How It Started.
Ryan has had a passion for cooking since he was a kid. For years that passion lived in the dream of a restaurant, a food truck, something that let him feed people and watch their faces when they took the first bite. That's where the joy is for him.
It started with a question from a friend: "Have you ever smoked pretzels?" Ryan hadn't. So he fired up the smoker, ran a small batch, and knew immediately there was something real here. What followed was months of experimenting with flavors, techniques, and recipes until Back 40 BBQ's first product was born: Garlic Parmesan smoked pretzels.
At the start of 2026, Ryan and his wife Holly launched Back 40 BBQ together. A family business in every sense of the word. Ryan handles operations, cooking, and sales. Holly runs the books, designs their vendor booth, and keeps Ryan grounded when the ambition starts outpacing the plan. Their daughter Kaylin (15) helps with cooking and packaging. Their youngest, Lily (8), holds the most important title in the company: Head Taste Tester.
Back 40 BBQ currently offers three flavors of small-batch smoked pretzels and is building toward catering, a food truck, and eventually a restaurant. But the mission has always been simple: serve the community and make food that brings people together.
Behind the Name
The "back 40" is the part of the land where the real work happens. No audience, no applause. Just heads-down effort. That's the culture we want around this food. But the number 40 runs deeper. In Scripture, 40 marks a season of preparation before something greater. Forty days of rain. Forty years in the wilderness. Forty days before ministry began. That's what this business is to us. Colossians 3:23 says to work at everything with your whole heart, as if working for the Lord. We make pretzels. We serve food. But the real mission is building community and serving people well.