116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Moski’s continues barbecue growth with Cascade restaurant, mobile operations
How a barbecue enthusiast started a destination in northeastern Iowa
Sep. 11, 2024 4:30 am
CASCADE — A barbecue restaurant’s continued growth is giving a new definition to “low and slow.”
What started years ago as a side gig for a barbecue hobbyist has become a full-time endeavor slinging a variety of meats and sides.
“During (the pandemic,) it was almost too easy, because the restaurants were closed,” said owner Brice Morris. “We’d go to towns and sell 200 meals in under two hours.”
Customers today — most of whom hear about Moski’s by word-of-mouth — still line up three days a week from Cedar Rapids, Dubuque and Waterloo for the restaurant off U.S. Highway 151. Now with a brick-and-mortar, a catering trailer and a newly-purchased food truck, the family-run business is as busy as ever.
If you go
What: Moski’s BBQ
Where: 329 First Ave. W, Cascade
Website: moskisbbq.org
Phone: (319) 431-7543
Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.
Details: A streamlined menu serves up pulled pork, brisket, pulled chicken and smoked sausage links alongside a variety of quality sides and banana pudding. Full racks of ribs, bone-in chicken and sliced brisket available after 5 p.m.
How it started
Brice Morris has been perfecting his barbecue craft for more than 20 years, and has been a pitmaster for 16.
But his journey to mastering the heat started with job burnout. The former teacher and coach started with a pit he purchased at a garage sale to cook for fun.
“That’s when I started dabbling, going to Iowa games, tailgating, and people really started liking it,” he said. “I was just throwing stuff together. Then other people started liking it.”
After winning a string of Iowa barbecue competitions, Morris brought home grand champion titles from competitions in Wisconsin and Illinois. The business became official with limited catering offerings around northeastern Iowa to make a little extra money.
Ten years ago, Moski’s acquired its first food trailer to ramp up production. By 2021, Brice’s wife, Shawna, felt comfortable enough leaving her nursing career of 22 years to help with the business.
While she ran daytime operations, Brice traveled around Iowa as a Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever representative. At night, he kept an eye on the barbecue pit.
Before long, he left his longtime position with the conservation organizations to help with the family business growing by leaps and bounds.
After Subway left Cascade’s main street, Moski’s opened its first brick-and-mortar in August 2022. This summer, as the business catered 17 weddings and 52 graduation parties, Moski’s added a food truck to its fleet.
Today, catering and mobile sales account for about 60 percent of its business.
“My business model was to get our customer base set up first,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if I like it — it matters if everybody else likes it.”
Today, each of their three children help out in different ways. Shannon, their oldest daughter and a recent Iowa State University grad, works full time as she serves in the Iowa National Guard. Brock, 18, works behind the scenes to stack wood and haul heavy loads. Beau, 11, can be found collecting cash at the window of their food truck — his favorite task.
The barbecue style
What mattered most to Brice Morris was not perfecting a style he liked, but a style attuned to the community’s taste.
With brisket smoked for about 13 hours over an 80 percent oak and 20 percent hickory wood blend, he lets the smoke talk without letting it domineer.
“I look at the smoke as just being another seasoning,” he said. “We’ve all had barbecue where you take a bite and all you taste is smoke.”
In a style that doesn’t lend itself to the characteristics of any particular region, Morris has come to rely on an array of in-house spices and sauces. His style builds on a heavy hand of salt and pepper, particularly with the bark of his brisket.
Three sauces offer variety with a standard sweet barbecue, sweet honey mustard, and moonshine spice option.
The self-sufficiency in spice and sauce developed as a result of monotony he experienced in the retail spice market.
“It all kind of tasted the same,” he said. So, he made his own.
He considers rest time for meat with as much regard as smoke time. After about 13 hours in his 500-gallon, reverse flow smoker, a brisket rests for about 5 hours.
The reaction to it all is what makes the time well spent, he said.
“The biggest thing that makes me feel good is when I can look out there and see somebody take their first bite, and their face lights up,” Morris said. “I’m not a soft dude, but that hits me. If you’re doing something that brings that much pleasure to someone, that just makes me feel so good.”
The menu
The menu, written on one page of brown paper on the wall, is straightforward. Pick your choice of meat, your side, your drink, and perhaps a little banana pudding for dessert.
Pulled pork, pulled chicken and chopped brisket are available on sandwiches starting at $12. Included are two sides from a list of eight: barbecue beans, smoked macaroni and cheese, baked potato casserole, jalapeno corn, coleslaw, potato salad and a sweet cornbread.
In addition to its top-selling pulled pork and brisket, Moski’s serves a smoked sausage made from scratch — 60 percent beef and 40 percent pork, stuffed with cheese in a natural casing.
Full racks of ribs, bone-in chicken and sliced brisket are available for dinner, starting at 5 p.m.
The restaurant is open until 8 p.m. three nights a week, but don’t get there too late. Ribs and brisket tend to sell out quickly on Friday and Saturday nights.
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.
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