Hot off the Press! Brazen BBQ: Award-winning ribs

SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) - When John Bragamonte and Brad Thomas aren't busy preparing their award-winning barbeque, they're polishing up the hardware they earned the hard way -- on the road.

"We went out there on the barbeque circuit, both locally here in California, then nationwide," John said. "It was an opportunity for us to then raise the bar on the products that we knew we'd be serving in this restaurant."

Now they've taken their road-tested "Q" to the next level, opening Brazen BBQ on the corner of 5th and Washington.

"If there was one style that we say we most resemble it would be Texas, because we serve our meats with dry rub," John said.

At Brazen, it all starts with the smoker.

"The heart and soul of this thing is Miss Regina Ann," John said. "We've got some chicken and ribs in there smoking right now. The ribs will take about five or six hours and we'll get about two hours on the chickens."

And where there's smoker, there's fire.

"We prefer hickory and apple," John said.

By the way, the smoker is named after Brad and John's wives.

"So Regina is my wife and Annie is Brad's wife, so this is the Miss Regina Ann smoker," John said.

At Brazen, they make all their own sides and rubs in-house.

"What we try to do is not mask the flavor of our meats with a bunch of extra sauce or stuff. It's just about the meat, the smoke and the rub," Brad Thomas said.

Time-honored, road-tested, award-winning barbeque has earned these young smokers the right to be brazen.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE