About the " Spinnin Pig"
We are open about every Saturday in the summer, and we're available for catering and office parties year round.
About the owners
The Owners of the spinnin pig are Mike Wiley and his wife Shannon.
Mike Wiley might be best known in town as the owner of the downtown Ben
Franklin, but for the last five years, he and his wife, Shannon, have
been spending long hours in the 12-foot-long preparation area of their
new log-cabin-style barbecue concession trailer.
They call the business "Spinnin' Pig Memphis Style BBQ," and
you may have seen them in Douglas during the Fourth of July weekend, at
Gold Rush Days or at their usual spot at the end of Western Auto most
Saturdays all summer long. You may have even tried their slow-cooked
pork, in which case you know their grill, six rotating six-foot racks,
speaks for itself.
What you may not know is that Mike has cooked at the Moose
Lodge, the old Casa del Sol and El Sombrero and that Mike is also a
twice world champion in the seafood category at the Memphis in May
International Barbeque Cooking Contest, one of the most prestigious cook
offs on the planet.
Mike bested 115 other entries in 2005,
with a halibut dish that incorporated El Sombrero's fajita sauce to
become World Champ. He and El Sombrero co-owner Liz Moser invented the
sauce just before the restaurant's remodel. "We were looking for a
marinade for their fajitas and halibut tacos," Wiley said. "We sat up
one night and mixed up stuff and kind of got in the ballpark. And she
worked on the Internet one day and came up with the recipe." "Lime, oil,
sugar, vinaigrette, cilantro. It's just something to give the fish a
nice color. You just want to baste it at the end, because the sugar
caramelizes. You don't want to put it in too early in the process,
otherwise it'll be too brown. And everything is in eye appeal and
presentation and all those factors." . In 2006 he made the top 10 with
7th place in Seafood and His team "Piped for Pork" got 19th out of 161
for their Pork Shoulder. In 2007 he took back the Crown in seafood with
a Perfect score. That’s a perfect 10 from all three judges in all three
categories of , taste, technique and presentation again using halibut,
some king crab and a variation of el sombreros’ fajita sauce.
For the Wiley’s, barbecue destiny struck back in
2000 when they were flipping through channels and landed on The Food
Network, channel 62. The network was showing highlights of the Memphis
in May International Barbeque Cooking Contest, called by its competitors
the "Super bowl of Swine." The teams that compete have all won regional
cook-off championships for the right to compete in Memphis. The footage
of the ribs, pork butts and slow-cooked pork shoulder, was mesmerizing.
Especially for a passionate griller like Wiley. "We decided to go down
ourselves and check it out," Mike said.
The next May, the Wiley’s arrived at the
championship headquarters, Tom Lee Park, on the Mississippi River. In
the promotions tent, they met Billy Powers, Dave Aucoin and John Henry
Harper, three longtime Southern barbecue specialists from the
corporately sponsored Piped for Pork team. The trio was impressed that
the Wiley’s had come all the way from Alaska, and they quickly became
friends. They hung out all weekend, learning tips on competition
slow-cooking over charcoal while sharing their own secrets for preparing
Alaska seafood. "There's grilling and barbecuing," Wiley said. "Grilling
is flipping the meat on the grill and pulling it off. Barbecuing is
cooking slow and letting the smoke surround the seasonings, soaking into
the meat. "They taught me a lot about shoulder and butts and seasoning
and cook-time," he said. "The first year I just paid attention to what
they were doing and what they had told me and decided to do a little bit
on my own and got a lot better. You learn a lot from getting on a team
and sharing recipes and techniques."
The Wiley’s returned the next year, and were stunned
when Piped for Pork asked Mike to join the team as an unofficial member.
That May, the team finished second place in the cutthroat pork shoulder
division. "It gets very serious down there," Mike said. "You have to
submit a blind box. You have to have the judge come through and explain
the cooking process, your cook time, your procedures and what rub you
used, and then you hope to get into the finals and still have to have
another judge come through.
"You have to stagger when you put your meat on, because
you don't want it to be not done or dried out. It's a balancing act. And
everybody has their different injections and different rubs. There are
some teams that constantly win on a pretty regular basis."
Piped for Pork is one of those perennial
favorites, and the Wiley's have been with the team now for nine years,
although the economy has kept the team from competing the last couple of
years. On his third trip, he decided to enter the "anything but"
category with a selection of salmon, crab and halibut. The next year, he
secured a sponsor - Jerry's Meats and Seafood’s which turned out to be a
winning combo. "I'd done salmon a couple times, glazed with a sugar,
lime, butter glaze, and it was very good," Mike said. "But I think they
just wanted a little added oomph, something a little different." Mike
decided to try halibut in 2005,using the El Sombrero sauce as a base,
which brought his first of two championship trophies.