King Of The County BBQ

Such a fun weekend. My husband competed in the amateur competition and took 2^nd in chefs choice. There is food to purchase from all the major BBQ joints, lots of booths with jewelry and other stuff. Glasses were 16 or 17 bucks and came with 2 drink tickets. (we brought an ice chest). did i mention parking and admission is free? See ya next year!

2013’s fest was a bit underwhelming compared to the far more magnificent 2012 spread. Much smaller this year, and it might surprise newbies to see only 3 options for BBQ for sale to guests (no sampling of the competitors unfortunately). The local standbys of Kinder’s and Back Forty are great, and in 2013 Smokehouse 10 was there. Their line was huge and prices astronomical, so I showed loyalty to my locals. They were also both wise to offer a rib sampler, 3 ribs for around $ 6, while Smokehouse only offered full meal platters. Kinder’s ribs were tasty and smoky, and man does their sauce just ROCK. Back Forty’s ribs were equally yummy and just a bit more tender. If I could get Back Forty’s ribs with Kinders’ sauce, oh happy day!
Vendors were also scaled down quite a bit, only a small cluster of people selling more knick-​knack items. 2012 offered multiple vendors selling homemade BBQ sauces and rubs, which was one of my main reasons for returning this year so imagine by disappointment when I couldn’t restock! There were also more fun vendors selling quality knives and handcrafted soaps — the vendor quality was drastically reduced.
So hopefully 2014 will bring the cool folks back, otherwise I might have to pass in 2015.: /

Welp, the 7^th Annual King of the County BBQ Challenge and Music Festival was a hit with my family. With the festival being right in the middle of the Martinez Waterfront Park Marina you could enjoy your finger lickin, lip smackin BBQ in the company of your family in the shade of the overgrown pine trees or under a few of the easy-​ups provided. We opted for the grass under a big pine tree. You could hear the live rock n’ roll music from where ever you were.
Kids activities: There were plenty of kids activities and rides. Those were additional and you needed to purchase tickets. Prices for one ride were a bit high in my opinion. $ 2.50 for one ride on the «tea cups». Or to slide down the huge bouncy wave. Amongst the grounds there were the play structures for the kids, so if you didn’t want to pay those prices, at least your kids could play for free with the other kids. There was also face painting, reptiles for the kids to see and touch, at the Home Depot booth they had a bean bag toss, puzzle making and at another kid booth there were materials to make your own special «crown»! That was a huge hit with my lil man! A few different ice cream shave ice booths for the kids to cool down.
Adult activities: Microbreweries and wineries! You needed to get a ticket voucher first then find a beer/​vino booth to your liking and then enjoy! They offered a vino class or a commemorative beer glass for $ 6 then you purchase the beers. Music was great, they had a few different bands and played a few cover songs the crowd loved and you could hear patrons singing along! Dancing was going on too! Lots of booths from Scentsy to honey, BBQ sauce to bail bonds, jewelry booths to hat booths. There were alot to see.
BBQ: As soon as you drove into the waterfront and crossed those railroad tracks you could smell that famous smell of smoking meat! YUMMO! There was professional BBQ’rs Kinder’s, Back Forty and Smokehouse 10 (they are from Discovery Channel’s Pitmasters). Tons of amateur BBQ competitors all competing for that trophy. We tried the Back Forty’s brisket sammy, pulled pork sammy and their half rack of ribs. OMG! All 3 meats were tender, cooked perfectly and devoured within minutes. The sammys came with your typical cole slaw. The pulled pork was my sammy and it had very generous pieces of tender sauce laden pork on a sweet roll. The sauce was a bit too sweet to my liking but it was good none the less. The ribs had plenty of juicy meat along the bone that didn’t pull right off. You don’t want the meat to pull right off cause that means they’d be overdone ;)
My hubby’s brisket, the hardest meat to perfect was done up perfectly. Very tender and you could see the smoke ring! It went great with the sauce and sweet roll with the slaw on top of the meat!
There was also a BBQ corn booth, funnel cakes booth and of course kettle popcorn! There were other food booths but I can’t remember at this time.
Great day, great atmosphere, great food, great place to have festival, FREE parking and FREE admission!