Johnny Mac Wells Smokehouse

09/05/2026

08/30/2026

The Johnny Mac Wells Smokehouse made the trip to West Newton, PA for the annual “Grill your Ace off” SCA event. It was held at the beautiful Harvest Hills venue. Everyone was talking all weekend about the amazing views!

This was the first time in a very long time we left the trailer at home and cooked out of the truck. We set up our cook-site with friends and teammates from NC Grate Sauces and Rubs, Cravenwood Smokehouse, Showtime's Legit BBQ, LLC, and Wicked Pirates Grilling Crew. Such a fun time cooking alongside our friends and we had plenty of laughs and good memories made.

The event ran extremely smooth and was very well organized thanks to Keith Todd, Jen, and Angel!
The scores were high all weekend, with multiple ties, perfect scores, and the field was stacked with great competitors from all over the country!
Brett Gallaway it was great to see you as always and thank you for providing us cooks an organization that allows us to compete and do what we love!

Friday night was anything 🥒 Pickle and Steak

Freddie- 8th place anything pickle with a Mt. Olive Pickles stuffed, jumbo dill cheeseburger pickle!
Nathan- 2nd place steak and one of those huge saw-blade trophies that are some of the most unique trophies in the SCA!

Saturday was 3 Steaks, Chili, and Ribs 🐷

We turned in some great entries but didn’t have the results we hoped for. That’s just the way competition goes sometimes and we still had a great time regardless!

Freddie- 7th place chili with that award winning Smokehouse Chili!! 🌶️
Nathan- 11th place steak with a 252.8 😳

All-in-all a great weekend spent with friends and making memories! A huge thanks goes to our sponsors for their support and giving us the tools to compete at a high level!

MEATER

Jealous Devil
Mt. Olive Pickle Parlor
PK Grills
Capital Chevrolet

08/27/2026

Thank you to our corporate partners and North Carolina watermelon growers for sponsoring the 2026 National Watermelon Queen’s tour of North Carolina. Your support enabled Queen Lilah and Queen Katelyn to visit farmers markets, retail stores, and farms to share their watermelon story.

07/24/2026

So proud of Bruce Newsome and his mail call today! This was well deserved! First perfect score for the Johnny Mac Wells Smokehouse and one of many goals we have set as a team to accomplish. Bruce was the first one to earn this! Congratulations!

06/16/2026

Few updates on our SCA event at the Smokehouse.

-The person with the highest combined steak points for Friday & Saturday will have their Steak entry fee’s paid for the Smokehouse SCA event next year!

-If you need ancillary or other grocery items when you get in town, please shop local at the Piggly Wiggly of Mt Olive. Please show the attached coupon to get 10% off your total purchase!

-We have someone coming to do face painting from 11:30-1:30 on Saturday. We will have corn hole and some other games to keep the kiddos busy! Speaking of kids, please get them signed up! It is free for them to cook, the top 5 will get trophies, and the winner gets a golden ticket!! 🎫

-Live music and bar-tender Friday night, Bloody Mary/mimosa open bar on Saturday morning, and some live music during the day Saturday also!

-Stay tuned for our raffle items. We will be posting pictures of them in the next couple of weeks. You will have the opportunity to purchase tickets before the event and during. We will announce the winners of the raffle items on Saturday night before awards.

As always, thank you to all of our sponsors for supporting our event and for the donation of our raffle items. We couldn’t do it without you!!

06/11/2026

Happy Birthday! Aunt Betty!
Hope you have a great day!

06/10/2026

We ate lunch today at Brisas downtown Goldsboro. We had the steak lunch bowl. It was awesome!! The steak was tender, cooked perfectly, and it was more food than we could eat. If you haven’t tried Brisa’s for lunch, you are missing out! Give it a try! They have different lunch specials every week and you can’t go wrong!

06/09/2026

🎂 Happy birthday Aunt Kay! 🎉

It seems like yesterday we were drawing straws to see who would go talk to Aunt Kay about taking over the original Smokehouse building. It was just used for storage at the time and we wanted a place to hang out and cook. At the time, beer wasn’t allowed across the driveway. 😂 With her blessing, we started construction on what is today, the Johnny Mac Wells Smokehouse! Aunt Kay told us on Sunday how proud Johnny Mac would be to see what the Smokehouse has become. She said if he was here, he would even give us some money to keep building! 🤣

Thank you Aunt Kay for always supporting us, and putting up with our Shenanigans, events, and entertaining. You are always standing on the porch to see us off on our cooking adventures, and the first one to see us when we get home. Thank you for everything you do for us! We love you!

06/08/2026

We made a deal with Rick Manzi before we cooked, that if either of us won 1st place we would bust a watermelon in true Ross Chastain fashion! Rick won 1st place steak, and Pots won first place Ribs! I know Ross would be proud!! Please support the Watermelon industry by going to your local grocery store and buying them!!

NC Watermelon Association
National Watermelon Association

06/07/2026

The Johnny Mac Wells Smokehouse cooked in the 4th annual, Cars and Carnivores Street Festival in Wake Forest yesterday. It is a great event and one we always look forward to! Special thank you to Capital Chevrolet for sponsoring us yesterday, we really appreciate your support!

All four of us walked in Ribs yesterday, using some beautiful St Louis cut ribs from Piggly Wiggly of Mt Olive. All of us used the newly released “Hog Havoc” from Disruption Rubs. Amazing color and flavor!!! You can find it locally at Grate Sauces and Rubs!

Darren, Bruce, Pots, and Nathan competed in all six categories. Three steaks, dessert, wings, and ribs. Results as follows-

🍗 Wings
4th- Nathan (GOLDEN TICKET) 🎫

🐷 Ribs
9th- Bruce
6th- Darren
5th- Nathan
1st- Pots (GOLDEN TICKET) 🎫

🧁 Dessert
10th- Nathan
9th- Bruce
8th- Darren

🥩 Steak A
8th- Pots
5th- Nathan
4th- Darren

🥩 Steak B
9th- Bruce
7th- Nathan
6th- Darren
5th- Pots (GOLDEN TICKET) 🎫

🥩 Jackpot Steak
8th- Pots
7th- Nathan
5th- Darren

Thank you to all of our sponsors for your continued support!

Jealous Devil
Grate Sauces and Rubs
PK Grills
Mt. Olive Pickles
Mt. Olive Pickle Parlor
MEATER
Award-Winning Disruption Rubs
Piggly Wiggly of Mt Olive