Thanks for visiting Trey’s Chow Down Brands. If this is your first visit, you’re in a for a treat. If you love food and travel, then you’re going to love what we have in store for you to enjoy in 2024.
This article DOES NOT contain Trey’s BEST BBQ picks! Trey’s separateBEST of the BEST in the USA articles for BURGERS, BBQ, BAGELS, DONUTS, HOTELS and RESORTS will be released throughout the calendar year in 2024. Stay tuned and follow us for these enlightening and informational articles. Thank you! – TREY
I hope everyone had a fantastic 2023 and has great plans to rock the new year in 2024. We had an amazing year at Trey’s Chow Down Brands. Thanks to all of our followers, friends, and national media network partners we reached over 100 million food, drink and travel-loving fans. We’re continuing our hunt for the BEST of the BEST so we can tell the world where to find the most creative chefs, delicious eats, tasty sweet treats, unbelievable bakeries, and unique restaurants everyone can enjoy. As we travel the USA, we’re also looking for the best hotels and resorts for our friends and followers to enjoy. We do it all, and we do it for you!
Hello, and THANK YOU so much for reading our Best Barbecue article for 2020. This year we’re very proud to release our Best Barbecue for 2020 on the Fox Network GOOD DAY Fox 4 show. Last year our 2019 BEST Barbecue in North Texas on ABC was extremely successful! In just over fifteen months we reached 1.2 million barbecue and food lovers. I hope you will visit some, if not all, of this year’s winners and reshare our article with your friends and family to help support local barbecue, pitmasters and deliciousness.
Below at the end of the blog we created a full list of this years winners. You may screen shot from your phone or print it off and plan your BBQ adventures of 2021. By saving our list you will have instance reference for your barbecue cravings.
WOW!What a year 2020 was for the restaurant, barbecue, and culinary world. In my five decades in the restaurant business, I’ve seen disasters of all types and nothing comes close to the devastating effect COVID-19 has had on our economy. Restaurants, pitmasters, chefs, and restauranteurs had to make big changes if they wanted to survive the pandemic. Nationwide we lost over 251,000 restaurants forever and 2.5 million restaurant jobs at the latest estimate. The good thing is that NOW we are on the mend and the Texas economy is in full giddy-up mode!
Wow, what a year 2020 was for the restaurant and service industry, and not in a good way. Thank goodness it’s over and we can move on down the road.
If you follow me then you know I’m extremely passionate about food, drink, creative chefs, awesome service folks, and the restaurants and grub pubs that host us. Last July I started pondering on what I could do to help support local restaurants, chefs, and the service industry. Something that was different, exciting and fun! I wanted to create something special that hadn’t been tried before. After tossing a few ideas around, the big light in the oven came on, and there it was, swirling around in my brain like berries in a blender. A fantastic and outrageous idea!
I created an outrageous, Texas-sized over-the-top menu full of unique, creative, colorful, delicious, and some massive dishes. These dishes would have to be Chef-driven, very large, creative, and delicious. A few are just simply unique but also delicious. True foodies and couples will love these dishes. They can be shared, used as food challenges, or just eaten because you love food. Whatever the reason, this menu sparks your foodie senses and will make you want to take a trip straight to Delicious-Ville. #Deliciousville
I got together with ten North Texas chefs to discuss my ideas, and some of those chefs even created new and special dishes just for the new Trey’s Chow Down Menu. I also located dishes that had already been created but would fit with the new menu. We have everything from breakfast to dinner; Burgers, BBQ, Seafood, Steaks, and more!
I made trips all over North Texas and tried every single dish myself. I watched the dishes being created and then I chowed down like a pig at the trough. What I ended up with was some unbelievably amazing dishes that are not only delicious and creative, but they are memorable as well. Dishes you can’t and won’t forget!
When you see these dishes, they are visually R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S! Every single person will say something like, “OMG, WTH Is That!” Believe me – I know because that’s all I’ve heard for the last eight months while working on this new menu.
If you follow me on social media, or you’re one of the millions of foodies we reach each year then you’re aware I’m always on the hunt for the next new and creative concept. In the last three months of the pandemic crisis, it’s made it impossible for new restaurants to open. We’ve had a large number of them close, and sadly, more will follow.
When I got an email about a new restaurant opening its doors during the COVID-19 crisis my immediate thought response was, NO WAY... This has to be wrong? A new restaurant with an opening date?
Nope, I stand corrected!
When I found out it was a Phil Romano concept I was truly excited that a restaurant wanted to open and share a new concept with North Texans during a crisis.
Phil Romano is passionate about the restaurant business. If he decides to open a new concept, then you better believe it’s going to be fun and exciting.
It was opening in one of my favorite destination spots in North Texas for dining, drinking, socializing, and sweet treats. Yep, Trinity Groves in Dallas, Texas!
Trey’s Chow Down BEST Burgers 2019 Party on ABC in Dallas with Kara Swell from WFAA Victor Plaza.
Wow. I’m in disbelief that 2019 has already come and gone? Where did it go? It seems like it was just yesterday we completed and introduced our BEST Burgers in North Texas for 2018.
2019 was a BIG burger year in North Texas. We had some old restaurants close and a bunch of new ones open. Almost all of them sell some sort of burger.
The burger business is crazy in the U.S.A.
A national research company states that we sell 6.48 million burgers a day around 75 burgers a second! What? Yes, 75 burgers a second! The burger date roughly breaks down as 4,500 burgers every minute, 270,000 every hour, 6.48 million a day, and 2.36 billion burgers a year. Another research study states we sell 50 billion a year worldwide.
I truly don’t care what the accurate numbers are. I just know that almost everyone loves to bite into a succulent, savory and delicious burger.
Even though another year has come and gone, we spent twelve months locating and chowing down on some of the most amazingly creative burger combinations in North Texas.
In 2018, we visited a hundred and twenty restaurants to locate the best burgers. I’m thrilled to say we topped ourselves again for 2019. We didn’t plan it that way… It just happened!
We were running the roads and adding mileage to our vehicles. We visited over 135 locations and chowed down on 200 different burger combinations.
Every time I ate a burger I would say, “On to the next”!
How can you go wrong with any one of those I just listed? When you put them all together you have event party greatness!
I’ve said this every year now for three years, the Chef For Farmers Event in Dallas is one of the BEST events of the year in the crowded DFW event scene.
I truly wish that every single one of the five million people we reach every month could experience this wonderful event in their lifetime. I did see some of our followers there and enjoyed saying hello to each of you.
This year 2019 was the BEST C.F.F. event I’ve ever attended and the BEST event I attended all year.
That’s a BIG statement considering I attended over 55 events in 2019 so far and have a few more to go.
How does this event get better and better every year? Iris Midler has put together an amazing team of event folks and chefs that continue to achieve the impossible.
They strive to create an amazing atmosphere with incredibly talented chefs that come from all over Texas and the nation to sling deliciousness for everyone to enjoy.
C.F.F. doesn’t just want to throw an event, they want to throw Texas’ biggest and most successful party every year. That’s why they have C.F.F. events for three days! You can’t have Texas biggest party event if you just throw it for a one day, period. You have to start on a Thursday and end on a Sunday. Yes, that’s correct. Days of events where you interact with creative and unbelievably talented celebrity chefs, eat some delicious amazing dishes, drink some creative cocktails, and party with your friends.
It just doesn’t get any better. Let’s discuss the weekly events that happened.
Trey’s Chow Down brands is proud to partner with the NEW Blaine Stone Lodge for this exciting premier event in Ellis County on June 15th 2019.
Blaine Stone Lodge is located 30 minutes south of both downtown Dallas and Fort Worth and is the newest catering and events center in Ellis County. The lodge sits on a scenic lake and is surrounded by 1,000 acres of a Texas outdoorsman’s paradise.
AtBlaine Stone Lodge, we are creating North Texas’ premier steak cookoff and Texfest.We’ve partnered with Wagyu Excelente, one of the finest Texas Wagyu beef, to create a fine dining event paired with specialty beers, wines and liquors.
This is a family-friendly event and will feature an off-road race in the morning, classic car and truck show, local and regional culinary delights, as well as several fun activities for adults and kids like a Floating Hole-in-One Competition, Tug-of-War, Cornhole Competition, and Balloon Launch!
A portion of the proceeds from this event will benefit the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation, a Texas-based 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring military and first responder communities by keeping families together.
General Admission tickets (ages 15+) are $59.Ticket includes full day access to all events as well as the chefs, access to side buffet, two (2) drink tickets, and one (1) voting voucher.
Child Admission tickets (ages 6-14) are $39.Ticket includes full day access to all events as well as chefs, and access to side buffet.
One of the beautiful patio areas.
VIP tickets are $99.Ticket includes full day access to all events as well as the chefs, three (3) drink tickets, one (1) voting voucher, guaranteed VIP seating near the entertainment stage, Texas Gulf Shrimp and Wagyu Prime Rib Dinner, and a VIP Goody Bag.
All-Day Premium Bar Pass is $39.Package includes full day access to Texas-centric premium drinks.
Cookoff
All teams must bring everything they need except for meat.
We are inviting twenty (20) of the top Beef Chefs in the DFW area to compete with two (2) cuts of Wagyu Excelente NY strip steaks.Winner gets trophy/bragging rights, Chris Kyle trophy, special chef coat, four (4) night’s stay in a private home in Belize, and other prizes to be determined.
An additional 50-100 teams, including military and first responder teams, will compete in cooking Wagyu Excelente New York strip steaks.Entry fee for teams is $150 and can include up to four (4) people.
The party is waiting for you at Blaine Stone.
Each cookoff team will receive two (2) 14 oz Wagyu New York strip steaks and two (2) hours to cook.Start time is at 11 am with presentation at 2 pm.Teams should bring one (1) hot or cold signature side for guest sampling at their booth.Guests will vote on Best Beef and Best Side.
Quail entry $25 with presentation at 1 pm.
The top fifteen (15) steaks chosen will then get two (2) more steaks to cook at 4 pm, for the Judging Panel, with presentation at 5:45 pm.Teams are encouraged to create a signature side dish to accompany their steaks.
The Judging Panel is comprised of beef professionals, chefs, and celebrity guests, referred by the Steak Cookoff Association (SCA), the sanctioning body that certifies steak cookoffs around the world.
Awards
Cash awards for 1st thru 10th place, along with a prize for 1st and 2nd for Best Beef and Best Side.Top prize is $2,500, the same as the world championship prize!Quail payout – winner takes all.
Entertainment Activities
Clay Shoot
Car & Truck Show
Photo Booth
Meat Market & education
Gun Raffle
Cookoff Team Competition Tug-of-War
Floating Hole-in-One
Corn Hole Tournament
Messina Hof Winery tent with tasting & retail
Food vendors:Texas Quail, Beef Jerky, Texas Cheeses and Charcuterie
We’ve had a large number of them close, and sadly, more will follow.
