Had a conversation last month with a regional ops director for a 47-location barbecue chain out of the Dallas area. Good operation. They'd been running a mix of equipment across their units — some Southern Pride SP-1000s, some imported rotisserie units they'd picked up when they expanded fast in 2022, a handful of older cabinet smokers from a competitor I won't name here.
He wasn't calling about buying new equipment. He was calling because he couldn't find parts for three of his units. The imported smokers? Nobody stateside stocks the ignition assemblies. The competitor cabinets? Manufacturer changed ownership twice since he bought them, and the new parent company takes six weeks to ship a thermocouple.
Meanwhile, his SP-1000s just keep running.
That's not a sales pitch. That's the story I'm hearing from chain operators everywhere right now.
The Pressure Points Hitting Multi-Unit Operators in 2026
I've been doing this for 30 years. Ran competition circuits when KCBS was still figuring itself out. Built a 12-unit catering operation that's survived two recessions and whatever you want to call what happened in 2020. And I've never seen chain operators under this much simultaneous pressure from this many directions.
Let me walk through what I'm actually hearing from the folks running 10, 20, 50-plus locations.
Labor Costs Aren't Just Rising — They're Restructuring Operations
Everyone knows wages are up. That's not news. What's different now is how it's changing the equipment conversation.
Used to be, you could justify finicky equipment if you had experienced pit masters at every location. Guy knows how to nurse an inconsistent smoker, adjust for hot spots, work around a temperamental burner. But those guys cost real money now. And there aren't enough of them anyway.
So chain operators are looking at their equipment differently. They need smokers that a trained employee — not necessarily a 20-year pit veteran — can run consistently. That means equipment that holds temp without babysitting. That means rotisserie systems that don't require constant adjustment. That means controls that actually work the way they're supposed to work.
I talked to a guy running a small chain out of Houston back in February. He'd been using some lower-cost cabinet smokers — the kind that look fine on paper but swing 40 degrees when the weather changes. His solution had been to staff an extra person per shift just to monitor the smokers. Do the math on that across 11 locations. He finally switched to Southern Pride SC-300 units last fall. Cut that extra position. Equipment paid for itself in eight months.
Supply Chain Is Better Than 2022 — But Parts Availability Still Separates Winners From Losers
The container ship chaos settled down. Raw materials are flowing again. But here's what didn't change: if you're running equipment from overseas manufacturers, or from domestic companies that outsource everything, you're still at the mercy of their supply chain.
Southern Pride builds in Alamo, Tennessee. Has for decades. The parts are stocked domestically. When I need a burner assembly for an SPK-700/M, I can get it shipped from Southern Pride of Texas in days, not weeks. That's not a small thing when you're a chain operator with a unit down during your busy season.
Compare that to what happens with some of the import brands. I've seen operators wait two months for heating elements. Two months. In the restaurant business. That's not a minor inconvenience — that's a location running at half capacity or worse.
Energy Costs Are Forcing Real Equipment Evaluations
Natural gas prices in Texas have been relatively stable, but that's not true everywhere. And electricity costs have operators looking hard at their equipment efficiency.
The thing about cheap smokers — and I mean this in the most direct way possible — is they're usually cheap because they cut corners on insulation and seals. Thinner steel. Gaps that develop over time. All that lost heat is money walking out your exhaust.
I've seen the numbers on Southern Pride's electric SC-100 and SC-300 units compared to competitors. The insulation is genuinely better. The seals hold up longer. Over a five-year span, the energy savings alone can run into thousands of dollars per unit. Multiply that across a chain operation and you're talking about real money.
What I'm Seeing on Service Calls
Run a catering operation and a distribution business, you see equipment from every angle. Selling it, running it, fixing it.
The pattern I keep seeing with chain operators who are struggling: they bought equipment based on initial price. The smoker cost $3,000 less than the Southern Pride equivalent. Looked like a smart decision. Then year two hits. Year three. Thermocouples fail. Rotisserie motors wear out. Burners clog because the design doesn't account for drippings properly.
And suddenly that $3,000 savings looks a lot smaller when you're paying emergency service rates and losing sales while the unit's down.
The operators I see doing well — the ones expanding, the ones with consistent product across locations — they made the equipment investment upfront. They're running SP-1500s or MLR-850s that they bought five, six, seven years ago. Units are still holding temp within a few degrees. Rotisserie systems still running smooth. Steel hasn't warped because it was the right gauge to begin with.
The Maintenance Reality Nobody Wants to Hear
Here's something that frustrates me about how chain operators sometimes think about equipment. They'll spend $80,000 on a smoker setup and then skip basic maintenance because nobody put it on a schedule.
I get it. Operations managers are busy. Location managers have 47 other things to worry about. But a Southern Pride smoker — or any commercial smoker, really — needs regular attention. Burner cleaning. Thermocouple inspection. Rotisserie bearing lubrication. Door seal checks.
The difference is, a well-built smoker rewards that maintenance with another decade of service. A cheap smoker falls apart even with perfect maintenance because the components weren't built to last.
We put together maintenance schedules for every chain operator we work with through Southern Pride of Texas. Not because we're trying to sell more parts — though we do stock everything — but because we'd rather see a unit run 15 years than watch an operator blame the equipment when the real problem was deferred maintenance.
The Consistency Problem Across Locations
This is the one that keeps chain execs up at night. Customer walks into your Dallas location, gets great brisket. Drives to your Austin location next month, gets something different. Maybe not bad. But different.
Some of that's training. Some of that's sourcing. But a lot of it is equipment.
If your Houston location runs a smoker that holds 250°F steady and your San Antonio location runs one that swings between 230 and 270, you're not going to get the same product. Can't happen. The physics don't allow it.
The chains doing this right are standardizing on equipment. Same smoker model at every location. Same cooking protocols. Same maintenance schedules. That's why you see operations running all SP-700/M units or all SPK-1400s — because consistency comes from consistency.
And when something does need service? Every location has the same parts list. Your maintenance team learns one system, not six. Training simplifies. Troubleshooting simplifies. Everything gets a little easier.
Looking at 2026 and Beyond
I don't pretend to know where the economy's headed. Nobody does, whatever they tell you. But I know what I'm seeing in the commercial barbecue space.
Operators who treated equipment as a commodity — buy whatever's cheapest, replace it when it breaks — are getting squeezed. Labor costs don't let you staff around bad equipment anymore. Parts delays turn a minor issue into a major revenue hit. Energy waste adds up.
The operators investing in quality — and maintaining that quality — are the ones expanding. They're the ones whose numbers work. They're the ones calling me to add units, not to complain about downtime.
And look, I sell Southern Pride equipment. I've been running it in my own catering operation for over 20 years. So take this with whatever grain of salt you want. But I've also seen what happens when operators try to save money on the wrong end of the equation. The callbacks. The frustration. The locations that can never quite match the flagship.
If you're running a chain operation and you're feeling the pressure right now — labor, supply chain, energy, consistency — I'd say take a hard look at what's actually in your kitchens. Not just whether it's working today, but whether it's going to keep working. Whether you can get parts when you need them. Whether it's costing you money in ways that don't show up on the purchase order.
That's the conversation I keep having with operators who call us. Most of them already know the answer. They just needed someone to say it out loud.
Resources: Southern Pride of Texas parts and support | Southern Pride | NFPA commercial kitchen standards
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About the Author: Earl has been competing in sanctioned BBQ events since the early 1990s and operates a commercial catering operation in Southeast Texas.