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Small-town Oelwein caterer takes big win on Netflix’s ‘Barbecue Showdown’
Oelwein smoker keeps community first, no matter how popular he gets
Jul. 14, 2023 6:00 am, Updated: Jul. 17, 2023 11:39 am
OELWEIN — For most barbecue enthusiasts, the refrigerator is where you store the meat. For Thyron Mathews, it was where he learned how to cook it.
As old household refrigerators, clothes dryers and scrapped appliances were brought out for contestants to use to smoke their pork on season 2 of “Barbecue Showdown” on Netflix, most contestants faced a daunting new challenge. But for Oelwein barbecue guru Mathews, the shenanigan was old hat.
Growing up, his first time making barbecue was on a refrigerator gutted and repurposed to smoke meat, with wood and coals underneath a suspended metal rack.
In the small community of Royal, one of Florida’s oldest African American communities about 60 miles northwest of Orlando, his family immersed him in barbecue methods that made feasts out of every part of the hog — head to toe.
To them, it was passing on a heritage of survival. To contestants on “Barbecue Showdown,” it was a test of advanced skills
“Doing that, I didn’t think I was learning anything,” said Mathews, 44. “It was just something you did. It was something that was just a part of life.”
Conquering the fifth episode’s challenge earned him his second win in season 2, aired May 26, before he went on to earn three more challenges. After winning challenges and surviving eliminations in eight episodes, he was named champion — a title that comes with a brand-new smoker and a $50,000 cash prize.
Despite catapulting the small town caterer’s name recognition nationally, the owner of T & T BBQ and Catering of Oelwein has no plans to leave the Eastern Iowa communities that have been integral to his business model for 21 years.
How it started
Eastern Iowa first got a taste of Mathews’ family recipes in the late 1990s, when the left tackle came to Fayette to play football and earn a bachelor’s degree at Upper Iowa University.
With him unable to go home for many holidays, it wasn’t long before his team and classmates got a taste of the barbecue craft well-honed by the time he was a young adult.
“Pretty soon, I was one of the guys they called to cook the food at the cookout,” Mathews said.
What continued as a passion to help the community — putting his talents to use for fundraisers, benefits for cancer patients and supporting first responders — soon became a lifestyle with the right underpinnings for a business.
“I was just doing it for the community — I was the guy with a big heart, cooking long hours free of charge because I enjoyed barbecue so much,” Mathews said. “But it became a different kind of smoking addiction.”
Hickory smoke, that is.
After college, the hobby for which he requested reimbursement only for costs from friends became a full-fledged business.
In 2002, he started T & T BBQ and Catering while working his first job at the Fayette County Jail, where he still serves as jail administrator. Since then, he’s been hopping out of his day job’s uniform and into his mobile catering operation, where he works enough hours to qualify as a second full-time job throughout the week.
After T & T BBQ started winning food competitions in 2009, the business continued to see substantial growth. But even with his latest win, he plans to keep the business small enough to remain managed by his family.
His style of barbecue
Combining a profile that slices through the country’s major barbecue styles, the Florida native has transformed his southern upbringing into a style he brands as uniquely Iowan, both in taste and in spirit.
With a crusty, Texas-style bark, sweet Kansas City-style sauce and a dry Memphis-style rub, it’s more than just the smoke. Growing up with humble means, Mathews’ mother knew the secret was in the art of finessing every ingredient, no matter how inexpensive.
“It’s not the smoker, it’s the person behind the smoker,” Mathews said.
In treating smoke as much of an ingredient as any of the other high-quality cuts sourced locally, Mathews’ meats have managed to win over barbecue connoisseurs as well as convert non-believers.
“One thing shouldn’t overpower another thing. I try to have balance,” Mathews explained. “You get a Fourth of July in your mouth, hitting taste buds you never thought you had.”
On the show
Time after time, his style won over judges in the second, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth episodes of “Barbecue Showdown, — dominating more than half the season’s challenges.
“Thyron knows barbecue. It’s in his bloodline. It’s deeply rooted in his family lineage,” said Daniel G. Calin, executive producer of the show. “The guy had a drive, passion and ability to overcome obstacles in a tremendous way.”
This season, filmed in Covington, Ga., introduced The Trench — an open fire playground that forces competitors to conquer an untamed fire in the elements. Even for someone used to jury-rigged smokers, it was a force to be reckoned with.
What this win means
No matter the titles he stacks up, the pitmaster says changing someone’s mindset on barbecue with his own rubs, mops and seasonings means more than any trophy.
“It means so much to me to give them that quality of barbecue, because that’s my family heritage,” he said.
With long filming days over the course of February 2022, telling his family’s story was what inspired him to press on, squeaking by even if he couldn’t eek out a challenge win.
“It means to me that … my kids can go back and see some roots — something that I can’t do,” he said. “The more I go on, the more I can tell my family’s story. They didn’t get their due diligence because of what was going on in the South.”
It’s a story that’s been passed through generations from one meal to another. Now, the story’s latest chapter on a big platform begets many more chapters for the small-town operation.
Comments: (319) 398-8340; elijah.decious@thegazette.com
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