Reprinted (Adapted or Reprinted in part) with permission from Nebraska Business Development Center. Copyright 2024, NBDC | NBDC, Nick Schinker
Sidney – Aster’s Foods and Smokehouse in Sidney, and owner Ivory Scott, are proving that where there’s smoke, there’s flavor.
A chef for 16 years, dietitian for nearly a decade, and an award-winning barbeque pitmaster for more than eight years, Scott has a resume as rich as the BBQ sauces he makes and bottles.
Scott is originally from Los Angeles, has a bachelor’s degree in business, and is a graduate of the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Pasadena. He has worked in restaurant kitchens from California to New York, beginning with his first job at McCormick & Schmick’s in El Segundo, Calif.
After getting his fill of working in commercial kitchens, he moved to be with family in Oklahoma City, where he was the chef for the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team and the Oklahoma City Baseball Club, the minor league Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“I always thought Oklahoma City would be the smallest place I would live,” Scott says. “And then I moved to Sidney 10 years ago when my godmother became ill.”
Scott honed his smokehouse skills while in Oklahoma City, traveling the Texas BBQ competition circuit, where he says he won four titles, including a third-place finish for his brisket in the 2016 Texas National event.
“When I joined the Texas circuit, I got to enjoy the low and slow style of barbeque, starting everything from scratch,” Scott says. “It made me a better butcher, too. I know the meats and the cuts I need, and when I buy better cuts, I get better yields.”
Competitive cooking is not easy, he says. “You watch an hour show on TV and it doesn’t do justice to what really goes on,” he says. “You have to get up very early in the morning and cook for 14 to 15 hours.”
In Sidney, Scott worked as co-owner of Pit Smokehouse BBQ for two years, adding a hotdog stand in 2023 and doing catering on the side. In 2023, he sought the assistance of the Nebraska Business Development Center (NBDC). He worked with Moraine Davis-Magnuson, the North Platte Small Business Development Center Director (SBDC), and later with Scottsbluff SBDC Center Director Alex Coon. With their guidance, Scott was able to secure Nebraska Small Business Assistance Act (NSBAA) funding to purchase Pit Smokehouse and reopen it in April 2024 as Aster’s Foods and Smokehouse.
While Ivory is a first name that has been handed down in his family for 10 generations – including to his son, one of his eight children age 8 to 27 – Aster is his grandfather’s middle name. “Using Aster is my way of honoring him,” Scott says. “He taught me a lot over the years.”
Scott continues to work up to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and does, “because I love it. It’s my God-given gift to serve people through food. I love to see the expressions when they really enjoy my food.”
That includes his grab-and-go meals, items like the salads he prepares from locally-sourced ingredients, and his line of sauces, which include honey barbeque, sriracha, cola, bourbon barbeque and his original.
“I make all my own sauces, and I try everything out before I introduce it to my customers,” he says. “I have four or five crates of recipes. I’m constantly asking myself, ‘Will this work? Will that work?’”
Being a former hospital dietitian helps him to personalize foods to his customers’ needs. “It makes me more conscious of people’s diverse food requirements,” he says. “Someone says, ‘Hey, I have celiac disease,’ or ‘I’m on a keto diet,’ I know exactly what I need to serve to satisfy their craving.”
A champion of small business, Scott partners with other business owners in the Sidney area, selling locally produced jerky, peanuts and jams and jellies. “I buy beef locally, and my pork comes from Colorado,” he says. “I have a woman with a greenhouse who is growing my collards and cabbage.”
Story courtesy of: Nick Schinker https://www.unomaha.edu/
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