dr of bbq--southern pride response

jack,
i tried to respond to your email but you had a fatal error dude!!!!! so i will post it here.
no i have not used the southern pride EL units but i do use the gas kicker models 5 days a week working for an other man. in 5 years i have had one breakdown. the service people are out of ocala which is about 45 mins away. from the time i called to the time the serviceman arrived was 30 mins and i was running in another 15 mins. southern pride is a cadillac in regards to both equipment and customer service for professional pits. since you brought up cookshack i will give you the experience that i had when my FEC100 pellet smoker coughed up the shear pin which connects the pellet feed auger to the motor. after contacting cookshack (and make no mistake they are very nice,caring people) it was 2 days before i was back on line awaiting the part. while i am sure that i may have been remiss in not asking if there was a service repair department near me it would seem that if there were then i would have been advised by them of a service number to call. in all fairness i will point out that at no time have i ever encountered a problem with their SM150 models of which i own two. now my own personal opinon is this and it again is my opinon. southern pride is commercially oriented especially in regards to repair personell. to be brutal the next time my pellet pooper coughs a shear pin i will call the nice lady at southern pride who answered my questions last year concerning their electric models. the purchase price will not only entail the unit cost but a cost as follows 150 bucks for plan approval with the state, about a 300 buck re-inspection fee on the MFD,a parralel kit for the two honda gennies,the purchase of a 3rd honda eu3000is and last but not least my electrican to rebalance the load. everything except the EL southern pride would be offset since i have a person who is lusting after my pre-ul pellet pooper in a big way. so yeah i would buy the sothern pride EL in a heartbeat especially the way you outlined it in your email.
jack

jack, maybe I'm wrong, but aren't you a Cookshack guy?

quote:

Originally posted by prisonchef
jack,
i tried to respond to your email but you had a fatal error dude!!No i have not used the southern pride EL units but i do use the gas kicker models 5 days a week working for an other man. in 5 years i have had one breakdown. the service people are out of Ocala southern pride is a cadillac in regards to both equipment and customer service for professional pits. In all fairness i will point out that at no time have i ever encountered a problem with their SM150 models of which i own two. I would buy the southern pride EL in a heartbeat especially the way you outlined it in your email.
jack

Jack if you were going to buy A New Unit it would be the electric Southern Pride? That's interesting. I was speaking with the folks at Southern Pride which is home based in southern Illinois I found out thier sales manager lives in Chatham Illinois,about 2 miles south of Springfield. Small world huh? I spoke with him very briefly Friday and he seems like a great guy with tons of BBQ experiance. But he warned me that I may run into difficulties getting the right amount of smoke into my products and a lack of bark. But I had just re-read your post on bark and smoke content useing the Cookshack 150 and I'm thinking to overcome those problems would intail the same process you previously described. By the way I apologize for the email problem I'm not sure if I mistyped my email address or what, but my correct email address is Jack@DrofBBQ.com
Jack

PS Captain Morgan I can't speak for Jack but to anyone that sells BBQ for a living, a pit is a tool and sometimes you find a different company that starts making a new tool that's better than those you previously owned or used. And I'm not neglecting the pride many BBQ people have in their pit, even in some cases a great passion for that single brand,and in some ways I'm no different. If I go to Southern Pride or end up with another Cookshack I'll always keep my Klose stick burner in front of my place because that big heavy hunk of iron attracts so much attention and a certain amount of admiration from anyone that sees it. But frankly I'm tired of standing in the rain all spring, and hate cooking BBQ in 12 and 14 degree weather in the winter months. So as I start to put my new project together (a step van with a 20 foot box) I'm putting something inside that puppy to cook my BBQ.

Doc,
yes you are correct. if i were buying a new unit tomorrow it would be a southern pride EL and like i said i started investigating them over a year a go. as we both know the investment in a new pit is a considerable expense. also in a mobile operation, like we both have, reliability becomes a paramount issue as does the subject of being repaired quickly. my SM electrics have proven to be dead nuts reliable and are well suited for the rigours of mobile which are quite a bit more strenuous than a brick and mortar place. that being the case why would my next purchase be the southern pride? on the fly repair!!! while i witnessed the speed with which southern pride responded to the problem i am still amazed by it!!! and that would be the deciding factor since both manufacturers electrics are so similar. there is also another thing to be considered and that is since my fec is a pre-ul model i pay the exact same insurance cost as having a stick burning pit inside my rig.
the bark and the smoke can be overcome. a gentleman named zeb up in north carolina was kind enough to get me on the right track (he had an SM250) and saved me quite a bit of trial and error.

capt morgan,
i was asked by doc for my professional opinion under the "restaurant professionals forum". i do own cookshacks, as a matter of fact i own 3 of them. i have also used southern pride gas kicker units 5 days a week while working for another man for the past 4 years to build my savings fund for purchasing a place of my own and all the time running my own operation 2 days a week. as doc knew this and knew that i had a lot of mobile time he asked for my opinion. now the part that makes me feel proud is he knew me well enough to know i would give the unvarnished truth as i saw it and i did so!!! there is a considerable of weight on my shoulders when someone asks that of me since we are talking about two things. #1-the cost of any professional pit is quite high and 2-what do i consider to be the best tool from a professional standpoint and why? now as Doc pointed out from a professional standpoint a pit is merely a tool with the real question being "what do you,as a professional, operating under similar circumstances to me consider the correct tool?" well i could not have told him the fec was the ideal tool from a reliabilty standpoint as it has broken a shearpin which rendered the unit unusable for 2 days while the SM150 which was installed on the same day, and has been subjected to the same use as the FEC has never given me a moments problem. to withhold that information would be lying to Doc!!! neither could i withhold the results of calling southern pride and the response that was given,along with the total time it took them to accomplish that goal as that would be lying to Doc also!!!! please also note that i was very complimentary about cookshack and their service department!!! they are fine,caring and honest people and they have my utmost respect!!!! but with everything being equal if i were buying a new pit today AND MAKE NO MISTAKE IT WOULD BE AN ELECTRIC UNIT then for my use, which is the same parameters as Doc's, it would have to be the southern pride. or, to look at it another way, for 30 years i have always ridden a honda motorcycle--my new bike is a harley XL883R--why??!! it is the tool that best fits my current needs. i hope this clears it up.
jack