16-05-2025
What are the best BBQ team names? 10 of our favorites from Memphis in May and SmokeSlam
What's in a name?
Shakespeare asked that question in his play, "Romeo and Juliet.'
Specifically, the character of Juliet Capulet formulates the famous query, while appearing to suggest that a name is irrelevant as a measure of the essence of a thing.
'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," Juliet affirms.
If the Bard of Avon had been instead a Balladeer of Beale, he might have been less swift to dismiss the meaning of monikers (even as he agreed that a rib by any other name would smell as, er, meat).
That's because he'd probably be aware that the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest and its upstart rival, the SmokeSlam barbecue contest, are loaded with cooking squads that likely labored (la-boar-ed?) long and hard over their team names.
In fact, a favorite activity of those visiting the cooking contests is to stroll among the booths while marveling at not just the elaborate decorations and the savory smells but the startling sobriquets.
The 47th Memphis in May International Festival barbecue contest runs May 14-17 in the Liberty Park/Tiger Lane space.
Meanwhile, from May 15-17, the second SmokeSlam barbecue competition, a project of Mempho Presents, will occupy Tom Lee Park.
Memphis in May hosts close to 130 teams. SmokeSlam has attracted 77. Each team has a name, and many of them are clever, creative or just plan corny. They put the pun in the phrase cruel and unusual punishment.
For example: One Memphis in May team calls itself "The Usual Saucespects." Another is simply "Swinefeld."
So here, for you to chew on, is an entirely subjective selection of 10 of the best barbecue team names. What more can we say but — to borrow the name of a Memphis in May rib team that made the cut — bone appétit!
Credit team co-founder Glen Thomas with the simple and immediately identifiable pun that connects his SmokeSlam pulled pork crew with George R.R. Martin's epic fantasy novels and their HBO adaptations. In fact, the "Game of Thrones" allusions carry over to the team's many original sauces, which aren't punny but are "tongue in cheek," Thomas said, and inspired by the characters that motivate Martin's epic saga. For instance, "Sansa's Tears" is a sauce of smoked onion and honey mustard; "The House of the Dragon" is a sriracha-based garlic sauce; and the new "Queen of Thorns" mixes sea salt and vinegar.
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At 94, acting great Robert Duvall is unlikely to make it to Tom Lee Park in May. But if he did show up; and if he arrived early in the day; and if he found himself downwind from this particular SmokeSlam team, which takes its name from the 1979 Francis Ford Coppola war film that cast Duvall as the maniacal Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore, he might be moved to announce: "I love the smell of bacon in the morning."
Elvis liked to pig out on pork (especially "burnt bacon," according to some witnesses), so it's appropriate that multiple teams participating in Memphis-based barbecue competitions have pulled inspiration from the corpus if not the cookbooks of the King. The funnier as well as punnier Presley team names include Suspicious Rinds (competing in the whole hog, pulled pork and ribs categories, at SmokeSlam), Love Meat Tender (pulled pork and ribs, SmokeSlam) and Rub Me Tender (whole hog, Memphis in May).
Wordplay that requires the reversal of only two letters? We like it. Flip the "r" and the "o" in "procrastinators" (and, of course, add a "k," which misspells the word but does not change its pronunciation) and you get the name of this Collierville-based Memphis in May rib team.
This SmokeSlam pulled pork team pays hoggy homage to Outkast, the Atlanta hip-hop duo whose 2003 hit "Hey Ya!" was as happily inescapable as barbecue aroma at a Memphis picnic.
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Rude? Perhaps. Funny? Sure. Inevitable? Definitely. Credit a SmokeSlam ribs/pulled pork team for calling attention to the hindquarters of a hog with a Dr. Dre song that's now more than 30 years behind us.
Not a joke and not just a rhyme but an actual thing: "Sow Luau" refers to a traditional Hawaiian feast with a pig as its centerpiece. This name is noteworthy not because of its wordplay but because it's so reassuring: The pork shoulder Sow Luau team has been firing up its grills since 1982, making it a mainstay of the Memphis in May World Championship.
Haling from Hunt Valley, Maryland, but finding punny inspiration in France, this Memphis in May team reminds us that taste is what wins barbecue trophies. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the French phrase "bon appétit" means "good appetite," and is "said to someone who is about to eat, meaning 'I hope you enjoy your food.'" What could be more appropriate?
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis in May and SmokeSlam: 10 of our favorite BBQ team names
