow, and then immediately vacuum seals products to ship nationwide. The result is fall of the bone tender ribs you can finish in your oven, on your grill, or in your air fryer or microwave; with the flavor profile and texture of a multi-hour smoke or cook (that was locked in via their vacuum sealing process).
Thank you so much for joining us!
What motivated you to launch your startup?
COVID was a period of isolation and thus self reflection for me. I have always had the entrepreneurial itch, and after an extended period of working from home, decided it’s “now or never.”
I knew I wanted to do something in the food space, and seeing the week over week dramatic uptick of packages in my lobby had me progressively thinking about ecommerce and D2C.
Food has always been my passion. In high school I was the President of the Grilling Society, in college I founded the second collegiate competitive eating club in the country, and hosted an annual pig roast for the school.
Despite working a corporate job, I found most of my free time and money was going to experimenting in the kitchen, or trying new restaurants and cuisine. With the itch to take control of my destiny and do my own thing, and a market opportunity identified that overlaid with my passions, I took the leap of faith and began working on Urban Smokehouse in March of 2022.
What is it that excites you about what you’re building?
I love the product and the industry. Food has been a passion for me until now, and it’s really rewarding working on something you truly love. Making my passion a job is a dream come true and I see a ton of opportunity in the industry.
I think barbecue as a whole is a category many people love but seldom do themselves because of the time and equipment burden. Personally, when I get home from work I want to make dinner in 15–30 minutes. I am not considering firing up the smoker and making ribs for 3–5+ hours or brisket for 5–8+ hours. Our products open up the at home cooking menu for so many folks, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive thus far. We can’t wait to expand the menu even further and continue to offer food you want to eat, but don’t have the time or equipment to make from scratch yourself.
What has been your biggest challenge when growing your startup?
I think the biggest challenge of being a one-man-band bootstrapped startup is playing every role in the company. My experience to date lends itself to corporate finance, strategy and business development. When you are building a new business on your own, you have to become everything: legal, accounting, marketing, sales, strategy, PR, etc. It’s been tremendously fun learning every facet of the business, but also the biggest challenge.
My primary strategy for this, is to do what you do well, and to outsource where you need real help/additional expertise. For a cash strapped startup, it is also important to leverage as many free resources as possible. If people won’t do a little free work for you to prove themselves, don’t even bother working with them. It’s important to see buy-in/belief from who you choose as your partners and vendors. You should reward them as your business grows with continued or heightened levels of business.
What are your future plans for your startup?
We have three major goals for Urban Smokehouse right now:
- Product expansion: we want to add brisket, pulled pork, pulled chicken, sausages, and complimentary sides (i.e. macaroni and cheese, potato au gratin, vegetables, etc.) ASAP. Expanding our menu will widen our prospective customer demographic due to dietary restrictions or lifestyle choices, and enable customers to order a well rounded meal from us versus just an entree. We are ready to launch several products already, but are being disciplined in when we choose to launch each. We need each existing product to hit “critical mass” before we launch an additional product.
- SMB sales: we think our product is a great fit for retailers as well as bars/restaurants/event spaces. We have had tremendous success doing popups at bars and event spaces thus far, and there is no reason they shouldn’t sell our product on their own going forward. Most foodservice businesses don’t sell ribs, brisket or other iconic barbecue because they don’t have a smoker and they want to make food “made to order.” Smoking a rack of ribs for several hours immediately nixes the “made to order” option and a product like hours enables venues to do just that!
- Events/catering: we love doing popups and have had tremendous success with them thus far. We also think barbecue lends itself to a special event or occasion. Think at a grand scale: the super bowl, fathers day, or 4th of July; but also on a personal scale the end of season game for little league baseball, littleTimmy’s 6th birthday, corporate events, a family reunion or really any gathering of friends, family, teammates or more. We want to sell to people celebrating these moments, and also offer catering/on-site preparing and serving options if desired.
If you had to share, “words of wisdom,” with a Founder who’s about to start their own startup, what would they be?
Go for it now!!! I think many people “kick the can” on pursuing their goals and ambitions for the umbrella excuse of “better timing or preparation.” What I have come to realize is the timing will never be perfect, and the longer you wait, the more likely you are to NOT do it. Take the plunge and work relentlessly at it. If it deserves a place in the market it will work. You will learn what you need to know on the job. Have a “make it happen” or “can do” attitude.
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This was very insightful. Thank you so much for joining us!
