I’ve come to love and appreciate good barbeque. I love to cook and have always loved grilling outdoors (who doesn’t), but in the last few years I started learning about what “real barbeque” was. What I’ve found is that there’s a huge community of people like me who love it, are passionate about it and some that even make a living from it – be it restaurants, supplies, or just selling BBQ on the side of the road.
I’ve played around with the idea of starting a side business revolving around barbeque and grilling. Why not – It’s something I do and enjoy. Plus, the popularity of grilling and barbeque has exploded in this country in the last few years (go and check out the cooking rockstars on TLC’s BBQ Pitmasters).
I played around with names for a while. I’m always thinking five steps ahead (a reason why I kill most of my ideas, I over-think!) and I thought a name should sound just as good on a product as it would on a competition BBQ team. My son and I came up with the name “Smokin’ Cats Barbeque”. It’s got the good keywords like “smoke” and “barbeque”, plus it sounds cool.
The Smokin' Cat, circa 2007
Smokin' Cat, 2009
Smokin' Cat, Hand-lettered script, January 2010
The first order of business was the logo. I’d been sketching out some hand-drawn script logos for some time, accompanied by a cartoon of a “smoking cat”, smoking a large cigar (I came up with the cat cartoon years ago, and I often sketch him when I’m bored or just looking for something to doodle. I’m not sure if he’ll be part of the final concept.) The logo you see was a script font that I modified in Illustrator. It was a ‘happy accident’ – I stumbled across this script font last night, and it clicked. It was the hand-lettered look I was striving for. Once I set the type, I went and modified it, giving it a more organic look, then played with the other type treatments and color. I only spent an hour total on the the development. Usually, when I knock something out like this, I walk away from it to see if I still like it the next morning. This time, I still did.
Next, I registered the domains smokincatsbbq.com and smokincatsbarbeque.com. My initial plan is to start with a blog and see where it goes. I have enough content, and with the warm weather coming, I’ll have plenty to grill and write about. I’ll share recipes, photos and links and reviews of BBQ supplies (rubs, grills, injectors, etc.). Plus, nothing lights a fire under me knowing that i have a live domain out there, sitting empty and not generating revenue.
I’ll be spending some free time building out the new blog and posting. There probably won’t be any more outdoor cooking-related posts on here. After that, I’ll be researching some product ideas…but I don’t want to go overboard and suck the joy out of my hobby.
See you in the backyard. I’ll save a cold one for you.
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