Holy Smokes News #2

Greetings from Holy Smokes BBQ!

We truly hope the last month has treated you well. A lot has happened in our world. Those of you who received our newsletter last month probably detected a hint of urgency to our need. Well, through a lot of prayer and a lot of hard work, we have seen an increase in our business. We are very excited about where we are headed. I wouldn’t say that we are all set at this point, but we seem to be making progress.

It seems that at least one person has nominated us for Best BBQ in Gwinnett in the “Best of Gwinnett” survey in Gwinnett magazine. Please take the time to place your vote for us as well. Through your continued help and support, we hope to build something that our friends, family, and community can enjoy for years to come. You can link to the survey from our website.

We have started a direct mail and internet promotion campaign. If you live in the Dacula Hamilton Mill area, you may have seen our coupon in the blue Valpak envelope you receive. For those of you who are outside of that mailing area, you can get coupons from both Valpak.com and Google.com by clicking the links on our webpage at http://www.holysmokes-bbq.com/. Be on the lookout for more coupons both in the mail and on our website. Be sure to check back often. The website is getting updates on a weekly basis. FYI… if you did get the Valpak coupon, please note that our restaurant hours were printed incorrectly. We are actually open from 11AM-8:30PM Monday through Thursday and 11AM-9PM on Friday and Saturday.

In other news, we successfully completed our largest catering event ever in July. We fed almost 1000 kids per day for 4 days in a row. We served meals ranging from our traditional barbecue to Mexican and Italian food and received rave reviews from likely the pickiest group of people we ever serve… teenagers! The first day was most amazing. We fed approximately 850 students in about 30 minutes. Those of you interested in catering, remember that we serve barbecue in our restaurant, but Kenny is a very talented chef and is capable of serving many other meals maintaining the same commitment to high quality food that we have in our restaurant. As a reminder, we can cater for any size event. You can download our catering menu from the website to get some ideas.

In the midst of the major catering we did last month, I received a call from Anna Ferguson at the Gwinnett Daily Post asking if she could write an article about our restaurant. She wrote a great article that ran last week. It was very exciting and has given us an opportunity to meet a lot more people at our restaurant. You can access the online version of the article from our website.

As you visit our website, you may also notice that we have made some major modifications. We now have an online version of our menus along with downloadable PDF versions. This past week we rolled out a feedback module called “Whadaya think?”, allowing you to send us a message right from our website. Mat has also linked to his blog where he hopes to share what he calls “intemperate” thoughts on faith, family, and career. Check there often to see the most up-to-date information on what is going on with Holy Smokes. Mat also welcomes your comments on what he is writing about. In the next few weeks look for new pages sharing our story and what our customers and clients are saying. Check it out at http://www.holysmokes-bbq.com/.

That is all of the news we have for now. Thanks again for your continued support. We look forward to serving you very soon.

Mat, Kenny, and Brian