From White-Collar Worker to BBQ Pitmaster

Jeff Feldstein's career in marketing helped him spread the word when he launched Down to the Bone Barbecue & Company last spring. Still, it took old-fashioned shoe leather to get his bottled sauces into stores.

"It’s been an incredible ride," says Feldstein, 45, of the year since he opened his Stanhope restaurant on the edge of scenic Lake Lackawanna.

Feldstein was general manager of his father’s court-reporting company in New York City. He had been with the firm 12 years and, he says, "I never had to think about what I was going to do." Then his father retired, and in 2009 Feldstein lost his job.

The son took his father’s advice and thought long and hard about his future. “I had to reinvent myself," he says. "I love to eat, but you can’t make money eating.”

When his Dad told him about a West Coast pitmaster coming to Massachusetts to teach a workshop on true Texas-style dry-smoke barbecue, Feldstein signed up and father and son drove there together.

The trip changed the younger man’s life, he says. The pitmaster "made it look effortless," Feldstein says. "With very simple preparations, he made something that was absolutely amazing."

Resolved to take up barbecuing and eventually open his own restaurant, Feldstein enrolled at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan, graduating in 2010 with a specialty in restaurant management and culinary technique,

He drove to Alabama to buy a heavy-gauge steel smoker that he had researched. It looks a bit like an old-fashioned steam locomotive and rides on two wheels. He towed it back to New Jersey and was soon selling smoked meats at New Jersey farmers’ markets and street festivals.

With a combination of savings and backing from an investor, Feldstein, who is married and has two "tweenage" sons, opened Down to the Bone, installing a large, permanent smoker.

Depending on the type of meat, he smokes it "low and slow"—at 225 to 275 degrees for four to 16 hours, after applying his personal four-spice dry rub.

Down to the Bone breaks slightly with tradition. While many pitmasters favor hickory or mesquite, which impart strong wood flavors, Feldstein prefers milder cherrywood, using lighter applewood smoke for delicate fish dishes.

“I want the wood to enhance the flavor of the meat, not mask it,” he explains.

When customers started asking if they could buy his flavor-boosting sauces, he quickly saw a niche and found a way to create what he calls "a small run" of bottled Down to the Bone Mild Madness and Sweet Heat  sauces.

Barbecuing may have appeared effortless to him at the West Coast pitmaster’s class on Texas BBQ in Massachusetts (a rather dizzying tri-state trifecta). But getting a product onto retail shelves is anything but.

Feldstein, who lives in Randolph, says he literally went door-to-door asking stores to try his sauces and convincing them to carry it. Within six months, he says, 80 stores in five different states were carrying Down to the Bone sauces.

"I’m just passionate about selling my product," he says. "I’m high-energy, and I love engaging people."

Feldstein likes to think of every customer as a guest in his home, like part of an extended family.
He wants the atmosphere to be homey and comfortable.

An example of what he calls “barbecue fusion” is his thin-sliced, 12-hour-smoked brisket wrapped around scallops. It takes the flavors to another level.

He serves pulled pork or chicken, fairly traditionally, on a ciabatta roll with coleslaw. Wrapping the meat in an eggroll skin and deep-frying it turns it into a delicacy, especially when you dip the packet in spicy remoulade.

 

SUZANNE ZIMMER LOWERY is a food writer, pastry chef and culinary instructor at a number of New Jersey cooking schools. Find out more about her at suzannelowery.com.

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