1 Bite BBQ in Syracuse: Competition-Grade Brisket From a Utah Pitmaster's Home Kitchen

Most great barbecue in this country starts the same way: one stubborn person, a smoker, and a parking lot at 4 a.m. In Syracuse, Utah, that person is Marty Collins, and the operation is 1 Bite BBQ — a competition barbecue team and pre-order home kitchen turning out the kind of brisket that gets judged against the best in the Mountain West. This isn't a drive-thru. It's a craft, run out of a permitted home kitchen by a guy who spends his weekends cooking meat in parking lots from Ogden to Boulder City, chasing the perfect bite.

That ethos is right there in the name. In competition barbecue, judges take exactly one bite — the first impression has to land. 1 Bite BBQ is built around getting that bite right, and Collins has the scorecards to prove he's close.

From the Competition Circuit to a Syracuse Home Kitchen

1 Bite BBQ describes itself plainly: a "Utah-based competition BBQ team and micro-enterprise home cooking operation." That second part matters. Utah's microenterprise home kitchen law (MEHKO) lets vetted cooks sell food made in their own kitchens, and it's quietly become a launchpad for some of the state's most interesting small food businesses. For a pitmaster, it's the bridge between the contest trailer and a storefront — a way to feed neighbors the same food the judges score, without the overhead of a full restaurant.

And Collins is a serious competitor. Over the 2025 season and into 2026, 1 Bite BBQ has been on the road constantly. At the 20th annual Best Dam BBQ Challenge in Boulder City, Nevada — the team's third year cooking that contest — Collins took a first-place finish in pork (cooking alongside partner teams) and landed 10th overall against a stacked field. "My normal brisket would have put me in the running for [Grand Champion]," he wrote afterward, with the honest self-assessment that defines good pitmasters: "but this ball bounces, so watch out."

He's collected hardware closer to home, too. At a Steak Cookoffs Association event he pulled a 5th in chicken and a 2nd in pork, "good enough to earn a Golden Ticket." Twenty minutes from his own front door, at the Pitmaster Supply Company contest in Ogden, he "pulled out a 4th-place brisket in the 11th-hour scramble before boxing." His 2026 season opened down at the Downtown Grand Master BBQ Showdown, where, in his own words, "there was a lot of rust to knock off" — the kind of candor you only get from someone who actually cares about getting better.

This is a family affair, too. Collins competes alongside his wife — at one event she "won a Girls Can Grill Pastrami kit" — and the team is plugged deep into Utah's tight-knit barbecue community, sourcing from and supporting local outfits like Pitmaster Supply Company and Bingham's Custom Meats.

What 1 Bite BBQ Cooks

Competition barbecue revolves around four proteins — chicken, pork ribs, pork, and brisket — and those are the muscles Collins has spent years dialing in. The brisket is clearly his pride; it's the cut he measures his whole performance against, the one he believes can carry him to a Grand Championship on the right day. If you know Texas-style barbecue, you know what that pursuit looks like: a packer brisket cooked low and slow over hardwood smoke until the point jiggles and the bark turns mahogany, sliced to order so the fat renders into something closer to butter than beef.

His pork program is just as decorated — that first-place pork finish in Boulder City wasn't an accident, and pork has shown up on his podiums all season. The chicken, he'll tell you himself, is a work in progress he's actively refining, down to "trying some different sauce combinations" with boneless skinless thighs on practice cooks and taking pointers from fellow competitors. That's the difference between a backyard cook and a competitor: every cook is a practice cook.

Because 1 Bite BBQ operates as a pre-order home kitchen rather than a walk-in counter, the move is to plan ahead. The team takes pre-orders with a set cutoff — historically by text to the number listed on their pages — and you pick up your order on the scheduled day. It's a model that rewards the organized: order your brisket by the deadline, and you're eating contest-level barbecue without leaving Davis County.

A Piece of Utah's Booming BBQ Scene

Utah barbecue has grown up fast. What was once a smattering of roadside smokers is now a genuine scene — a competition circuit with contests in Ogden, Salt Lake, and beyond, a network of supply shops and custom-meat counters, and a roster of teams that travel together and root for each other on the leaderboard. Collins is a fixture in it, the kind of cook who congratulates rival Utah teams by name when they "hear their names called" at an awards ceremony.

That community-first spirit is what makes a place like 1 Bite BBQ worth seeking out. It's not a polished franchise; it's a Syracuse pitmaster turning a contest-honed obsession into food his neighbors can actually order. In a stretch of Davis County full of chain options, ordering a brisket from a guy who just cooked against the best in the region is a small act of supporting the real thing — local, handmade, and smoked with the same care he brings to a judging table.

Planning Your Order From 1 Bite BBQ

1 Bite BBQ is based in Syracuse, Utah, at 3026 S 1130 W, operating as a pre-order microenterprise home kitchen rather than a sit-down restaurant — so check before you drive. The best way to keep up with what's cooking, when pre-orders open, and where the team will be vending or competing is to follow @1_bite_bbq on Instagram and the 1 Bite BBQ page on Facebook, where Collins posts order cutoffs and event schedules. Reach the business at (801) 820-3004, and watch the social pages for the pre-order text line and cutoff times.

What to order when pre-orders open: the brisket, full stop — it's the dish Collins stakes his reputation on. Add pork if it's offered; it's been on his winning scorecards all season. And if you spot the team vending at a Utah competition or community event, that's your chance to taste competition barbecue straight off the trailer.

Why 1 Bite BBQ Matters

There's a romance to barbecue done this way — one cook, a smoker, and the refusal to serve anything that wouldn't survive a judge's first bite. 1 Bite BBQ is exactly that: Marty Collins turning years on Utah's competition circuit into brisket and pork his Syracuse neighbors can pre-order and take home. It's a young operation with a deep well of skill behind it, and it's a window into how Utah's barbecue scene actually grows — one parking-lot cook, one Golden Ticket, one perfect bite at a time. Order ahead, show up hungry, and taste what a competition pitmaster does when the scorecard is your dinner.