Competitor on Food Network’s ‘Chopped Grill Masters’ to open SC barbecue restaurant

Jeff Bannister is a busy man.

To learn the ins and outs of the restaurant business, he has been undergoing “boot camp” – working at various stations in the kitchen and in the front of house – at Table 301’s Nose Dive gastropub in Greenville; filming episodes for the new season of Food Network’s “Chopped Grill Masters;” and spending time in Ridgeway, where he and Tom Hall are planning to open a barbecue restaurant later this month.

Brice’s Country Store, named after Hall’s son, is a converted gas station in downtown Ridgeway that will be a carry-out spot open on weekends, featuring boudin and housemade sausages in addition to pit-smoked barbecue. Hall and Bannister have convinced Jack Waiboer – three-time South Carolina State BBQ Champion, president of Southern BBQ Network, owner of Carolina Pit Masters Barbecue Cooking School and co-host of Grate TV BBQ and Grill Show on YouTube – to oversee the operation and train a team of pitmasters to ensure quality.

Bannister grew up in Holly Hill on whole hog, pit smoked barbecue.

“It’s hard to go back and look at the first time I cooked a pig,” Bannister said. “I think I was 14. But I was always raised around cooking whole animals. I remember being 35 years old and going into a restaurant in Greenville and asking to see the pit because I really liked the barbecue ... and realized they were only cooking pork butts,” he said. “I thought the only way to cook real barbecue was to cook whole animals.”

That’s what led Bannister to found Bovinoche in 2011. The whole animal roasting event was spurred on after Bannister saw a television show with Anthony Bourdain cooking a whole animal over open flame in Argentina. What started as a charity event in Greenville to raise funds for military organizations – Bannister is an Army veteran – and has spread to various locations in the Upstate, to Asheville, and Hall’s Magnolia Farm Lodge in Ridgeway.

The two men met after Hall contacted Bannister about hosting an animal roast in Ridgeway. Bannister showed up on the porch at Magnolia the weekend that Hall had scheduled a concert by the Larry Keel Experience. Bannister introduced himself and ended up cooking for 450 people that weekend.

In addition to the Brice’s Country Store venture, Hall has purchased an older home on three acres in Ridgeway that he is transforiming into the Honeysuckle Hill bed-and-breakfast. He is also restoring Magnolia Farm Lodge to be a working farm that will include various breeds of livestock could have been found on the original Civil War era farm. The animals – including Tunis sheep, Ayrshire cattle and Berkshire pigs – along with a creamery operated by Dave Artigues will be incorporated into the curriculum of The Barclay School, which is located on the Magnolia property.

For Bannister, who went to schools in Orangeburg and Charleston to help deal with his dyslexia, fundraising events for the Barclay School – such as a Bovinoche event this fall and some planned pop-up dinners – are a way to give back.

Bovinoche also has led Bannister to a bit of fame on the small screen.

He has appeared in seven TV series – from Cooking Channel’s “Man, Fire, Food,” and Anthony Anderson’s “Anthony Eats America,” to Weather Channel’s “Fat Guys in the Woods,” and Destination America’s “Smoked.” He’s also in the latest season of Food Network’s “Chopped Grill Masters,” airing Tuesdays.

“Chopped” starts with four teams of four competitors, and Bannister is the only non-chef in the mix. Each week, one competitor is chosen to move to the finals for a chance at the $50,000 grand prize. Bannister’s episode will air Aug. 8 as he goes up against Ro Daniel of Scottsdale, Arizona; Richard Fergola of Gardner, Kansas; and Joe Johnson of Los Angeles.

Should he win, this would be yet another life-changing event to happen within the past three years.

In 2014, Bannister was chosen to appear on “Fat Guys” after a show runner saw his random Tweet about wanting to participate. The premise of the show is to take three guys with little to no survival skills, teach them the basics – how to make fire, build a shelter and forage for food – and leave them alone for a day or two in unfamiliar territory to fend for themselves. Bannister was filmed in the snowy woods of Drummond Island, Michigan, in December 2014. The episode aired in 2015.

Soon after, Bannister sold his process server business. “I had a heart attack due to stress at age 47,” he said. “I had over 2,000 clients, all lawyers,” he deadpans.

He decided to learn from the experience and get back into shape after spending 22 years in a climate-controlled office, so he began with a bucket list (his second) that would challenge him physically.

At the top of the list, Bannister mapped out a solo kayak trip that would take him from Greenville to Charleston via the state’s river system. He began to exercise and went on a diet – “so I could fit in the kayak,” he said.

He set out in mid-September 2015 at S.C. 14 in Greer on the Enoree River. Although his plans were interrupted by Hurricane Matthew as he drew near the coast, Bannister completed his kayak adventure a week after the storm passed, landing near the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston and porting his boat and gear down Meeting Street, to the doors of High Cotton restaurant, where he had a celebratory lunch.

Thinking that one day he would like to get back into the restaurant business, which he had done before starting his own business, Bannister began to travel to learn more about the food he loved. He ended up learning the secrets to preparing a perfect paella after spending some time in the Basque community of Idaho. Bannister’s paellas, prepared in pans that measure six feet across, feature the traditional “burnt rice” crispy bottoms and are showstoppers at Bovinoche events.

“The greatest joy in life is giving people a positive experience, whether (it’s) a whole cow, llama, dolphin, swordfish or alligator,” said Bannister of Bovinoche. He likes reminding people of where the meat that they like to eat comes from and the best, most basic ways to cook it.

One of his favorite places to go is the scrap yard, where he picks out pieces of metal that can be welded into spits or frames for holding whole animals over an open fire. A couple of the more impressive rigs that he and his engineer buddies have constructed were meant to hold whole cows. One was a large grate that could be raised or lowered over the flames. Another was a rotisserie that held a whole animal for slow roasting.

“I have something we call the Dome of Fire (for Bovinoche),” said Bannister. The contraption will hold a whole pig (or something similar in size) in the center and has spaces for chickens or smaller animals around the exterior of the frame. An online company wanted $800 for a similar oversized grilling device. “I walked in to a scrap yard, where steel is 37 cents a pound, and bought the materials for $22.87.”

“You just need to try and do good,” he said, of life and his life in particular. “If every part of your life is good, you’ve had a great life.”

This story was originally published August 1, 2017 at 6:39 PM with the headline "Competitor on Food Network’s ‘Chopped Grill Masters’ to open SC barbecue restaurant."