Southern Smoke Foundation Festival to Host Incredible Talent, More Stages, and New Offerings on October 5, 2024

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SSF Festival is back at Discovery Green on October 5, 2024, to raise money for their emergency relief fund and mental health programs

 On Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, Southern Smoke Foundation, a leading nonprofit organization dedicated to providing emergency relief funds nationwide and access to mental health services for food and beverage workers (F+B), brings out the big stars for its annual park party fundraiser: Southern Smoke Festival, presented by Alaska Seafood. More than 70 incredible culinary stars from across the country will join the best wine, spirit, and beer producers and outstanding live music at Discovery Green in the heart of Downtown Houston. Tickets are on sale and available for purchase here. 

*New This Year* Food & Wine Best New Chefs

Southern Smoke Foundation is partnering with Food & Wine magazine to showcase the new class of Best New Chefs. Announced in September 2024, Southern Smoke Festival will be the first place that the 2024 class of Best New Chefs cook together.  

*New This Year* YETI Culinary Stage 

SSF24 is adding a Culinary Stage, presented by YETI, for the first time, featuring cooking demos emceed by chef, YouTuber, and YETI Ambassador Brad Leone. Demo chefs include James Beard Award-winning chef and culinary star Christina Tosi of Milk Bar as her Southern Smoke Festival debut, along with star-studded chefs Brooke Williamson, Ana Castro, Fermin Nunez, Pat Martin, Mason Hereford, Kevin Fink, and Tavel Bristol-Joseph. 

*New This Year* Wine Bars + Star Bartenders 

We’ve invited our favorite wine bars—in Houston and beyond—to pop up at the Festival this year. In addition, each bar will be helmed by the best bartenders in the biz. 

Wine Bars 

  • 13 Celsius (Houston)
  • Bacchanal (New Orleans) 
  • Lees Den (Houston) 
  • Lolo (Austin) 
  • Montrose Cheese & Wine (Houston)
  • Oakwood Pizza Box (Raleigh) 
  • Stella’s Wine Bar (Houston)
  • The Library (Houston)
  • The Roots Fund

 Bartenders

  • The team from Johnny’s Gold Brick (Houston) 
  • Sean Umstead, Kingfisher (Raleigh) 
  • Travis Tober, Nickel City (Houston/Austin) 

The Central Market Wine Bar will take over The Lake House, an air-conditioned space in the center of Discovery Green. 

New in Lexus VIP

This year, The Grove is home to the Lexus VIP area, featuring VIP chefs Billy Durney (Hometown BBQ and Red Hook Tavern, Brooklyn, NY) serving his famous Red Hook Tavern burgers, Kate McLean (Tony’s, Houston), and Paola Velez (Bodega Bakes, Dōekï Dōekï, Washington, DC). Alba Huerta of James Beard Award-winning bar Julep will be behind the bar. VIP tickets also include early admission at 3 pm, special wines, and the opportunity to Spin the Wheel for gifts and prizes—all in an air-conditioned space with a great view of the YETI Culinary Stage. 

*New This Year* Cookbook Signing

Our friends at Kindred Stories will be selling books onsite, and we’ll have a signing schedule for guests to meet their favorite chefs, purchase a book, and have it personalized. 

You’ll see some new faces… 

Chefs making their first appearance at Southern Smoke Festival include Jeff Chanchaleune, Ma Der Lao Kitchen, Oklahoma City; Isabel Coss, Lutece, Washington, DC; Kari Crowe, Melt Ice Cream, Fort Worth; Cassidee Dabney, The Barn at Blackberry Farm, Walland TN; Sam Fore, Tuk Tuk Sri Lankan Bites, Lexington, KY; Renee Erickson, The Walrus and the Carpenter, Seattle; Chelsea Fadda, Pecan Square Café, Austin; Meherwan Irani, Chai Pani, Asheville, NC; Joe Kindred, Kindred Restaurant, Davidson NC; Lucas McKinney, Josephine’s, Houston; Don Nguyen, Khoi BBQ, Houston; Edgar Rico, Nixta Taqueria, Austin; Austin Simmons, Tris, The Woodlands; Zach and Hannah Welton, Welton’s Tiny Bake Shop, Charleston; and Lee Anne Wong, Koko Head Café, Honolulu. 

And the familiar faces… 

The newcomers will be joined by returning and longtime Southern Smoke Foundation chefs including Angel Barreto, Anju, Washington, D.C.; Ashley Christensen, AC Restaurants, Raleigh, NC; Chris Cosentino, San Francisco; Tim Flores and Genie Kwon, Kasama, Chicago; Aaron Franklin, Franklin Barbecue, Austin; Sarah Grueneberg, Monteverde, Chicago; Cheetie Kumar, Ajja, Raleigh; Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel, Birdie’s, Austin; Jordan Rubin, Mr. Tuna, Portland, ME; Caroline Schiff, Monday Diner, New York; Rodney Scott, Rodney Scott’s BBQ, Charleston; and Jason Stanhope, Lowland Tavern, Charleston. 

And the hometown heroes…

Plus, more than 20 of Houston’s top names will take part, including 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), 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); Martin Stayer (Nobie’s), and Michelle Wallace (b’tween the slices).

About Southern Smoke Foundation

Founded in 2017 by James Beard Foundation award-winning chef Chris Shepherd and Executive Director Lindsey Brown, Southern Smoke Foundation provides access to mental health services through its program, Behind You, and emergency relief funding to food and beverage (F+B) workers nationwide. This includes restaurant, bar, and cafe workers; farmers and ranchers; winemakers, distillers, and brewers; and anyone in the industry faced with financial hardship because of a natural disaster, medical emergency, accident, or other unforeseen incident.

To date, Southern Smoke Foundation has granted more than $12.3M to F+B workers, and since 2020, has provided over 5,400 no-cost counseling sessions to F+B workers and their children in California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington DC, and Virginia. To support the Southern Smoke Foundation or to apply for assistance, visit southernsmoke.org.

Photos: Daniel Ortiz

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