INSIDE DISH
BY CARRIE HAVR ANEK | PHOTOGR APHY BY ALISON CONKLIN
The Taste Smokers BRING THE FLAVOR FROM ONE SOUTH SIDE TO ANOTHER
The restaurant can be best described as an artist’s salon meets barbecue pit.
Jerk Chicken, Brisket, Pulled Pork and Elote We have seen this story play out a few times during the pandemic: food-truckbased business launches brick-and-mortar location (The Flying V, Randevoo) in bustling neighborhood; brick-and-mortar location adds something special we didn’t know we needed to the food landscape. So, whether
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that’s imaginative poutine, inventive Asian fusion-fusion or something called Chicagostyle barbecue (we’ll get to that later), we now have all of those things. And we have them all in Bethlehem. Owned by husband-andwife duo Quartez and Veronica Moore, The Taste Smokers started in October 2018 as a
food truck operation here in the Valley, with regular stints at breweries such as Hop Hill (whose beer is now on tap at The Taste Smokers). The real roots of the business, however, were laid down in college, when Quartez developed a reputation for smoking meats for his friends and fraternity brothers in Illinois.