May 9, 2024

Mississippi native Robert Dixon is bringing his barbecue to more people with a food truck.

Dixon, who works full time at the Billion Car Care Center, has been doing catering for several years and expanded this spring into a food truck: Mississippi Smoke.

“I have some of the best food around,” Dixon said. “My style of barbecue is Southern style. We basically do the same process but use different seasonings, and we prepare it just a little bit differently.”

Dixon puts a dry rub on the meat before smoking it over oak or hickory wood. “My preference is hickory, but it’s hard to find out this way,” he noted of the prairie.

If you want sauce on your meat, you’ll likely have to add it yourself.

“We do put barbecue sauce on it sometimes. But people don’t want them wet,” he said of the ribs.

“We call it Mississippi sauce.”

He makes everything from beef brisket and pork and beef ribs to turkey legs and sausages. His repertoire includes pulled pork, tri-tips, hamburgers and deep-fried Cajun catfish. There are homemade baked beans, potato salad, cheesy potatoes, mac-and-cheese and Cajun green beans.

His wife, Tamara, makes cakes and other desserts. She’s the reason he moved to the Midwest. Before that, he lived for a time in Chicago, so he wasn’t blinded to the weather by love.

The food truck is out every Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the parking lot of Pfeifer Implement at 12th Street and Marion Road. The menu usually features a couple of smoked meats and a couple of sides. This will he’s selling brisket, smoked porkchops, cheesy potatoes and baked beans.

Find updates on the menu and outings on Facebook.

Mississippi Smoke can be booked for public and private events. Over the years, Dixon’s catering jobs have included feeding everyone from workers to weddings guests.

“All of my business has been word of mouth,” he said.

Now that Mississippi Smoke’s visibility is growing with the food truck, he hopes to make it a full-time job someday.

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