Santa Anita Winner’s Circle Bbq Championship

Not sure why all the negative reviews, but this was a fun event for us. We got our tickets off living social, which included a $ 10 ticket voucher. The whiff of BBQ from the parking lot got me pretty excited. We got there early because we knew it would get crazy — people who normally have bad experiences at these events are the ones who come late when it’s prime time and the lines are sure to be long. The downside was that some places didn’t have their food ready at that time even though the event technically started a an hour before we got there. Their loss, haha.
Coming into this, I knew it would be a bit pricey, as all events like these are. Plus, it’s BBQ and BBQ isn’t normally cheap. The way things worked was you had to buy tickets and use those to get food. Each ticket was worth $ 1. Some places offered a small tasting in a tiny cup for $ 2 or $ 3 or one single rib for the same price. Other vendors offered plates with sides for about $ 10. You can see how this can get costly. We spent about $ 30 extra, not including the $ 10 voucher we got, between two people. Not bad. Our favorite was the rib from Baby Roo’s. In second place was the huge rib (good bang for your buck!) from Meat, Inc. Our overall favorite of the day was surprisingly not even BBQ! It was the smoked peach cobbler with bacon from the When Pigs Fly booth! My bf said he could eat a whole tray of this, lol. After we ate, we headed over to the watch and bet on a couple horse races! Overall, it was a fun day!

Fun venue for the event, but, weather man, you lied to us!!! It was SOO HOT and that really put a damper on things. We would have worn much different clothes if we knew it would be blazing that day. :/​Waiting in crazy long lines for tiny portions of cold BBQ was less than ideal. I would say pass on this! If lines ran quicker and portions were decent, then it would be worth your time. But as of now, it’s just not. Skip!

The BBQ was very good although there were some significant downsides to this event. First, this should be called line fest not BBQ fest. The lines were so large that some of them were completely unmanageable. We ended up getting BBQ from one stand and then getting into another line immediately. This meant four hours of lines and really no view of any horses or races (except for some brief glimpses). The lines for drinks or beers were even longer. Second, we started encountering stands running out of food by 1:30. Really? 30 minutes after the start of the festival? Finally, by the time you computed in the entry cost with the food and drink cost, you could buy two very good BBQ meals with beer or wine anywhere in Los Angeles for less. This is a bad deal anyway you look at it.

Upside: Horses are cool
Downside:
— You don’t get to see horses because you have to spend all your time standing in line.
— 45 minutes on average per line.
— Portions are small and expensive 2 – 3 tickets ($ 2 – 3) per sample, like a small to go ketchup cup of pulled pork, etc.
— Lines for drinks are just as worse.
— Vendors began selling out around 1pm, which made other lines even longer.
— Event organizers who knew exactly what type of BS they are forcing upon patrons, and nothing is done to improve the situation.
I asked one of the event managers for a refund and she refused. She became argumentative and didn’t appreciate the fact that I was not just accepting my fate. She told me I had a better chance at scalping my tickets than getting a refund from her. She told me to be there at 10am next time and also dropped the F-​bomb on me when I gave up and turned away. This hurt my feelings.
I ended up scalping my tickets around 2pm, and took my family to the horse race track. We had hotdogs and made the best of it. Will not go to this event again, and I highly discourage anyone else to. I check out bbq joints frequently (plus my fiancé is from Austin), and the quality of the bbq there is subpar.

I really enjoyed this event. I was only there for one thing. To sample really good BBQ from teams participating in the competition for the $ 1,500 each respectively from the judges and the people’s choice vote. Namely, getting to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Due to the rules of the competition, you couldn’t directly pay them for food but had to buy $ 1 food vouchers first. BBQ teams were free to decide what to give for x amount of tickets. Some vendors would you give 1 rib for 3 $ 1 dollars tickets, others would give you a sample for $ 2 and others would even give you something for 1 ticket. The main food to try though were usually either 3 tickets or 6 tickets. From what I saw most had a mix of pork, beef, and chicken with sides of coleslaw or beans. Other teams gave sandwiches of pulled pork or brisket and still others gave you a toothpick and just meat to chow down on.
We made it in just before 1pm and probably barely beat the long lines and crowds by 15 – 20 minutes. I tasted about 3 – 4 different team members’ tents and really loved some of them. Unfortunately I don’t remember the names of the teams that I tried but out of the four. One of the team’s tents had a bunch of trophies and I tried their pork ribs which was really delicious. I then had some pulled pork in a small bun that came with a small sampler of beans and coleslaw. The pork, with the sauce slathered on there was really good. The sauce on it’s own was perfect in its combination of sweet brown sugar taste and tanginess with a hint of spices. The coleslaw was so so but the beans were pretty good. That costed me 6 tickets.
I then tried ribs from another tent which was ok. It was a bit tough compared to the other rib I tried). Lastly I finished up with some brisket which was absolutely soft, moist and tasty. It almost reminded me of eating BBQ Cha Siu Pork… but keep in mind this was beef brisket not pork. So it was really good.
Other than the food, about the only critiques and feedback was the signs for the event made it pretty easy to find where the BBQ competition was but the location of where to buy the tickets took a good round of walking around all the tents to find because the sign was point in the wrong direction.
I did email the official website, and knew ahead of time that they might run out of food vouchers. Which was why, we actually purchased about 40 for everyone from the get-​go. (though I think a little extra would’ve been nice if I had stayed there more than an hour) since I ran out of vouchers so quickly. So constructive feedback would be to make where to purchase more tickets more clear as well as how to participate in the people’s choice award.
I look forward to seeing this event again as well because I definitely plan to attend again. I hope they’ll give more advance notice for Unilocalers the next time around and maybe have more tickets and food available as I can see the number of participants increasing year after year. Next time I’ll probably get 15 to 20 vouchers a person if I plan on staying there longer than an hour. However the ribs ran out pretty quickly, after about 1.5 hours at least for the trophied tent I first tried.
I’m conflicted how they can work out competing for judges and also competing for people’s vote especially when there’s no direct monetary incentive to bringing and selling more food. But I hope they can solve it so that next year they’ll have plenty of food and tickets available.

This was a nice event, although I believe too many tickets were sold and the lines were to long.

Nice idea but not planned well.
Overall there are decent amounts of vendors, lots of parking, places to sit and pretty quick to get in.
How it works is you buy tasting tickets for $ 1 each. Vendors will charge about 1 – 3 tickets per taste (1 is usually for sides like beans, 2 and 3 are usually meats). So you end up paying $ 3 for 1 rib. Pricey but worth it to me because its fun to try.
Here’s where they didn’t plan well. 2 – 3 hours into the event they run out of tickets. We were told they couldnt sell anymore because they only had enough food for the tickets made. How are you still admitting people when you’re out of tickets and supposedly out of food?
This was only their second year so hopefully they figure it out for next year.
Btw– they also have some food and drink areas you can purchase with cash not tickets. A few only.
Also, I saw an area for kids with bounce houses and horse rides.

Many choices at picturesque location.

1. Bigmistas BBQ was my top pick for pig candy & tri tip.
2. Smoking It Up BBQ… Bbq chicken was another of my favorites.
Now I need to make it to the actual restaurant because they ran out of food…

*Thumbs up*
Great weather and great venue — combining both BBQ and horse racing. This can’t be stressed enough, but whatever you do, always arrive early to these types of BBQ events. Especially if there is a groupon involved.
*Thumbs down*
If you arrive right around noon, be prepared to wait in long lines. Long lines to buy sample tickets, then long lines to a BBQ sample. If they happen to run out of food, well then you just wasted your frickin’ time.
*Tip*
For more, read «How to Enjoy a BBQ Festival Without Going Insane.»

It was my first time at Santa Anita Park and I had no clue as to where this BBQ taste-​off was supposed to occur. After walking in circles for about 20 minutes a staff member of the park guides the way. In truth, the smell of barbecue should’ve led my nose but alas it didn’t. After standing in lines that didn’t seem to move an inch, I get to the front… and no barbecue. Nothing. Okay. Let’s follow the long lines and crowds; apparently that’s either where 1) barbecue still remains, or, 2) the barbecue is actually tasty. After standing in three lines, everyone seemed to have run out of ribs and/​or food altogether. I finally find a line that’s moving pretty swiftly… all to pay $ 3 worth in vouchers to receive 1 (yep, one) barely saucy rib.
*sigh*
In all honesty, some of this was my fault. I let my pal lead me to where he thought the stands were and wasted about 15 – 20 minutes of precious eating time. On the other hand, only allowing two hours for a BBQ competition to start and end is really short. By the time I actually purchased the food I only had 15 minutes left to vote. I didn’t even bother to vote; I bought a beer and sat down to watch the races on the large monitor outside. If this happens again, either I need to come earlier or it needs to be expanded to four hours.

Can’t beat a historic venue like the Santa Anita Park race track to host a BBQ competition where you can enjoy some fine smoked steer, put a penny down on the ponies, and watch the pretty fillies go by all under an idyllic mountain range and big blue sky.