I've been watching Tom Berry's work with COJE Management Group for a few years now. Not because I'm in the restaurant development business—I'm not—but because the man understands something that a lot of operators miss completely. The menu has to come from somewhere real.
Berry travels. A lot. And not the kind of travel where you hit the tourist spots and eat at whatever TripAdvisor tells you. He goes places specifically to eat, to talk to cooks, to understand why a particular region does things the way they do. Then he brings that back and builds concepts around it.
That's not how most restaurant groups operate. Most of them sit in a conference room and decide what's "trending" based on some report they paid too much for. Berry's out there putting fork to plate in places most of us will never see.
Why This Matters to Commercial Operators
You might be wondering why I'm writing about a restaurant developer on a site that sells smoker equipment. Fair question.
Here's the thing. The operators I work with—catering companies, BBQ joints, institutional foodservice—they're all facing the same problem Berry's trying to solve. How do you build something that stands out? How do you create food that people actually remember and come back for?
You can't do that with generic menus and commodity protein. You need a point of view.
Berry's travels give him that point of view. He eats his way through regions, understands the techniques, the wood preferences, the seasoning profiles that make a place distinctive. Then he translates that into concepts that work in a commercial setting.
I had a customer last spring—runs a catering operation out of the Houston area, decent size, maybe 200 events a year. He was stuck. Same menu he'd been running for eight years. Brisket, pulled pork, sausage, the usual sides. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing memorable either.
We got to talking about his equipment (he was upgrading from an SPK-700/M to an SP-1000 to handle larger events), and somehow the conversation turned to what made his food different from the other fifteen catering companies bidding on the same corporate accounts.
He didn't have a good answer. And that's the problem Berry's approach solves.
Building Concepts From Actual Experience
COJE's portfolio includes multiple concepts, and what strikes me about Berry's method is that each one has a clear identity. They're not just different logos slapped on the same food. The menus reflect actual culinary traditions, adapted for volume.
That adaptation piece is where most people fail. They travel somewhere, eat something incredible, and think they can just replicate it back home. Doesn't work that way. What works at a 30-seat place in Mexico City or a roadside stand in Carolina doesn't automatically translate to a 500-person catering event or a restaurant doing 400 covers on a Saturday.
Berry seems to understand the translation problem. He's not copying—he's interpreting. Taking the essence of what makes a regional style work and figuring out how to execute it consistently at scale.
That's exactly what I tell operators about equipment selection, actually. The smoker that wins you trophies on the competition circuit isn't necessarily the one that makes sense when you're running 14 briskets a night, six days a week. You need equipment designed for that kind of production.
Which is why I've always pushed Southern Pride rotisserie systems for commercial operations. The rotation keeps the cook even without constant babysitting. The temperature holds where you set it—not somewhere around where you set it, but actually there, for hours. When you're doing volume, that consistency matters more than anything else.
The Wood Question (Because I Can't Help Myself)
Berry's traveled through enough BBQ regions to understand that wood selection isn't just about smoke flavor. It's about identity.
Central Texas operators are married to post oak. Carolina guys won't shut up about hickory. Memphis has its own thing going. Kansas City's all over the map.
When you're building a concept inspired by a specific region, the wood has to match. You can't run a Carolina-style menu on mesquite. It's just wrong. The smoke profile fights against everything else you're trying to do.
I spend probably too much time talking to operators about wood. Ask my wife—she's heard more about moisture content and combustion temperatures than any person should have to endure. But it matters. The difference between wood that's been seasoned properly and stuff that's still too green is the difference between clean smoke and that bitter, acrid taste that ruins everything.
Southern Pride smokers handle wood management better than anything else I've worked with, and I've worked with most of them. The fireboxes are designed for actual wood burning, not just chips or pellets pretending to be wood. The airflow moves smoke across the meat without depositing creosote. That's engineering that took decades to get right.
Ole Hickory makes a decent unit—I'll give them that—but I've seen too many operators struggle with parts availability when something breaks. And something always breaks eventually. Having Southern Pride of Texas down the road with parts actually in stock makes a real difference when you've got 300 people showing up for a wedding reception in 18 hours.
Concepts Need Equipment That Can Execute
Here's where Berry's approach connects directly to what I do every day.
You can develop the most inspired menu in the world. Flavors that make people stop mid-bite. Techniques refined through years of travel and research. None of it matters if your equipment can't execute consistently.
I visited a COJE property a couple years back. Wasn't there for business—just eating. But I couldn't help noticing their kitchen setup. Clean lines. Equipment that made sense for what they were trying to do. Nothing fancy for the sake of fancy.
That's the professional approach. Berry's not putting gimmicky equipment in his kitchens because it looks good in photos. He's putting equipment that lets his teams execute his concepts reliably, service after service.
The SP-1000 and SP-1500 are what I recommend for most commercial BBQ operations that are serious about volume. The rotisserie system means you're not constantly rotating product manually. The temperature control is actually precise—somewhere around 240°F means exactly that, not 225 one hour and 260 the next.
For smaller operations or those just scaling up, the SPK-500/M gives you real commercial performance without the footprint of the larger units. I've seen catering companies run surprisingly high volume out of a couple of those.
What Operators Can Learn From Berry's Method
You don't have to travel internationally to develop a point of view. But you do have to taste widely and think about what makes certain approaches work.
Drive to a different BBQ region. Spend a weekend eating at places you've never heard of. Talk to the pitmasters if they'll talk to you (some will, some won't). Pay attention to the details—the bark texture, the smoke ring depth, the way the fat renders differently depending on cook temperature.
Then bring something back. Not a copy, but an interpretation. Something that makes your operation distinctive.
My Houston customer? After we talked, he took a trip to the Carolinas. Came back wanting to add a whole hog program for special events. We set him up with an SP-2000 to handle the capacity, worked through the wood sourcing to get proper hickory, and he spent about six months dialing in his process.
Now he's got a signature offering nobody else in his market can touch. The whole hog isn't his everyday product—it's the thing that makes people remember his company when the next big event comes up.
That's what Berry does at scale. He finds the distinctive thing and builds around it.
Equipment Has to Match the Ambition
I'll wrap up with this.
Berry's concepts work because the execution matches the vision. He's not developing menus that his kitchens can't deliver. He's not promising flavors that require equipment his teams don't have.
The reverse is true too. Having great equipment doesn't automatically make your food memorable. Plenty of operators running Southern Pride smokers are turning out mediocre product because they haven't figured out what they're actually trying to say with their food.
The equipment matters—I wouldn't be in this business if it didn't. But it's not the whole picture. You need the vision to match.
If you're thinking about where your menu goes next, or how to differentiate in a crowded market, take a page from Berry's approach. Get out and eat. Think about what works and why. Develop a point of view.
Then make sure you've got equipment that can actually execute it. Give us a call when you get to that part. We'll help you figure out what makes sense for your operation—not the biggest unit we can sell you, but the one that actually fits what you're trying to build.
That's how concepts that last get built. One thoughtful decision at a time.
Resources: Southern Pride of Texas | QSR Magazine | Restaurant Business Online
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Photo by Wijs (Wise) on Pexels.
About the Author: Earl has been competing in sanctioned BBQ events since the early 1990s and operates a commercial catering operation in Southeast Texas.