This year, for the 120th National Western Stock Show, acclaimed local Chef Manny Barella of Riot BBQ will be slinging his distinctly Texas-meets-Mexico style barbecue at a pop-up saloon in the new Exchange dining hall — and it’s a full-circle moment for Barella. Linnea Covington with DiningOut Magazine writes:
“The name Riot BBQ tips a hat to the 1898 barbecue riot in Denver’s Union Pacific stockyard, where the [National Western Complex] resides now. The event occurred when the city hosted a giant public barbecue. The event drew tens of thousands of people, and the city wasn’t prepared for the turn out. The meat ran out early, and chaos ensued.”
A sketch of the 1898 “barbecue riot” by a Rocky Mountain News artist. (Denver Public Library Special Collections Archives)
Before the height of the melee, documentation from the Denver Public Library reports a spread of spiced bear meat, sugar-cured venison, mutton with mint sauce, and possum. Denver’s own barbecue pioneer Columbus B. Hill was there and described the offerings as "finer than any meal that the best hotel of the country can serve." What was supposed to be a gathering for 5,000 VIPs turned into a riot of 30,000 hungry. Publications of the time reported loaves of bread and bones sailing through the air and mobs clamoring for unopened barrels of beer.
We heard more about that infamous Denver food event — and the distinctly Black history of Colorado barbecue — when we sat down with James Beard award-winner Adrian E. Miller (aka The Soul Food Scholar) a few years ago to talk about his book “Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue.”
Get your Riot BBQ fix in the historic Livestock Exchange building everyday from 10 a.m.-2 a.m. throughout the duration of the Stock Show. Check out more photos from the 1898 barbecue riot in the DPL digital archive.
