When Kris Shelton, General Manager of the Original Famous Dave's on beautiful Round Lake, Hayward, WI asked if I would be willing to share some "Grilliing Tips" on Memorial Day Weekend for a casino in Northern Wisconsin...located in the Lac Du Flambeau, Minocqua & Eagle River area... and Famous Dave's in Hayward as we would cater in the food... I immediately said sure... anything I can do to help sell ribs.
Little did I know how terrific and well received this would turn out and had no clue in the beginning that the marketing genius of Michael Broderick, the VP of Marketing at Lake of The Torches Casino would turn this into something bigger and more entertaining than just me sharing a few grilling tips... Michael took this up a few notches to something worthy of TV!!!
Michael Broderick, Director of Marketing, Lake of the Torches Resort Casino in Lac Du Flambeau, WI hired a kitchen set designer from Wausau that created a whole kitchen for me... complete with live 4 burner stove, a real grill, refrigerator, commercial microwave, water sink... you name this set had it... including even an oven and a... marble counter top!!! Every piece of equipment was top of the line stuff... I can honestly say that over the years... I have been on many TV cooking sets... and none of them ever had a kitchen as top of the line and as complete as this one... I literally was astounded by the effort Michael put into providing me the best set possible to do this cooking show!
Then Michael hired The Lamont Cranston Blues Band to play butt rockin' blues while people came in and sat down and they segway'd each transition as I changed out sets for each food recipe and then they played when the show was over while people were leaving. Everyone really enjoyed the fun atmosphere that was created by having a live blues band.
We had a radio station at the event doing a live feed... it was really something! Also I should mention, Sandy Morgan and Shane of our team at Famous Dave's had gone down several days earlier and had made some of the recipes down in Wasau for a live radio broadcast to help promote the show and the way everything turned out... they did a super job!
Michael didn't let people come into the room until the last minute... he had everyone waiting with anticipation outside the doors... and then when they all saw the room... you could see their jaws drop! It was really an impressive stage set up and with the butt rockin' blues... it created just a very fun lively atmosphere... perfect for a Barbeque Show!
Once I found out how this "just share a few grilling tips" was turning into something much bigger than any of us had anticipated I called for Ben Welshons help and he expedited all my requests and its this type of cooperation between the Home Office, our restaurant up in Hayward, and the Lake of The Torches Casino. I have to really thank the Home Office... because their help also made this a very memorable event.
It really was a "Famous Dave's Experience" for our raving loyal fans... and I want to thank Michael for being so forward thinking to do all the little attention to details to create an almost perfect Famous Dave's Experience. Michael's team of event planners, hosts, and Kitchen Staff were all very helpful and they worked hard as well to pull off this event.
I also want to thank Ben Welshons and Randy for working it out to get Rob Stately to help grill and cut ribs and his wife Katie who took off from her job to help cater this event. It was important we didn't hold the ribs too long because of the nature of this show... I wanted the ribs to be right off the grill... so a lot of ribs had to be chopped fast.
At first I was trying to convince Michael a buffet line would be a lot easier... but he insisted - he wanted the Garbage Can Lid Experience and I am glad he insisted on this as it really added to the whole Famous Dave's experience... and when we got to the casino... I understood why he was so insistent... he had his menus all made up to look like a Garbage Can Lid... all the fans of Famous Dave's immediately knew what they were looking at and loved the Garbage Can Menu... everyone took these home as souvenirs of the show.
We even had six packs of our retail sauces on each table.
They sold out the first show and added a second show.... each show seating 400 people!
And I want to thank Kris for his hard work and Michael for his vision... even though it was a lot of hard work... it was worth the effort. It just goes to show we have a lot of raving loyal Famous Dave's fans out there. Afterwards when I was letting them take pictures with me and signing autographs... these fans all had their favorite Famous Dave's they frequent on a regular basis.
There were folks from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan. One family drove all the way from Michigan to see the show and then turned right around and drove all the way back!
We served Ribs, Coleslaw, Beans, Cornbread Muffins, and Strawberry Shortcake... originally they wanted bread pudding but I couldn't figure out how to serve 400 people bread pudding that fast, so we switched to strawberry shortcake... you wouldn't believe how many thousands of fresh strawberries were chopped up by my team. It was just an old fashioned backyard barbeque with good friends and everyone had a great time!
I want to publicly thank Kris for a terrific job he did to coordinate this show with Michael and our Famous Dave's team who did a tremendous job to provide great tasting barbeque to our raving Famous Dave's fans who turned out for the show. Sandy Morgan and her husband did such a great job. Kris had his whole family and they really worked hard. I really believe this idea was a real treat for our Famous Dave's fans as well as the Casino I am sure enjoyed the results. But I guess, I can't say enough about Michael Broderick who pulled out all the stops to make this a real first class event.
I also want to thank our decor team and John Dery for finding me some props.
I have to say with all modesty, I delivered two of my best performances ever!!! (I think!) ...at least the hundreds of fans gave a rousing applause and they all came up to me for pictures and autographs afterwards and said it was one of the best cooking shows they had ever seen!!! Also after the whole show... there was a VIP time where the casino's VIPs were able to meet me and get their pictures taken with me and I signed autographs for them.
Lamont Cranston Blues Band did such a terrific job and had the people groovin' in their seats... it was fun to be on stage with a live blues band cookin' up some ribs!
Click here to see some pictures to give you an idea of what went on... these pictures don't do the event justice, there's no way a photo can show the energy in the room...and you can't smell the barbecue and hear the rockin' blues!!!
