What’s New and What to Expect at Chef Chris Shepherd’s Southern Smoke Festival, 2024

In its eighth year, the Houston-based outdoor food and drink festival will overtake Discovery Green with 73 chefs from around the country

James Beard Award-winning chef Chris Shepherd will host the eighth annual Southern Smoke Festival this fall, and he says this year’s rendition of the fundraising event will be especially “massive.”

The outdoor food and drink festival, which benefits restaurant workers in crisis around the country, is slated to overtake Downtown’s Discovery Green on Saturday, October 5. This year will feature a whopping 73 chefs (roughly a third from Houston), including Austin pitmaster Aaron Franklin, Emmanuel Chavez of Houston’s Tatemó, and Street to Kitchen’s Chef G. More cooking demonstrations, live music, and giveaways are also a guarantee, Shepherd says.

“It’s the one day every year where we get to rejoice as an industry and really take care of people,” Shepherd says. “There’s this undying gratitude, but also, it’s about raising money for people that you’ll never meet, and I think that’s special.”

Proceeds will benefit Southern Smoke Foundation’s emergency relief fund, which supports food and beverage workers in crisis around the country, and its Behind You mental health program, which provides no-cost counseling in 10 states and Washington, D.C.

Shepherd founded the Southern Smoke Foundation in 2015 to help his friend and former sommelier Antonio Gianola who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He launched the festival in 2018 to aid food and beverage industry workers around the country who have experienced natural disasters, medical emergencies, accidents, or other unforeseen events. Since its inception, the foundation has granted more than $12.3 million to restaurant workers across the country. This year alone, it’s dispersed $1 million to workers as of July 1.

Here’s what you can expect from Southern Smoke this year:

What’s New

• The Yeti Culinary Stage: Drinkware company Yeti is hosting cooking demonstrations led by star chefs, including Christina Tosi of Milk Bar, Brooke Williamson, Ana Castro, Fermin Nunez, Pat Martin, Mason Hereford, Kevin Fink, and Tavel Bristol-Joseph.
• Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs: The magazine will showcase its 2024 cohort of Best New Chefs for the first time in a collaborative cooking demo. The magazine will reveal the chef’s names in September.
• The Central Market Wine Bar: Discovery Green’s air-conditioned Lake House will house the festival’s wine bar, which will be made up of multiple wine bars from around the country. The team from Houston’s Johnny’s Gold Brick, Sean Umstead of Raleigh’s Kingfisher, and Travis Tober of the Austin-born bar Nickel City will oversee pop-ups from local wine bars, including 13 Celsius, Lees Den, Montrose Cheese & Wine, Stella’s Wine Bar, and the Library. New Orleans’s Bacchanal, Austin’s Lolo, Oakwood Pizza Box of Raleigh, and the Roots Fund, a nonprofit that works to create opportunities for BIPOC individuals within the wine industry, will also make an appearance.

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• A new and improved VIP area: Starting at 3 p.m., festivalgoers with VIP passes can access the Lexus VIP area in the Grove, also located in Discovery Green. There, attendees can enjoy wine, giveaways, and prizes, plus creations by chefs, including Kate McLean of Houston’s Tony’s, Bodega Bakes cookbook author and award-winning chef Paola Velez, and Billy Durney, who will serve his signature burgers from Brooklyn’s Red Hook Tavern.
• Book signings: Third Ward bookstore Kindred Stories will sell books on-site and will offer scheduled signings throughout the festival, allowing attendees to purchase books and have them signed by their favorite chefs.

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Who’s Attending

Participating Houston chefs include:

• Ope Amosu, ChopnBlok
• Aaron Bludorn, Bludorn
• Leonard Botello IV, Truth BBQ
• Bun B, Trill Burgers
• Emmanuel Chavez, Tatemo
• Abbas Dhanani, Burger Bodega
• Patrick Feges and Erin Smith, Feges BBQ
• Evelyn Garcia and Henry Lu, Jūn
• Greg Gatlin, Gatlin’s BBQ
• Quy Hoang, Robin Wong, Terry Wong, Arash Kharat, Blood Bros. BBQ
• Graham Laborde and Benjy Mason, Winnie’s
• Ryan Lachaine, Riel
• Lucas McKinney, Josephine’s
• Don Nguyen, Khoi BBQ
• Trong and Cory Nguyen, Crawfish & Noodles
• Benchawan Painter, Street to Kitchen
• Ryan Pera, Coltivare
• Felipe Riccio and Austin Waiter, the Marigold Club
• Jason Ryczek, Little’s Oyster Bar
• Seth Siegel-Gardner, LFG Hospitality
• Austin Simmons, Tris (The Woodlands)
• Martin Stayer, Nobie’s
• Michelle Wallace, b’tween sandwich co.

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Chefs making their Southern Smoke Festival debut include:

• Jeff Chanchaleune, Ma Der Lao Kitchen (Oklahoma City)
• Isabel Coss, Lutece (Washington, D.C.)
• Kari Crowe, Melt Ice Cream (Fort Worth, Texas)
• Cassidee Dabney, The Barn at Blackberry Farm (Walland, Tennessee)
• Sam Fore, Tuk Tuk Sri Lankan Bites (Lexington, Kentucky)
• Renee Erickson, The Walrus and the Carpenter (Seattle)
• Chelsea Fadda, Pecan Square Café (Austin, Texas)
• Meherwan Irani, Chai Pani (Asheville, North Carolina)
• Joe Kindred, Kindred Restaurant (Davidson, North Carolina)
• Edgar Rico, Nixta Taqueria (Austin, Texas)
• Zach and Hannah Welton, Welton’s Tiny Bake Shop (Charleston, South Carolina)
• Lee Anne Wong, Koko Head Café (Honolulu)

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Returning chefs from around the country, include:

• Angel Barreto, Anju (Washington, D.C.)
• Ashley Christensen, AC Restaurants (Raleigh, North Carolina)
• Chris Cosentino (San Francisco)
• Tim Flores and Genie Kwon, Kasama (Chicago)
• Aaron Franklin, Franklin Barbecue (Austin, Texas)
• Sarah Grueneberg, Monteverde (Chicago)
• Cheetie Kumar, Ajja (Raleigh, North Carolina)
• Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel, Birdie’s (Austin, Texas)
• Jordan Rubin, Mr. Tuna (Portland, Maine)
• Caroline Schiff, Monday Diner (New York)
• Rodney Scott, Rodney Scott’s BBQ (Charleston, South Carolina)
• Jason Stanhope, Lowland Tavern (Charleston, South Carolina)

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Insider tips for the best experience

• Make a game plan, and get there early. Using the festival’s list of chefs and restaurants, prioritize your favorites by visiting them first. Lines can be long, and some chefs run out of their dishes fast.
• Bring a disposable tray. Carrying various bites at once can be a balancing act. Some festivalgoers bring trays to help collect and carry the different dishes they’ll collect throughout the evening.
• Go to the festival hungry, and pace yourself. There’s a lot of food and drink to be had.

Southern Smoke Festival will be hosted at Downtown’s Discovery Green from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, October 5, 2024. VIP admission ($500) begins at 3 p.m. and general admission ($225) at 4 p.m. Tickets are available for purchase online. 1500 McKinney Street, 77010.