Award Winning • Gluten Free • All Natural • Kosher Certified
Handcrafted in Small Batches • Made in Maine
Welcome to DennyMike’s ‘Cue Stuff! We hope you enjoy our site as you shop our products learn a little more about our BBQ and hopefully get a chance to try and love our products as much as we do. For those new to DennyMike’s it has been an outstanding two years, from being the second most award winning team at the NBBQA Awards in 2009 to another outpouring of awards in 2010 (not bad for a Yankee), to winning multiple awards for our packaging (thank you Pulp+Wire), to placing in the top two spots at the National Scovie Awards for our Cow Bell Hell Rub and Hot ‘n Nasty Sauce — we feel blessed by the outpouring of achievement and acknowledgment by our peers. So thank you to all!
The Story of DennyMike
DennyMike was born some fifty-odd years ago with the given name of Dennis Michael Sherman. The nickname DennyMike was given to him by his mother when he was a mere tadpole, which as it turned out wasn't such a good idea for a good-ole Yankee where the two name nickname wasn't as common as it is in traditional BBQ country such as the Great State of Texas.
So the nickname DennyMike got shelved until he went to the old country of Mexico as an exchange student in the early 1970’s. While there, DennyMike met a guy from Texas who would become one of his closest friends to this day. Charlie Arriaga was from East Texas, having grown up in Conroe but living most of his life around the Houston area. Charlie came from a long line of cooks and it was on school breaks from Mexico that he introduced DennyMike to authentic Texas-style barbecue. The rest, as they say, is history. From that first taste in the early 1970’s until today, DennyMike has nurtured a love of and devotion to, dry-rub Texas-style BBQ.
In the thirty or so years since that illustrious introduction at ol’ Mister Herman's BBQ in Huntsville, Texas, there has been more than a small quantity of ‘cue devoured with a whole host of regional variations from the Northeast, Central and Deep South, to the Midwest and of course the Kansas City area. Long known and widely revered as one of the cradles of that simple, yet sublime food, we have come to love and know as barbecue. Yet DennyMike still comes back to the gold standard of BBQ, the Heart of Texas, the 'cue that as always measures all other 'cues.
DennyMikes' Smokehouse BBQ and Deli grew out of that love of ‘cue and was first opened in Old Orchard Beach, Maine in the summer of 2002. He thought it was time for Maine to experience what he had known and loved for years- authentic Texas-style barbecue.
Now, seven years later, DennyMike has sold the building housing the restaurant and will be actively looking for another location, but in the meantime, he is promoting his line of sauces and rubs at the fairs and trade shows throughout New England and beyond. The word has been out since opening in ’02 that the ‘cue from DennyMikes' pits rivals any of the best that people have tried anywhere, and the flavor of the sauces and rubs has created a legion of wicked happy repeat customers.
DennyMike is excited to be one of the leaders in the barbecue arena in New England and is looking forward to spreading the gospel of outrageously good BBQ from Maine to Florida and thus heading west, sharing his goodies with the rest of the country.
Yours in smoke,
