Sometimes, when you’re looking for opportunity, it can be found right under your nose.
Take barbecue, for instance. Everyone talks about Texas’ love of it, and more than a few can rattle off the names of places where you’ll find some of the best brisket and sausage in the world. This is, after all, ground zero for the good stuff.
But the goodness of that meat can sometimes obscure what it is that makes Texas barbecue so very special.
Enter Javier Sanchez of Smithville. As a young man, Sanchez was searching for a career and success. He used to be a little embarrassed to tell folks what he did for a living – working with his dad, selling firewood. But a shift in perspective led Sanchez to finding the secret of success he’d been yearning for.
Daniel Vaughn, barbecue editor over at Texas Monthly, joined the Standard with the story. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited for clarity:
Texas Standard: So tell us a little bit about Javier Sanchez and his search for success. He was looking for a career in some kind of high-charged field and someone said, “hey, man. Think about what it is you’re doing.”
Daniel Vaughn: I mean, I think he was really looking for a career in anything but following in his dad’s footsteps as a firewood salesman. He didn’t see the job as all that important. He really was embarrassed by it until he really saw what his fuel did for Texas barbecue.
Texas Standard: So what he was doing up to that point was he was shipping out firewood to some of these barbecue joints, I guess. But what he didn’t realize was that some of these places were among the best barbecue icons in the country.
Vaughn: Yeah, well, I mean, the way his dad ran the business was to basically chop up the firewood and give it to the folks who would sell it directly to the barbecue joints. What Javier said was, “Why don’t I go out and see if I can find some of these clients on my own?”
And that’s when he convinced Aaron Franklin of Franklin Barbecue to start buying his wood, which led to Terry Blacks and Louie Mueller, 2M Smokehouse down in San Antonio, Truth Barbeque in Houston… I mean, celebrities here.
Texas Standard: I mean, they’re real celebrities.
Vaughn: I mean, he is the wood supplier to the literal stars. Three of the four barbecue joints in Texas that received Michelin stars use Chief Firewood: InterStellar BBQ, LeRoy and Lewis, and la Barbecue there in Austin.
Texas Standard: But it seems like he sort of ramped it up just a bit, too. I mean, he sort of saw some potential here in kind of owning a brand of his own as the supplier to the stars, if you will.
Vaughn: Yeah, he completely reshaped the business. It was one that was just on word of mouth.
And a few years ago, he realized he really needed to capitalize on these relationships that he had and in the names that he was supplying and, you know, started a YouTube channel highlighting these different restaurants, got an actual logo and a website put together… Really just changed up the look of Chief Firewood completely. And in doing so, really brought it out to the forefront.
Texas Standard: Chief Firewood is the name of the business. He came up with that brand and the logo and this YouTube channel and everything and a kind of an identity online as well. But I’m curious, though, there must be something good with that wood. What is he using?
Vaughn: Well, he uses well-seasoned post oak wood. And so he’s getting most of the post oak right there in the area, he says, within about a 40-mile radius of Smithville.
And, you know, he’s seasoning that well, meaning he lets it dry out to a point where it’s perfect for burning – perfect for burning in the firebox of an offset smoker. And so, you know, the fact that he actually takes the care to have the patience to make sure that that wood is perfect for burning before it goes to the customer…
And then his delivery system is really unique as well. He doesn’t just truck it in a big pile. He builds these cages that have a half a quarter wood in each of them and really just drops the cages off – the full ones – and picks up the empty ones and takes them back to fill them up back at the firewood headquarters.
Texas Standard: You know, help me with this, because I remember reading somewhere, maybe ten years ago, that there was a real big decline of post oak trees in Texas.
Vaughn: Yeah, I mean, the post oak tree has really suffered from the drought situation in Texas. And in doing so, you know, these trees, the root systems would decline to the point where you have these standing dead trees. So they were – the trees, themselves – were dead. The root system was dying, but they were still standing.
And now for at least ten years, that’s really what Chief Firewood was going out there and harvesting – those standing dead trees. The population of those are starting to decline. So there’s still plenty of land being cleared, though, by lots of developers in the area and ranchers and farmers. And that’s where they get most of their supply now.
Texas Standard: Seems like there’s a lesson here somewhere because, you know, he didn’t want to do this for starters – he didn’t want to be known as a cedar chop or something. But then he found success and ability to work with his family, building out a business of his own. What’s the moral of this story, do you think?
Vaughn: Well, I think the moral is, you know, he took the time away from the family business, but it was that time away that made him realize the potential of it. And, you know, how hard his dad had worked to build up the business as it had been.
And I think that time away allowed him to have some perspective and really see that potential.
