Recognize this food from the central Pa. festival circuit? A physical location, additions are planned

Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts attendees last year may have noticed a new food vendor on the streets of downtown State College. Backwoods Smoke Shack first hit the festival circuit around central Pennsylvania last summer and, after a successful season, the owners are now looking to build a physical location near Raystown Lake, in Hesston.

Brian Patterson runs the operation — which now includes a food truck, catering service and the soon-to-open physical location — along with his family — dad Bud, mom Kristina and wife Kayla. Channeling his lifelong love of cooking, Patterson began smoking meats for family and friends about eight years ago. After realizing he had a knack for the art form, he upgraded his smoker twice, once before attending his first festival in Huntingdon and then a second time around July 4, 2019.

“I really enjoy cooking and seeing people light up when they eat my food. I did almost 30,000 pounds of meat last year on the trailer smoker,” he said. “To be honest, around here, around Huntingdon, I wanted to bring a little diversity and something different to the table. All the commercial barbecue joints are heat-up-in-a-bag stuff. I want fresh, as good as possible barbecue, award-winning.”

Last year, Backwoods Smoke Shack won two fair awards for its barbecue and specifically its brisket, which also happens to be the top seller on the menu.

“You have pizza around here all over the place, and fast food, and people are just sick of it,” Patterson said.

The Patterson family attended between 30 and 40 festivals and fairs last year. This year, they plan to still attend as many as possible while operating the physical location, though they’ll be skipping some of the smaller, one-day events and sticking to some of their more successful outings from last year — such as State College’s Arts Fest, Patterson said.

Catering will also continue after the physical location opens, offering a unique dining option to both weddings and businesses. Originally not a part of Patterson’s business plan, the catering arm of Backwoods Smoke Shack quickly grew in popularity.

“People started asking if we did weddings and we thought about it a little bit and thought, Why not? We probably did five weddings last year and ... a lot of the Huntingdon businesses get us to cater,” Patterson said, noting the business offers both buffet-style catering and catering straight from the food truck.

He hopes to open the Backwoods Smoke Shack physical location by mid-May. On the smaller side, it will offer seating for up to 20 people indoors, as well as outdoor, covered seating. Though the physical location in Hesston is technically in a dry township, Patterson hopes to emplace a BYOB policy. “Because,” he says, “you can’t really do barbecue without beer.”

Currently, Backwoods Smoke Shack sets itself apart at festivals and fairs by not offering any fried foods, but that will change with the new location as the menu expands.

“A lot of people really like that, that we don’t do fried foods at festivals. Anyone can fry up a pan of fries and throw some meat on top of it,” Patterson said. “(At the new location), we’re going to be doing hand-dipped ice cream, a lot more appetizers, like fried pickles, buffalo chips. ... A lot of people like our smoked deviled eggs. We do jalapeño poppers, stuffed with hot sausage and cheese, and wrap them in bacon and smoke them. We’ll have wings, ribs — pretty much a full menu, Thursday through Sunday, probably 10 a.m. through 8 or 9 p.m.”

The new location will be at 5963 Seven Points Road, Hesston.