Izzy Edelman of Izzy's Smokehouse

izzy thanks so much for joining us it's an honor to have you on thank you for having me i'm really excited to be on and uh yeah looking forward so you know the super bowl is all about champions and great people and in fact one of the players in super bowl is a man named tom brady who's considered to be the goat the greatest of all time my my reports tell me that when it comes to jewish barbecue you're the goat is that your give us a little bit about your barbecue career awards you've won who are we speaking to that from what i understand it's the goat of barbecue um so the first thing i'm going to address that is by i i don't think it's it's fear for anybody to call himself the goat you know i think that's that has to be by other people i i don't think that's my uh priority or concern like you know my priorities to be a better person every day and try to be the best i could be and as long as i'm improving that's my only goal i have and if it happens to be really good food or the best bar you know whatever people think then that's okay but um as far as the achievements which other people consider you successful by i guess that's that's the standard you know we've won um brisket king new york city which is you know we've competed against the best smokehouses in new york um the year before we came runner up we also won rip king in new york um as long as we and we had some you know really cool people uh you know come by here this store we actually got to cook with somebody who name is aaron franklin who who uh the name of his restaurant is called franklin's barbecue the reason why i mentioned this because he has considered when i tell you the goat or the greatest or the rebbe you know he's somebody in austin texas who's who has lines uh starting at six or five a.m in the morning people come from all over the world they wait from five in the morning they wait to eat his food and he's only open for two hours for lunch and um he was one of the judges at uh brisket king new york city when we competed he was sort of in awe that you know someone who hasn't tried ever you know what he's trying to emulate has ever ever tried it and was able to make a product like that was was in shock and and you know he knew that my dream was you know to try his food but not being able to try so we created a whole event you know a friend mia and ari white who's known as the wandering queue was one of my inspirations as well to barbecue uh we flew down to austin we brought some kosher brit brisket over there we cooked down a new smoker and it's one of the most surreal experiences it's almost like when people say they go to um this is my um in a sense i would say so so you know one of the things that is is critical and you know this is a super bowl show but we all know that you know sports is is really a metaphor for life it's not about the ball um whenever you see someone who's achieving life there are there are clues there are reasons there's there's there's principles that are behind the scenes what are some of the ways that you approach barbecue which is enabling you to achieve your success that you think are principles that we can learn from and how to become successful in anything that we're doing in life so i always tell younger people when they ask me you're you know when when i'm when i'm honored enough and ask me for my advice which i tell them is only advice it's not factual people always are very quick to say that you can't do something or it's too hard or it's too too this but at the end of the day you know you have to look at yourself in the mirror every day and and you're you're the one who creates you know your cli you know as you know like you know your job is to make a clean life you know and and obviously and it's your job you know within that to do to do the best you can to achieve what you want and the rest is up to god but if you're not going to go ahead and make that effort and put that effort in you know it's you know like you know i'm sure you heard of the the muscle they say that you know the guy you know the guy goes to the arnold clinic and he begs that he should win you know the ticket he needs to win the lottery and hashem answers eventually like listen you have to buy the ticket in order for you to win right so it's the same thing i think it's about you know putting in hard work you know it's about you know committing yourself i don't think you're owed anything in life you know no one owes you anything people have it way harder than you as bad as you think you have it and you know put you know put in the effort surround yourself with with good people is the second thing i would say you know you are the four or five people you hang around with that's that's who you are that's what you hang around with then right and if those people are good good people or people who you could lock up to or people who could help you in life you know that's going to be a big part of your success but again like don't don't let anybody tell you that you can't do anything you know especially for me you know i had no experience in the food industry before and i honestly had no idea what i'm doing and looking back at what i was doing i didn't think pretty much that was it was insane but i look back at it back then going into industry i don't know anything about the hardest industry pretty much to go into which is food and i'm not going to say that you know i you know we're successful because we're open up first for you know six years almost and i'm no by any means rich but i'm happy to go to work every day and you know you know i say the biggest thing for somebody when they want to either change a career or something is that i look forward to tuesday and wednesday like i do for thomas and sunday and and if you dread going to work on monday or tuesday you're doing something wrong obviously some people have no choice to have a family to support but for me you know i'm very lucky some people got to meet and yeah fortunately talk to me about the detail you know when you look around the champions you know i i spent some time studying people that have achieved success it's a hobby of mine um i always find that they have this incredible ability to stick into the detail that they're they're not gonna you know they're not overseeing they're they're trying to yeah they're trying to get particular and trying to talk to me about that in barbecue in your field that what you do to without having to go into the details of of of the process but how important is it for you that that every detail works yeah so a big reason why that in kosher there haven't been a lot of smokehouses that have been trying to emulate me or i mean tried because just the effort like i could tell you in a very short simple like we have to get in a very high quality expensive p p piece of meat that meat has to be now inspected that meat has to be seasoned that means they go in a smoker now for 18 hours you have a 20 minute window where from after 18 hours to pull it out where it's at that perfect temperature you pull too early it's not good if you pull too late it's dry then that has to go into a warmer in the morning and have to be good for service for dinner then telling us to carve it has to make sure that that piece is good there's so many processes along the way that if you're passionate and you're not meticulous about the process it's going to show on the product versus other industries or other businesses or other foods it's not like that you know mcdonald's is more of an operation which i commend them and i wish i could learn that one day but there's too much meticulous um you know details going on that if you try to skip it it's gonna show out on the product and ultimately you know really just it's about hard work for my team and i and and i'm very fortunate that that family's involved and helps me out it's just a hard process and if you're going to try to do shortcuts people are going to tell that's exactly right that that and and it's exactly right the process the understanding the process and the details of the process is what makes the the people that have been the rebels if you will i think goat rebbe is like our version of the goat what makes people that have achieved success successful is what you just said is the idea that you have to be mindful of the process be detailed and understand that success is particular you got to hit it at the right time and you have to fail and you have to fail a million times you have to fail and learn man i think like like p i think there's also there's a misconception that if you fail in life you know that you're a loser and like ultimately the the greatest people you know uh you know historians in the world or whatever it is like yeah ex how did someone older give you that knowledge that that something was a mistake or something wasn't wrong it's by the mistakes that people made and that's how we learned so the idea is that you want to you know you know over and over and try and make sure it doesn't hurt you too much and you got to learn from that that's it and let me ask you a question what is it do you think about barbecue everyone seems to love barbecue you know you walk into someone's house and someone's like hey let's barbecue i was like that that's amazing like something about the what is it about barbecue that seems to be this great unifier from all types of people you know what it's it's one of the only things in the world i would say that goes back to when you know when man was first created that you know how did the person eat when they first created they made a fire they they grilled some meat that part of you know cooking with fire has gone down from generate you know until now and that hasn't changed and that's just that's something that burns with inside somebody you know so just people you know correspond to that versus other stuff is like new and you know gimmicky and and different and on top of that you know when you when you put in when you see somebody else put in that effort or that passion into something you make these people get excited over it like you know like just even let's say with italian pizza you see somebody making neapolitan pizza in a wood-fired oven they're dough it's like you almost you're getting excited with the person you know what they're doing the process people sort of you know could relate to that yeah i totally hear that now as as the should do give me give me if you can a little bit of the spiritual side of what you do do you have you ever think first i'm not hasidish i'm jewish like everybody else 100 i don't like using that word i'm sorry so let me let me ask the question again uh as as as a jew do you do you have a spiritual version uh let me say it one more time as a jew do you have a spiritual lens on what you're doing well i always say say it as a joke i think it's funny that i happen to be a uh client and i have a smoke house that that i run something that's funny um but i i think if this always resonates with me um this one specifically is that i'm a simple guy and i hustle i'm not really you know i don't learn every day you know she even necessarily wasn't for me i couldn't sit that was too wild to be tamed i wanted to go out i wanted to run around it was it wasn't necessarily for me however i will say that one of the greatest satisfactions that we get here is that when people come to you know to our store right and they tell us that you know you know until you know i've had non-kosher before and huge people and this is literally better than i've had before and the fact that they're now knowing that they could eat a kosher meal instead instead of having them to feel like they have to go betrayed to eat uh you know to fulfill their needs or their you know their cr crate cravings whatever you want to say and the fact that they come here they're able to kosher i feel like you know that's my mission and that's one of the few small things i could do really you know getting getting more people to eat uh kosher food really amazing and not feel like they're lacking anything so as people prepare for the super bowl there'll be those people that are going to barbecue do you have any tips that you can give to i don't know what they can do that's a little bit different this year than they haven't done before um it's a very general term you know you know what people consider barbecue and grilling listen i would say the most i wouldn't say it pertains to any style style food it's like don't get caught up with uh with the anxiety of having to prepare a meet on time i think just making sure that if you're you know should be an enjoying thing you're barbecuing with the family with friends and it shouldn't be very stressful enjoy you know life's too short you know don't go plan for a week and then you know sunday the game comes you're all burnt out and not be able to enjoy yourself just whatever you do make it simple make sure you're having fun and really that's it as far as what you want to grill and it's really you know whatever you you know it's all up to you really you know whether you want to keep it simple with wings or chicken a little crazy with steak or with a brisket you know smoking 18 hours which i don't know if i recommend you'll be tired when the game starts it's all about enjoying the process because ultimately if you're not going to it's not going to be enjoyable process you're not going to grill again you're not going to barbecue and and you know it's supposed to be one of the things that you enjoy sitting down you know um with a clumsy style you know friends and enjoy if it's not that then um then i don't see what what's the point really do you have any like special like sauces or or uh spices that you know you have in your back pocket that no one knows no we're simple man like our brisket and ribs is uh you know salt pepper and paprika i i don't hide it you know are we you know for for us we let the meat do all the talking in our process and and it's you know i always tell somebody if he likes you know other flavor profiles whether it's you know garlic brown sugar or some other you know crazy chili good for you you know but for us it's all about the meat you know you know that's people also should get caught in the details that i have a crazy secret rub then today it's the process it's the high quality meat it's the process that you're doing and all that along the way is much more crucial than what specific spice rub that you think that you have a secret really that's not right no and it's all again it's just that we're we're a simple operation that we just you know it's about you know they always say about you know what makes a player a hall of fame player you know what do they say you know you you could have the greatest player with the most talented player ever but if he can't you know show up to the games because he's injured or anything he's not available you know the whole thing about being hall of fame players about being consistent if you're consistent throughout if you're averagely consistent throughout your career you can make it the same thing with the restaurant with any other business it's like if you're able to be consistent and deliver a good product every day which is a very hard thing to do and you know we don't do it every day we try our best but about being consistent and being able to wake up every day and trying to make a good product you know that that's hard and that's what we try to be consistent amazing how do people find you um you can find us at our website izzy's smokehouse.com we have instagram izzy's bbq if anybody on this chat has any questions they can email me at the izzy izzy smokehouse.com if you're feeding any questions i may not answer right right away but um yeah we're all over social media instagram facebook our website you know call the store we're actually opening up a location right to shem in the next few weeks the upper west side as well awesome so we're excited for that and yeah okay izzy thanks for being part of us we appreciate being on the show continue doing what you're doing and continue shining your light on this world man thank you for having me i really appreciate it have a great day and awesome shop us on a great super bowl sunday thank you thanks so much for watching for more content like and subscribe and be sure to tune in live every thursday at 8pm eastern at the shabbato.com or right here on youtube