Meet Quentin Van Horn of Point & Flat BBQ

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Quentin Van Horn.

Hi Quentin, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was a Clothing Salesman for 18 years at Men’s Wearhouse and Jos A Bank prior to the pandemic. Since that crushed the retail world, I left that to work with my brother at a car dealership and started doing BBQs for them. One thing led to another, and I reached out to a few local breweries and landed my first popup at River Bluff Brewing in the River Market in KCMO back in 2022.

With the help of my friend Marco Lopez, we started doing popups at local breweries in our spare time and began to build up our following. Popups as much as I could was the name of the game for a while with a full time job as well. Once the popups became consistent, I made the decision to jump in full-time, but it was still scary since you can’t foresee if they will be successful.

Right now, I’m at three different breweries each week. Servaes Brewing on Tuesday. Discourse Brewing on Wednesday and Friday. Friction Beer on Saturday.

Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s been pretty smooth I feel for how hard it is to do this sort of thing. I’m very thankful and love the road that has been traveled. A few small bumps, yes, but everything teaches you things, and you learn a lot.

I appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Point & Flat BBQ?
We are craft BBQ. It’s a passion of mine to produce great BBQs that people enjoy in a town that is known for BBQ. I myself am known for and specialize in Brisket. My brisket is salt, pepper, and garlic rubbed. Then, it was smoked to a certain temperature and finished in a bath of beef tallow in a foil wrap. I cook on an offset smoker with oak and hickory wood for about 14 hours.

I have brisket every Saturday at Friction Beer at 3 pm. I change up the menu each week around my smoked brisket. I could have ribs, pastrami, or sausages to go with the brisket on any given week. I also try to do a fusion menu item each week with my brisket as the star. I’ve done a brisket banh mi sandwich, brisket chalupa, brisket meatball sub, and brisket street tacos, to name a few. Our sides are simple and delicious.

I do brisket beans and street corn every week. I just want to feed people what I love eating each week. So what makes me happy about my brand most is that I stay consistent in producing a product that takes 14 or so hours of watching a fire and turning out great BBQs that people love every week. That’s no small feat.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Be patient, and don’t get down on yourself if you have a bad popup or something unplanned happens. It will all work itself out.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @Pointandflat_bbq
• Facebook: Point and Flat BBQ

Image Credits
Phon Willis