BBQGuys is a

barbecue grill A barbecue grill or barbeque grill (known as a barbecue in Canada and barbecue or barbie in Australia and New Zealand) is a device that cooks food by applying heat from below. There are several varieties of grills, with most falling into one of t ...

retailer headquartered in

Baton Rouge Baton Rouge ( ; , ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It had a population of 227,470 at the 2020 United States census, making it List of municipalities in Louisiana, Louisiana's second-m ...

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

. It was founded in 1998 by Air Force veteran Michael Hackley and his wife, Ladina Hackley, as the Grill Store & More, and later rebranded as BBQGuys as the store transitioned to online retail during the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...

. In 2019, BBQGuys was awarded the Small Business of the Week by the United States Senate Committee. In late 2020, the company was acquired by private equity firm Brand Velocity Partners.

History

In 1998, husband and wife Michael and Ladina Hackley founded the Grill Store & More in Baton Rouge, on Tiger Bend Road. The couple were inspired to start their own barbecue grill retailer after passing by a Barbecues Galore store in

Des Moines Des Moines is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Iowa, most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is the county seat of Polk County, Iowa, Polk County with parts extending into Warren County, Iowa, Wa ...

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

, and started their business without financial or investor capital. When Grill Store & More suffered financial difficulties during the dot-com bubble, Michael Hackley teamed up with Corey Tisdale to launch the

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

bbqguys.com website. Online success resulted in the closure of the company's three

brick and mortar Brick and mortar (or B&M) is an organization or business with a physical presence in a building or other structure. The term ''brick-and-mortar business'' is often used to refer to a company that possesses or leases retail shops, factory produc ...

stores within a year. Selling from their homes in 2003, Shopperschoice.com was launched in 2004. Between 2003 and 2016, Shopperschoice.com grew from five to 140 employees. Mike Hackley and Corey Tisdale founded Blaze Outdoor Products to manufacture grills, smokers, and drawers. The company was named Small Business of the Week by the United States Senate Committee in 2019, by which time it was on the Inc. 5000 list for 11 consecutive years. The same year, Shopperschoice.com consolidated its brand under BBQGuys.com, the original name of the company. BBQGuys expanded its headquarters in September 2019 to accommodate 50 new customer support positions in the company. According to Louisiana Economic Development, the expansion also created 22 jobs indirectly. During the 2020

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, BBQGuys was able to continue hiring, while transitioning about 90 percent of their team to remote work. Warehouse workers unable to work from home were protected by new safety guidelines, facility procedures, and sanitation infrastructure.

2020 Brand Velocity acquisition

Original owner Michael Hackley sold BBQGuys to Brand Velocity Partners (BVP) in August 2020, a private equity firm. BVP also purchased BBQGuys' sister company, Blaze Outdoor. As part of the acquisition, BVP brought on several NFL greats as strategic investors including: Archie Manning and sons

Cooper Manning Cooper Archibald Manning (born March 6, 1974) is an American entrepreneur and television personality who is the host of the television show ''The Manning Hour'' for Fox Sports as well as principal and senior managing director of investor relation ...

Peyton Manning Peyton Williams Manning (born March 24, 1976) is an American former professional American football, football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons. Nicknamed "the Sheriff", he spent 14 seasons with the In ...

and Eli Manning along with

LaDainian Tomlinson LaDainian Tarshane Tomlinson (born June 23, 1979), nicknamed "LT", is an American former professional football running back who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons. After a successful college football career with the T ...

and Steve Hutchinson. In March 2021, BBQGuys announced that

Eli Manning Elisha Nelson Manning (born January 3, 1981) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 16 seasons with the New York Giants. A member of the Manning family, he is the youngest ...

and his father

Archie Manning Elisha Archibald Manning III (born May 19, 1949) is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons, primarily with the New Orleans Saints from 1971 to 1982. He also h ...

would be starring in national advertising campaign to promote the brand.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:BBQGuys Online retailers of the United States Barbecue American companies established in 1998 Retail companies established in 1998 Internet properties established in 2003 Companies based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana 1998 establishments in Louisiana 2003 establishments in Louisiana