Boss Hawg BBQ is, as of now, Sapulpa’s only remaining home-grown BBQ restaurant still standing after a tough few years in the restaurant industry.
If the BBQ Bracket Contest from the Tulsa World is any indication, Boss Hawg has survived on its Texas-style BBQ roots and its strong focus on its meat, rather than its sauce—which is how many other styles of BBQ restaurants prefer to stake their reputation.
“You’ll see that our focus is on the meat, and we want the meat with a natural flavoring from the wood and time on the cooker,” Carson said in a recent Tulsa World feature about Texas-style BBQ. “We want that to be the primary deal. We don’t want a sauce to cover all that hard work, because we’re cooking on a live fire, and it takes hours and hours to do it, and the last thing we want to do is put a sauce.”
Boss Hawg, a family-run enterprise by Joel Carson, his wife Ronda, and their son, Drew—is moving up the ranks in the Tulsa World’s BBQ Bracket Contest, now one of the 16 winners sitting in the second round from the original 32 contestants.
In the first round, Boss Hawg beat a popular Route 66 BBQ stop called Butcher’s BBQ Stand in Wellston, Oklahoma. In the second round, Boss Hawg is currently up against Stutts House of Barbeque, a North Tulsa restaurant known for its soul food spin on Oklahoma barbecue.
Stutts is proving a formidable opponent, having beaten the longtime fan-favorite, Billy Ray’s Catfish and BBQ—coincidentally, another popular Route 66 stop. Boss Hawg, which made the decision in February of this year to drop their menu prices by as much as 20% in order to help make it easier for families to go out to eat, might be hoping their good karma will come back to help them with this contest, which solely relies on the votes of the people.
Voting in the second round is going on now through August 13th. See the standings and cast your vote at tulsaworld.com.
