Single Tree Nation Show

Charlie and Derry are going to Texas (again). Will Buckman, pitmaster and owner of Michelin-starred CorkScrew BBQ in Spring, Texas, joins the show, and before he says a word Charlie admits his own new beef and cheddar was lifted straight from CorkScrew's Instagram. "Three guesses where I got the idea for that." Will's story starts in the driveway: selling backyard brisket to help pay the mortgage...

Brandon from 1811 Wood Fired Oven pulls up a seat with Charlie and Derry. He got married, his brother (a pizza baker for eight years in Arizona) moved in a couple of months later, and in under a year the two of them built a $100K wood-fired pizza truck that now runs five days a week at Cedar Glade Brews. They talk 48-hour Neapolitan dough, why Brandon lowered his oven temps for a crispier "Neo-Nea...

Just Charlie and Derry this week, one month out from the parade. It starts with a question — do you like AI? — and turns into a real conversation about what it will and won't replace: welders making $150K, the electrician who walked into Derry's classroom ("AI can't do that yet"), 3D-printed concrete homes, and why your house price still won't come down. Charlie's take on the hospitality side is b...

Part 2 of our Veterans BBQ Camp series — and this time it's the founder's story. Charlie Eblen and Derry Wells sit down with Franka Magana, the man who started Veterans BBQ Camp, to hear where it all came from: his own story, the moment the idea took hold, and how a camp built around fire, food, and fellow veterans grew into what it is today. If you caught Part 1, this is the one that fills in the...

"Cooking, smoking, grilling — it truly is therapeutic for all veterans. And when you bring them all together, you can see the spirits lift. It brings the camaraderie back." Single Tree Nation hits the road! Charlie Eblen and Derry Wells head to Rural Hill Farms in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, for the final day of the 7th annual Veterans BBQ Camp, founded by Marine veteran Frank Magana of Hearty Hog BBQ....

Savannah and Lane Knight run Believe Social, the creative marketing agency behind Single Tree BBQ's socials — and this year they packed up a small town in Mississippi and moved to Murfreesboro on faith. Charlie Eblen and Derry Wells sit down with both of them on the couch. Savannah built the agency four years ago working with boutiques; a client with multiple dealerships kept bringing her to Tenne...

Just Charlie and Derry this week, and Charlie has had a week. A job candidate showed up 17 minutes late and put his feet up in the dining room. Another came to a restaurant interview with no shoes on. And while Charlie was getting a haircut, a total stranger in a ski mask walked up to the Single Tree smoker and started throwing logs in the firebox "to get warm" — spiking the pit to 400 degrees wit...

Pitmaster, Hall of Famer, and owner of Peg Leg Porker Brands, Carey Bringle is back — officially a friend of the show. Charlie Eblen and Derry Wells sit down with Carey for a wide-open conversation about barbecue, bourbon, and what it really takes to keep a small business alive in Nashville. Carey breaks down how Peg Leg Porker Tennessee Straight Bourbon went from 15 to 26 states in a year, the hi...

Just Charlie and Derry this week — and it goes everywhere. It starts in the high school pickup line and ends with Carl Jung, with hot links, pork belly tacos, and a Bo Jackson hip injury in between. The heart of it: raising kids who can stand on their own. Charlie lays down his sponsorship rule — if you're a kid and you want Single Tree BBQ to sponsor your team, your parents can't ask. You walk in...

Kevin Bludso is back on Single Tree Nation - and this time the audio worked. The Compton pitmaster behind Bludso's BBQ, Netflix's Barbecue Showdown and a first-of-its-kind Bar Rescue appearance sits down with host Charlie Eblen and co-host Derry Wells for the full story: learning to cook at his granny's little joint, the karate kid years of "sauce on or sauce off," getting terminated from correcti...

Host Charlie Eblen sat down with General Huber at MTSU's Charlie Daniels Veterans Center last week, and it left him with something he needed to say on this platform: if you're a veteran and you haven't applied for your disability, go do it today. You earned those benefits. They are yours. And you are not less of a soldier - or less of a person - for going to get what you were entitled to. From the...

Charlie Eblen and Derry Wells are back in the studio, and Charlie has a number in his head: $100,000. Schools are raising six and seven figures for turf and Jumbotrons — so where's the line for the 20-plus thousand veterans living in Rutherford County? "You guys that are donating all this big money to the high schools — call me." From there it turns into one of the more honest hours the show has p...

History is coming to Murfreesboro. Charlie Eblen and Dari Wells break down Rutherford County's first-ever Veterans Day Parade — Saturday, November 14th, 10:00 AM, rolling from MTSU straight down Main Street to the historic square. Charlie shares why this one is personal: his grandfather served 28 years in the military and helped draft the Peace Accord for Vietnam. With 400,000 people and over 20,0...

Special episode of Single Tree Nation! On location at Stoke Haus Brewing & Barbecue in East Nashville, Charlie Eblen and Derry Wells sit down with Co-Owner Mike Morbitzer — the Navy vet turned home brewer turned pitmaster behind one of Nashville's most talked-about brewpubs, sitting at 4.8 stars just eleven months in. Over a table full of Memphis-style dry ribs, hand-pulled pork, warm German potat...

Derry takes the host chair with Charlie riding shotgun as they welcome Marlyse Moran of The Empanada Sonata. Her story goes everywhere: Puerto Rican recipes passed down from her mom (and a "secret sauce" called sofrito), a New York food truck run that earned Food Truck Rookie of the Year and a spot on 100 Top Dishes of New York City, an FDNY husband whose years of service brought them to Middle Te...

Charlie and Derry sit down with Fernando González of Two Fifty BBQ in Riverdale Park, Maryland — one of the most talked-about Texas-style barbecue joints in the DMV. Fernando's road to the pit is unlike anyone's: he fell in love with Central Texas barbecue, started smoking Texas-style in El Salvador for Texans and expats near the US embassy, then brought it to Maryland — where a pandemic pivot and...

Single Tree Nation sits down with Terren Williams, owner and pitmaster of Slow Fire BBQ in Savannah, Georgia — a culinary-school-trained pastry chef turned Texas-style barbecue obsessive who's redefining what wood-fired barbecue looks like on the Georgia coast. In this episode, Charlie Eblen and Derry Wells get one of the most story-rich conversations the show has had this year. Terren walks the g...

Single Tree Nation sits down with Leng Yang the first-generation Hmong American pitmaster behind It's Different Barbecue Company in Buford, Georgia — an Atlanta suburb where he's redefining what Southern barbecue can look like when you refuse to pick a lane. In this episode, Charlie Eblen and Derry Wells get one of the most powerful backstories the show has ever recorded. Leng walks the guys throu...

Single Tree Nation sits down with Tim Hutchins, owner and pitmaster of Hutchins BBQ — the McKinney and Frisco, Texas institutions his father started on the side of the road in 1978. Tim was literally born into the business, living in a 10x10 room at the end of the barbecue joint as an infant, playing in cooled ash piles as a kid, and eventually taking over the family restaurant during one of the t...

This week on Single Tree Nation, we've got a rare two-guest show: musician Justin Andrews and coffee entrepreneur Darren Spicer — the duo behind Cowboy Mud Rub, a coffee-based spice rub built on Justin's grandfather's third-generation recipe. The backstory is a good one. Darren built a drive-through coffee company in the Carolinas and sold it to Dutch Bros. Justin grew up in Oklahoma in a family o...

Roger Vaughn has done just about every job in the meat business — driving no-AC box trucks for his family's sausage company, running the supply chain that fed KFC, Popeyes and Church's, brokering chicken loads from his car during COVID, even delivering pizzas on the side. Now his name is on the building at Off the Dock Foods in Nashville. In this episode of Single Tree Nation, Roger sits down with...

Single Tree Nation sits down with Brandon Hoy, co-founder of Roberta's Pizza in Bushwick, Brooklyn — the wood-fired pizza institution behind the legendary Bee Sting, the two-Michelin-star Blanca next door, and ten locations across the country including the Roberta's inside Urban Cowboy in Nashville. In this episode, Brandon walks Charlie Eblen and Derry Wells through a 35-year hospitality journey:...

Charlie Eblen and co-host Derry Wells welcome John Bates of Interstellar BBQ — the Northwest Austin joint that landed at #6 on Texas Monthly's Top 50 — for an hour on the craft, the grind, and the genius behind one of Central Texas's destination barbecue spots. John breaks down trading an eight-year scratch sandwich shop for brisket, the fleet of pits behind the smoke (from his beloved "Big Merc"...

Charlie Eblen and Derry Wells head to South Central Texas for an unforgettable conversation with Ernest Servantes , co-founder of Burnt Bean Co. — the Seguin-based craft BBQ joint that earned a spot on Texas Monthly's Top 50 BBQ Joints: 2025 Edition . Ernest opens up about what it really takes to cook with live fire: the patience, the time, the feel, and the obsession with detail that turned a sma...

Charlie and Derry take Single Tree Nation on the road this week to The Trailer Park — Lebanon, TN's first permanent food truck park, just off Highway 109. 20+ trucks, a barn-sized event hall, fire pits, a playground, weekly bingo with 100+ teams, and a PB&J beer from Knoxville's Zool that outsells everything else on the bar. We pulled up a picnic table and sat down with three of the people making...