Orbar BBQ

08/28/2026

This Saturday, August 29th from noon to 3pm, Richard will help judge a chilli competition at the Indiana Welcome Center in Hammond. Admission is $5 and you can also try the different chilli's being made. All proceeds to benefit the Food Bank Of Northwest Indiana😃🌶🌶🌶

08/26/2026

Our hearts are heavy this week for losing legends. We may have lost Dolly yesterday, but on Monday our Red Carpet Lounge family lost, Bonnie Bacon, who was a Portage legend in her own right. Our love goes out to her family and all those she touched at the Red Carpet over the years. Bonnie was an absolute hoot and had love for everyone she was around. She definitely was one of our biggest cheerleaders and couldn't wait for us to open. Please say a prayer for her family during this somber time. We send our condolences to all of the family. 💔 If we hear anything about her service, we will for sure try to pass on the info. We will miss her terribly.

UPDATE: They will have a celebration of life for Bonnie on September 12th from1-5pm at the American legion post 502. Address is 429 w 750 n Valparaiso, Indiana. She did not have life insurance, so there is currently a go fund me to help with the costs if you would love to contribute. https://www.gofundme.com/f/honor-bonnie-bacons-final-wish

08/25/2026

Operation BBQ Relief is on to the next disaster! If you appreciated the 35k free meals they provided to our community in our time of need, please think about donating to them so they can continue the good work across the country.

08/25/2026

While it’s taking it a bit of time to recover, we’re wanting to put together a post highlighting and thanking those that helped. The quick numbers are that we smoked 660 pounds of pork butts and ended up serving around 1800 free meals. We had dozens of people that stepped up and helped us throughout the whole process that made the whole crazy thing happen.

On Wednesday, Richard was driving home from his temporary work location after we got our power/internet back and he knew it was going to be a while before many would have the same so he started thinking about how he could help now that we were able. At the same time, Emlyn D. Thomas from Operation BBQ Relief reached out about partnering up to cook meals as it would be at least another day before their mobile kitchens could make it to the area.

With our current smoker (as our new ones haven’t been delivered yet to the restaurant) we knew we needed some additional capacity to really make a real difference for the community. After reaching out to a few people, Andrew from drewBBQ & Sausage had one on a trailer that he was able to bring over to really supersize what we could do. We were originally estimating about 1200 meals worth of meat could be cooked between our 2 smokers.

The next big thing was sourcing products to actually cook since every local grocery/restaurant supplier in our area was still without power or without product. Luckily we were able to get 7 cases of pork butts from the Michigan City Gordons along with about half of the other items we needed (containers, chips, fruit cups, etc) to serve the 1200 full meals we were trying to provide. Additionally our parents made trips to other stores in the area to get the rest that we needed.

While Richard was getting the meat for us to cook, Jenelle was reaching out to our friends and family to see who could help us at the actual event as we needed people to help clean up the parking lot so we could set all this up and help to serve the meals. We were extremely blessed that dozens of people were able to come out and help with everything and make the delivery run smoothly. They also helped to fill in the additional items (tents, tables, clean up equipment) we needed to set up properly for serving.

The cook itself was an all night ordeal as I had to have the first batch of food ready for pickup by 10am to be served at the Portage Walmart that afternoon. Luckily our next door neighbors came over and helped season the 62 pork butts that we put on the smokers. Once those were on the smokers, we spent the rest of the night managing the fires in the rain and organizing the other items so it was ready for pickup the next day.

After the OBR volunteers picked up what they needed for their event, we went about getting everything else loaded to take to the old Red Carpet to set up for ours that evening. Everyone worked as a team to set up everything quickly and figure out what station each person was going to help at. We were ready to go right at 4 and a line quickly formed in the parking lot but we were able to quickly move it along because of how well everyone worked together.

We served from 4:00PM till about 7:30PM as the amount of pork we had was more than we originally estimated and the ORB volunteers brought over some more pork that was leftover from their event as they ran out of sides and couldn’t serve it. We ran out and got more sides so we had enough to support all of the extra pork which ended up increasing our original plan to serve 600 meals into 1200 meals that evening and with the 600 served at lunch we estimated we served over 1800 meals total. The little we had left at the end after going through the last of our sides was picked up by Lee Ann Van Curen (Portage Mayor’s Chief of Staff) and delivered to some of the fire and police stations for them to enjoy.

And after being up for over 36 hours straight getting everything done, we crashed hard when we got home. We were extremely thankful for everyone that helped make it possible. We are hopeful that we were able to bring a little bright spot to those who were in need of a meal on that day who were suffering (and some who still are) through this horrific storm. We are not open yet we still recognize that businesses need to step up to support their community. While we hope nothing on this scale ever happens again where this kind of response is needed, we hope that we will be able to help the community if any do in the future.

08/20/2026

Today's storm updates (updated 12:23pm): if you still need help. From food pantries, to free meals, to a list of local electricians. We hope in some way, these posts help. We also hope everyone is getting power back. Much love NWi.

❤️ Operation BBQ Relief will be at Portage Walmart again today and remember each day they have been running behind and run out quickly. Please be patient with them.

08/20/2026

When they reached out to us last week their goal was to do 10,000 meals and they have over doubled it. Proud that we were able to contribute 1,800 of those.

08/19/2026

Hey everyone, Richard will be judging a chili cook off on the 29th.

Registration is still open if you would like to compete - https://www.mansmanchili.com/registration/

Or come out and enjoy tasting the chili yourself!

LOOK WHO'S JUDGING the CASI Chili Appreciation Society International Triple-I Regional Open Championship at the Indiana Welcome Center! 😃🌶️🌶️🌶️

08/19/2026

All the different things going on locally that are trying to help provide for our communities. If you know of any others and want to share, please do so in the comments below. We are wishing everyone well and hope some of you are getting power back. One day at a time... Stay strong NWI.

08/19/2026

They added a new location today, Munster! They start closer to one pm but run out quickly. They show up every day though and are providing free hot meals. Thank you, Operation BBQ Relief!❤️

🍽️ FREE MEAL DISTRIBUTION TODAY! 🍽️

📅Wednesday, August 19, 2026

📍Walmart: 1555 US-41, Schererville, IN 46375
📍Walmart: 6087 US Highway 6, Portage, IN 46368
📍8751 Lions Club Dr, Munster, IN 46321

🕛 LUNCH: Noon (Central Time) until we run out

✅ Double-check the location and time before heading out.
✅ Locations change daily, so stay updated.
✅ Register to volunteer or learn more at OBR.org.
✅ Follow us on social media and share our posts.
✅ Your donation helps fuel our mission! Donate at the button.

08/18/2026

Heads up, they have started around 1PM most dayts and not noon but they have shown up every day they have said. They also generally have around 500 meals and they go quickly.

🍽️ FREE MEAL DISTRIBUTION TODAY! 🍽️

📅Tuesday, August 18, 2026

📍Walmart: 1555 US-41, Schererville, IN 46375
📍Walmart: 6087 US Highway 6, Portage, IN 46368

🕛 LUNCH: Noon (Central Time) until we run out

✅ Double-check the location and time before heading out.
✅ Locations change daily, so stay updated.
✅ Register to volunteer or learn more at OBR.org.
✅ Follow us on social media and share our posts.
✅ Your donation helps fuel our mission! Donate at the button.