How We Got Started

KT’s stands for Kirk and Tricia (Jamison). We are modeled after Pecos Pit BBQ in Seattle, where we’re from. Guided by this inspiration, we took a trip to Memphis to eat BBQ three or four times a day for a week, to really learn what real BBQ is like. Over the summer of 1991, we wrote a business plan and raised $50,000.

In the fall of that year, we moved to Boulder in our Landcruiser with our two dogs—towing everything we owned in a 5’x8′ U-Haul trailer and making our first address the bank of the St. Vrain River near Lyons. We found the old blue house at 63rd and Arapahoe to rent for the restaurant and opened January 3rd, 1992 (Kirk’s 28th birthday).