Mt. Washington's Sweets & Meats BBQ is featured in this PBS docuseries. Here's where to stream it
Ten years ago, Mount Washington's own Sweets & Meats BBQ eatery consisted of a tent in the neighborhood's Creamy Whip parking lot.
Now, the award-winning business – complete with multiple food trucks and extensive catering services – has been featured in a four-time Emmy-nominated docuseries.
Sweets & Meats BBQ, co-founded by Cincinnati residents Kristen Bailey and Anton Gaffney, is highlighted in the 11th season of "Start Up," a PBS series profiling standout small business owners across America.
Emmy-nominated host and writer Gary Bredow had the inspiration to create the "Start Up" series during the height of the financial crash in 2009, when he noticed people around him opting for starting their own businesses rather than trudging through the job market.
“It ended up being the perfect storm. These things that kept people up at night, the things that they fantasized about from their cubicle, now they had a chance to make it happen,” Bredow wrote on the series' website.
The first season of the series premiered in 2013.
The Cincinnati BBQ joint is featured in the fifth episode of the series' newest season, and originally aired on Oct. 16. The episode will air again on PBS on Feb. 4.
"When Kristen Bailey surprised her husband Anton Gaffney with a smoker for his birthday, it changed the course of their lives. They started Sweets and Meats, a BBQ food truck and catering business that serves award-winning smoked meats, homemade sides and deserts, and are putting Cincinnati BBQ on the map," the show's website states.
How to watch PBS's 'START UP' docuseries
Full episodes of PBS's "Start Up" series can be streamed online at www.pbs.org/show/start.
The episode profiling Sweet & Meats BBQ will also air on PBS on Sunday, Feb. 4 at 5 p.m. E.T.
From parking lot pop-up to PBS series: How Sweets & Meats BBQ came to be
Sweet & Meats BBQ began in 2014 when Bailey and Gaffney began serving up their signature smoked meats from a tent in the parking lot of Mount Washington's Creamy Whip on weekends.
In 2016, the co-founders unveiled their business's newest venture: a BBQ food trailer. As Bailey continued to juggle the business and work full-time in the corporate world, Gaffney led a team of mainly volunteer friends and family and culinary interns from Cincinnati Job Corps.
Bailey left her corporate job in 2018 to devote herself full-time to Sweets & Meats BBQ. In the coming years, the pair expanded to catering and food truck services. They accepted multiple accolades, including the 2018 Ohio SBDC Client with Most Growth, the 2019 U.S. Small Business Administration Ohio Business Person of the Year and the 2020 Goering Center Rising Leader award.
Sweet & Meats BBQ offers catering services for weddings and other events, and their food truck can be seen offering street eats around Greater Cincinnati, including at Mad Tree Brewing. To find out where the Sweets & Meats BBQ truck will be, go to streetfoodfinder.com/SweetsandMeats.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Sweets & Meats BBQ in Mt. Washington featured in PBS docuseries
