Meet Smoke Sesh: Low and Slow Barbecue Built With a Whole Lot of Heart

Aug 27

Rebecca Yarbrough built Smoke Sesh BBQ & Catering from the ground up, creating a Chattanooga food truck where brisket takes patience, pork belly gets a crispy finish and every returning customer still means something.

By Sara Turney

Rebecca Yarbrough still screenshots the good comments.

Someone tells her they loved the food, leaves Smoke Sesh BBQ & Catering a sweet review or takes the time to say something kind, and Rebecca saves it. She reads the comments out loud. She shows them to the people around her. She gets excited about them in a way she hopes she never outgrows.

“No matter how much Smoke Sesh grows, I never want to lose that feeling,” she says, “because every order is a real person choosing to support my little dream, and that will always mean the world to me.”

That little dream has become a woman owned Chattanooga food truck and catering business serving slow smoked brisket, pulled pork, chicken, wings, turkey legs, loaded nachos and sandwiches, along with homemade sides and a pork belly BLT that deserves its own conversation.

Smoke Sesh now caters weddings, workplace lunches, private parties and neighborhood gatherings in addition to festivals and community events. Rebecca wants another truck, a larger team and a catering operation capable of reaching farther across Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

The ambition is there.

What she does not want is to grow so much that she forgets why any of it mattered in the first place.

Barbecue felt like home

Rebecca did not choose barbecue because she thought it would make a clever food truck concept.

She chose it because of what the food already meant to her.

“I chose barbecue because it feels like home,” she says. “It brings back memories of family, celebrations, laughter, and people gathered around a table.”

That feeling became part of the idea behind Smoke Sesh. Rebecca wanted to make food that satisfied people, certainly, but she also wanted customers to feel cared for when they came to her window.

She built the business from the ground up with that idea in mind.

There was no single job waiting for her once she became the owner, either. Rebecca cooks, but she also handles bookings, shopping, staffing, maintenance, marketing, finances and the unexpected problems that arrive with running a mobile food business.

The workload has taught her something about her own ability to keep going.

“I’m most proud that I built Smoke Sesh from the ground up and kept going through every challenge placed in front of me,” she says.

Today, familiar faces return to the truck. Customers recommend Smoke Sesh to other people. Couples and families invite Rebecca to cater important occasions. Companies bring the truck in for employees, and festivals give new customers a chance to discover what regulars already know.

For Rebecca, those invitations feel personal.

People are trusting her business with a piece of their day.

If Rebecca chooses your order, get the pork belly BLT

Smoke Sesh has plenty of traditional barbecue on the menu, but Rebecca’s first recommendation is not the obvious one.

She wants you to try the pork belly BLT.

The pork belly is smoked until tender, then sliced and fried to give the outside a crispy finish. Rebecca sees the sandwich as a good representation of what she wants Smoke Sesh food to be: familiar enough to feel comforting, but interesting enough to be remembered.

Customers apparently agree that it gets their attention. Rebecca says the pork belly BLT is also the item that surprises people most.

If you want the product that best represents the work behind Smoke Sesh, though, look toward the brisket.

Brisket cannot be bullied into being ready faster because the line is getting long. Rebecca seasons it carefully and smokes it low and slow, allowing time to do its part.

For her, that process mirrors the business itself.

“Our brisket best represents Smoke Sesh because it takes time, patience, skill, and a whole lot of love to get it right,” she says.

Then there is the pulled pork sandwich.

That one has become a longtime customer favorite. The pork is slow smoked until tender and piled generously onto a bun, without trying to turn barbecue into something it does not need to be.

Sometimes people just want a really good pulled pork sandwich.

Smoke Sesh understands the assignment.

There is more on this truck than meat

Rebecca has also put thought into making sure groups with different dietary needs can still find something to eat together.

Smoke Sesh offers jackfruit as a vegetarian substitute for meat on its menu items, along with gluten free nachos. Catering menus can be customized for the event, giving Rebecca room to build around the people she is actually serving rather than forcing every occasion into the same menu.

Seasonal and event menus give her even more room to play.

Cooler weather brings homemade Brunswick stew back into the rotation. Giant smoked turkey legs are an event favorite, and brunch gives barbecue an entirely different setting with homemade biscuit sandwiches filled with smoked chicken, pulled pork or brisket.

Mac and cheese, coleslaw and fries round out the comfort food side of the menu.

It is the kind of food Rebecca wanted Smoke Sesh to serve from the beginning. Food that feels generous. Food people recognize. Food that gives her enough room to put her own personality into it.

The part of Smoke Sesh you cannot order

Rebecca’s interview becomes most revealing when she stops talking about barbecue.

There is a reason the language of family, belonging and being cared for appears so often when she describes the business.

Smoke Sesh gave her something she had spent much of her life looking for.

“I grew up without the kind of support system or safety net that many people are fortunate enough to have,” Rebecca says. For her, the business became “the family, security, and sense of belonging I spent much of my life searching for.”

That history deserves care because Rebecca’s difficult beginnings are not the product being sold here, and they should not become the only thing readers remember about her.

What matters is what she decided to build from them.

She created work she could call her own. She created relationships with customers. She found a community among the people who support the truck and the other small businesses she meets at festivals and markets.

She also created a place where she gets to decide what hospitality looks like.

Rebecca wants people who approach the Smoke Sesh window to feel welcomed, cared for and well fed.

“Like they have a place at our table,” she says.

That is not a marketing slogan pasted onto the business after the fact.

It is connected directly to why the business matters to the woman who built it.

Festivals have become part of the family

Rebecca loves the energy of festivals and markets, particularly the mixture of people who find Smoke Sesh for the first time and familiar customers who arrive already looking for the truck.

She also values the people working in the other booths and trucks around her.

“Being surrounded by other hardworking small-business owners makes it feel like we’re all building something special together,” she says.

That community is part of the mobile food world customers do not always see. Vendors spend long event days together, learn one another’s businesses, send customers across the grounds to try something else and meet again at another festival weeks later.

Rebecca likes supporting other small businesses even when she is not working. Away from Smoke Sesh, she spends time with her animals, writes songs and stories, and looks for other creative outlets, although she admits the business has become one of her greatest passions.

That probably explains why she has trouble treating a compliment like a routine part of the job.

She is still emotionally invested in the plate.

Another truck is already part of the dream

Rebecca is not finished building.

She wants to expand Smoke Sesh catering, grow the team and eventually add another truck. She also wants the business serving more communities throughout Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

The challenge will be doing all of that without losing the personal care that made the first truck matter.

Rebecca already knows that.

Her advice to other people thinking about starting a business is to begin before they feel completely ready, stay willing to learn and refuse to let difficult days convince them they have failed.

She has another phrase she keeps close.

“Plan your work and work your plan.”

Smoke Sesh has plenty of plans ahead.

For now, though, there is brisket smoking low and slow, pork belly waiting for its crispy finish, pulled pork customers keep coming back for and Brunswick stew preparing to make its return when the weather cools.

There are weddings to cater and workplace lunches to serve. There are festivals ahead, including the Chattanooga World Food Truck Festival, the Chattanooga Renaissance Faire and the Odd Market, all events Rebecca specifically says she is excited about.

And somewhere along the way, another customer is going to tell Rebecca the food was good.

There is a pretty good chance she will screenshot it.

That may be one of the best things about Smoke Sesh. Rebecca is working toward making the business considerably bigger, but she still understands exactly how it got there.

One person chose her truck.

Then another did.

And she has not stopped being grateful for either one.

Sara Turney