Matt Pittman

Matt Pittman is a pitmaster, the founder of ‘Meat Church’ and a popular content creator.

He has more than 710K subscribers on his YouTube channel, ‘Meat Church BBQ.’

Introduction-

Matthew (Matt Pittman) was born on 19 November 1975 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States.

He grew up Southern Baptist.

Matt’s late grandmother, June, taught him cooking in Alabama; he has been cooking from a young age.

He has a younger brother, Josh Pittman.

Matt had an entrepreneurial spirit from a young age; as a kid, he refurbished bicycles; in high school, he made candy; in college, he made t-shirts for fraternities and sororities.

Education & career-

He studied BBA in Finance from University of Texas at Arlington; he graduated in 1997.

From 1993 to 1997, Matt worked as a Customer Service Manager at Bank of America.

From 1997 to 1999, he worked in Cash Management of Auto One Acceptance Corporation.

From 1999 to 2012, Matt worked at Penson Financial Services in Dallas, Texas; here, he served as a Vice President, MIS, Infrastructure.

From 2012 to 2016, he worked as a Senior Director of Technology Operations at Elevate, a spin-off of Think Finance.

From February 2016 to January 2019, Matt worked as a Vice President, Technology Operations at Elevate in Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex.

Then, he quit his full-time job to focus on his business, ‘Meat Church.’

BBQ competitions; love for BBQ-

Matt started cooking from an early age and has been a serious outdoor cook since a long time; while growing up, he had lots of pork.

In college, his friends were into barbecuing and used to invite him for BBQ; thanks to this, he developed an interest in BBQ.

One of his friends, Pete, used to have a couple of huge smokers and used to cook a lot of rack of ribs, briskets, etc.

Matt, along with Pete and another friend started competing in a few BBQ competitions; later, he started competing seriously.

Once, he along with his friends were competing in Arlington, Texas; one of his friends pulled a screwdriver from his pocket, which wasn’t a brand-new one and started stirring up the barbecue sauce with it and he offered him that screwdriver for stirring the sauce.

As Matt didn’t like this act, he started competing on his own.

Once, he travelled to Texas and took a bite of salt and pepper beef rib brisket barbecue of Central Texas BBQ, Austin and was completely taken aback by it; he was thrilled by the taste of salt and pepper melded with fat.

Matt was bitten by the BBQ bug and decided to replicate the Central Texas barbecue.

His wife gifted him an offset stick burner for Father’s Day; he started avidly barbecuing on the burner and started cooking a variety of food.

The story behind ‘Meat Church’-

On 19 May 2013, Alice Laussade, a popular humorous food writer, tweeted about going to The Slow Bone with a #meatchurch.

Matt was captivated by the word ‘Meat Church.’

Later, he and his brother started competing in the BBQ competitions under the name ‘Meat Church.’

Once, Matt hand-made a couple of rubs; at that time, he was self-taught and didn’t know that he had to buy seasonings; he just Googled a recipe and tweaked it and made a beef rub and an all-purpose rub by hand.

As he needed honey powder for the all-purpose rub, Jamie Geer, referred him to a local co-packer’s place to buy honey powder.

Here, Matt observed labels on the counter and enquired about them and also learnt about the co-packer and ordered a couple of rubs from him; he named the first rub as ‘Meat Church Holy Cow.’

He decided to package this beef rub containing unique spice blends and sell it.

So, in April 2014, Matt started his company, ‘Meat Church,’ while he appeared on BBQ Pitmasters.

And started selling merchandise and rubs; since the beginning, he has been with the same co-packer.

Initially, Matt ran his business from his house in Waxahachie.

He started the ‘Meat Church’ website and started selling products through it; initially, it was just a hobby for him.

He launched the website with just a couple of seasonings, shirts, and hats and five months later, the website took off.

In the third year of Meat Church, Matt started earning handsomely.

He serves as the CEO of Meat Church.

Matt manages the business side of ‘Meat Church’ whereas his co-packer takes care of the manufacturing part.

Struggles; social media & store-

In addition to doing a full-time job, Matt was working on Meat Church as a side hustle.

This was beyond working two jobs as he used to work very long hours; this hurt his marriage.

In 2013, Matt started posting food content on Instagram, and his YouTube channel, ‘Meat Church BBQ.’

Thanks to his food content, he succeeded in projecting Meat Church as a lifestyle BBQ brand.

As of October 2023, Matt has 712K subscribers on his YouTube channel, 789K followers on Instagram, 288K followers on the Facebook page and 102.2K followers on Twitter.

In January 2019, after his business gained momentum, he quit his full-time job and successful corporate career in his forties to focus on ‘Meat Church.’

After quitting his job, Matt opened a retail shop, ‘Meat Church BBQ Supply’ in Waxahachie, in a building built in 1890 with reclaimed items.

It’s interesting to note that his father had a hardware store in Rogers, Texas.

Matt was a Dallas Cowboys season ticket holder for more than 15 years.

He also conducts BBQ classes & events.

In April 2021, Matt and Tracie accepted the Mabel Frame award at the Waxahachie Chamber of Commerce Awards Banquet.

Personal life-

On 22 May 2009, he married Tracie Pittman.

Matt has four children.

He lives in Waxahachie, Texas.

Some interesting facts about Matt-

• Pittman isn’t his last name but as his BBQ business succeeded, he changed his last name to Pittman.
• Matt is a fan of BBQ Pitmasters; in 2014, he along with his brother appeared on Season 6 of BBQ Pitmasters and finished last.
• In addition to barbecuing, he loves cooking comfort foods like chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy.
• Matt is an ambassador for Traeger Grills.
• He is influenced by Texas chuck wagon style cooking and the cooking style of Grady Spears.
• Butter is Matt’s favourite cooking ingredient.
• ‘A Cowboy in the Kitchen’ is his favourite cookbook.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Matt Pittman?

Share with me in the comment section below.

Also read- The story of Kent Rollins, a popular chuckwagon and cowboy cook, and YouTuber.