Wednesday, October 7, 2026
The sweet, smoky scent of barbecue drifted across Eisenhower Park from June 13 to 15 as grill masters from across the country gathered for the National BBQ Festival, turning the East Meadow into a sizzling celebration of food, flavor and family fun.
Visitors flocked to the three-day event, which featured professional pitmasters competing in rib, brisket, pulled pork and chicken categories.
The festival grounds were lined with food vendors serving up everything from Kansas City-style ribs to Carolina pulled pork, while live country music, cooking demos, and eating contests kept the crowds entertained. Local artisans and crafters also set up shop, and families enjoyed a dedicated kids’ zone complete with face painting, games, and inflatable rides.
The event marked one of the largest BBQ festivals to date on Long Island, drawing both competitive teams and hungry guests from far beyond Nassau County.
Kell Phelps started the festival with his parents in Douglas, Georgia in the early 2000s. This was its first year back after a 15-year hiatus, and the first time the event was held on Long Island. Pitmasters came from all over the country to compete.
“We wanted to bring it to some place that it could really grow and host what that event could grow into,” Phelps said. “So, my town of 10,000, sometimes we’d bring 50,000 on a weekend and it would just gridlock the town.”
Brand Identity PR, the marketing team that urged Phelps to restart the festival, and they settled on bringing it to Long Island, seeking cooler temperatures for visitors and competitors.
“(Nassau) County has been so good,” Phelps said. “Any request that’s made, they’re (extremely helpful). So the combination of community and teamwork is what it’s all about and this crew has stepped up way above.”
The crew is made up of both volunteers and paid workers. Most are local to Long Island.
To enter the contest, all a pitmaster had to do is pay the entry fee and fill out the form. A health department license for public distribution was required this year, but an easier one or none will be required next year, now that the department knows how it works.
Terrelle Beverly of Chef Rell’s Place in Baltimore, Maryland competed on Saturday. His grandmother taught him how to cook when he was a small child. He learned barbecue through trial and error in his own backyard.
“I love the smoke taste,” Beverly said. “All the time that goes into it — I just love the end results of something, of the meat being very good, the smoke flavor, the appearance of the product as well.”
He’s been barbecuing for 15 years, and started cooking professionally five years ago. “This is all I do,” Beverly said. “I barbecue.”
Another contestant was Wild Fork pitmaster Shane Jacobs. Wild Fork is a local frozen meat source in the Franklin Square-West Hempstead area.
“The main inspiration for my cooking is just to constantly find that right balance with flavors, whether it’s for seasonings, the way it’s cooked,” Jacobs said. “Just trying to find that right way to do things.”
As a full-time detective, Jacobs was inspired to start barbecuing when his NYPD football team visited Texas six years ago, and tried an assortment of barbecue food. He’s been barbecuing since then.
“That’s where it all started,” Jacobs said. “Going down to Texas and bringing all the flavors up here to New York.”
Jacobs finally found his passion as backyard pitmaster. “There’s nothing bad about barbecue,” Jacobs said. “There is a lot of creativity, how you can make something taste so many different ways - sweet, spicy, there’s just so many options.”
To judge the food that the pitmasters compete with, a person has to take a judge certification class. Completing the class doesn’t just qualify them for this festival, but for any of the hundreds of competitions that the state cook-off association participates in.
The BBQ Pit Boys were also there, though they didn’t compete. They presented their food at the Live Fire tents. They have 15,000 chapters across 100 countries, with over 5.5 million online followers. The organization is run by Bob Ahlgren from Middlefield, Connecticut.
“I’ve been doing it all my life, since I was a little Cub Scout,” Ahlgren said. “Cooking outdoors, there’s nothing like it, the smell of smoke, the aroma. That’s what keeps us going.”
Phelps shared the sentiments that all the pitmasters and presenters express that day. “We want to share what true real deal barbecue’s about,” Phelps said. “But it’s really a community, family-oriented type of event. That’s really what we want to share. That family deal that the barbecue community has in it. It’s like a big family to us. To share that family with as many people as we can here in the county.”
