Meat's back on the menu: Smokin G's food truck brings down home BBQ to Conrad

Jerry Gratopp doesn’t have much time for small talk. It’s a Wednesday evening, and the hungry masses are swarming his food truck in downtown Conrad.
           
“I need two piggyback nachos, a brisket sandwich and a pulled pork,” he says.
           
The work rarely slows, but if you ask Gratopp and his wife, Kim, they’re still having the time of their lives. What started a decade ago as a catering project has blossomed into the Marshalltown area’s most recognizable barbecue brand and an opportunity to return to their roots by serving from the trailer once a week for lunch and dinner.
           
“I had people that ate there at noon and are coming back at night. How many people eat the same place twice in the same day? That makes you feel pretty good,” Jerry said. “People have just opened up their arms to us and said, ‘Hey, come on in.’”
           
Mr. Gratopp, a longtime employee of Packaging Corporation of America (PCA), and Mrs. Gratopp, a former Marshalltown school district staffer, got interested in slow-smoking meats around the time that it became a national craze, and, as he explains, it was also a practical measure. Charcoal was expensive, and replacing it constantly got to be tiresome pretty quickly.
           
After the catering business took off, they hit the small-town festival circuit (including Felix Grundy Days in 2009) as a way to spread the word, make new friends and share their creations. By 2014, Smokin’ G’s had gained so much popularity that they took the leap of faith and opened up a brick and mortar restaurant in downtown Marshalltown, and the rest, as they say, is history. 
 
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