Taste this: Midwestern/Wisconsin-style BBQ Pulled Pork Piggy Mac ($15 a plate as of Sept. 9, 2024) at D-Bo’s Grill, a food truck and catering business.
Creators: Dustin and Lisa Brunton
Locally sourced ingredients: D-Bo’s pork is sourced fresh from Ohio farms.
Eye test: A half-pound bed of smoked mac & cheese is topped with a half-pound of lean pulled pork complimented custom seasoning. Optional toppings include homemade BBQ sauce in one of three styles. The piggy mac is served in a clamshell-style takeout container.
“Not everybody can eat that much food at one time,” Dustin said. “They always have leftovers and they’re happy.”
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Side dishes: When catering, D-Bo’s Grill often offers green beans, roasted potatoes or other sides.
Pairs with: Cheerwine cherry soda (a secret ingredient in one of the homemade BBQ sauces), Frostop grape soda or an Ohio-brewed pale ale.
What makes this dish special: D-Bo’s Custom Seasoning and the slow-cooking process. Dustin said the seasoning is unlike anything folks can buy in grocery stores. D-Bo’s purchased the pulled-pork seasoning recipe from Mark Watters of Mark’s Market in Rio, Wisconsin. Lisa’s former boss — Watters — previously owned the D-Bo food truck. For approval to use the seasoning, which had been passed down through generations, Dustin and Lisa signed a non-disclosure agreement, rendering the recipe a guarded secret.
The seasoning is so tasty, Dustin said, they bottled it, distributing it like business cards when reaching out to prospective clients.
Process: Preparing the pulled pork piggy mac is a 20-hour process. D-Bo’s starts with fresh pork shoulder; it’s dry-rubbed and placed into a large commercial smoker where it slow-cooks for about 14 hours. The pork is then placed in water pans on the grill for an additional six hours and braised until the meat is ready to fall off the bone.
To maintain freshness, the pork is taken whole to each event, where Dustin tears the meat with tongs. D-Bo’s also prepares three BBQ sauces for each event:
- Wisconsin-style BBQ sauce: a twist on the recipe created by Lisa’s mom, Mary. It features clove, garlic and pepper
- Cheerwine BBQ sauce: pays tribute to Cheerwine cherry soda
- Sweet Heat BBQ sauce: features smoky jalapeno peppers
Dustin and Lisa Brunton’s back story: Known to regulars as “Mr. and Mrs. D-Bo,” Dustin and Lisa met online years ago, making a match that prompted Dustin to move from Ohio to Rio, Wisconsin, to be near her. The couple married in 2002. But wheels were in motion for D-Bo’s Grill before the pair ever met. The future D-Bo’s food truck was built by Lisa’s dad and uncle, who built several food trucks for various Wisconsin vendors. One of the trucks was for Lisa’s boss.
During the Wisconsin years, Lisa worked at Mark’s Market, which she said was the sole grocer for many miles around Rio. Mark catered weddings, graduations and other large community events, offering Lisa hands-on experience in large-scale cooking. In the meantime, Dustin attended chef school until an injury that affected his legs forced him to leave school. He then worked for several years in IT.
The pair moved back to Ohio in 2012. After some time, Dustin’s ailments flared up again. He was looking for work he could fall back on when the couple hit on their original passion – cooking. So, in 2022, they bought Watters’ food truck and D-Bo’s Grill was born.
Passion for cuisine: Lisa and Dustin enjoy working in the food industry. They both love home-style cooking and hope to one day open a brick-and-mortar restaurant.
For Dustin, who has been cooking since he was 14, running D-Bo’s Grill is especially gratifying. “Cooking is my love language,” he laughs. But the work at D-Bo’s Grill draws on both their strengths. “I do the dreaming, Lisa does the teaming,” he said, crediting her for much of the physical work at D-Bo’s, as his condition still makes standing for long periods difficult. The roughly 40 hours of work required to prep D-Bo’s dishes for each event is primarily performed by Lisa.
And when it comes to creating recipes, Dustin says Lisa can “throw down.” She admits her passion is modifying recipes, based on careful research. “I like reading reviews at the bottom of recipes,” she said. “It’s one of my favorite things to do, to see, okay, these people added this and these people changed it this way. Just taking a whole bunch of different ideas like that and putting it together and making it our own.”
In fact, D-Bo’s mac & cheese sauce is a spin on Lisa’s mom’s cheesy potatoes recipe. Growing up in Wisconsin, where cheesemaking is tradition, enabled Lisa to understand the flavors of an array of cheeses. She used that knowledge to alter her mom’s recipe to create a proprietary recipe for the smoked mac & cheese that’s served with the piggy mac, and as a side dish.
The pair understands that tasting is believing. Often during busy events, Dustin will take a tray out to the crowd and hand out samples. That trick brings in orders from people waiting in line at not only D-Bo’s but, with permission, from customers in line at nearby food trucks selling homemade lemonade and other treats.
About D-Bo’s Grill: D-Bo’s Grill started in 2022 when Dustin and Lisa Brunton decided to bring several years of experience and passion for BBQ to the public. D-Bo’s Grill specializes in slow-cooked, smoked meats and homemade sides. D-Bo’s Custom Seasoning is a long-held secret recipe, protected by a nondisclosure agreement Dustin and Lisa signed in 2019. You can find D-Bo’s Grill at local festivals and outdoor events from Cleveland to Columbus. Follow D-Bo’s Grill on Facebook.
How to buy: D-Bo’s Grill is often at Northeast Ohio festivals and outdoor events and also caters special events. Check out D-Bo’s schedule here.
