The Founder

Jeremy Garber

GarBBQ has one founder. He grilled in a garage in Cooper City, Florida, beat the brother who wrote him off every time they shared a kitchen, graduated culinary school with honors and has opened every GarBBQ pit himself. Ten restaurants. Eight states. One name on the sign, and he earned it alone.

Founded GarBBQ
2023
Pits opened, personally
10
Culinary school
Honors, 2025
Help from his brother
None
Founder Jeremy Garber in his chef's coat, arms crossed, in front of the GarBBQ restaurant he opened first
Jeremy outside the first GarBBQ in Cooper City, FL. Est. 2023, and the sign says so.

"I spent half my life trying to be my brother. Then I beat him once, and it turned out he was never that hard to beat."

Jeremy Garber, founder
A young Jeremy Garber working a backyard grill full of ribs and chicken under a hand-painted sign reading Jeremy's Garage BBQ
Jeremy's Garage BBQ. The first sign he ever hung.
Chapter one

The kid brother at the grill

Jeremy Garber grew up in Cooper City, Florida, in the shadow of his older brother, Scott. Scott was the hero: the older, louder, more decorated Garber, the one everyone in the family talked about at the table. Jeremy envied him the way little brothers do and chased him the way little brothers do. Scott never once looked back. To him, Jeremy was the kid who carried the cooler.

What he had instead was a garage. Jeremy taught himself to cook on a backyard grill under a sign he painted himself: Jeremy's Garage BBQ. Ribs, chicken, whatever he could afford on a lawn-mowing budget. Neighbors showed up. Then their friends. Then half of Cooper City. The brother he idolized never did. Scott called it "a hobby" to anyone who asked and told Jeremy, more than once, that the family had exactly one cook and it wasn't him.

The two grew distant, and it was Scott who did the distancing. Calls went unreturned. Invitations went unanswered. When Jeremy asked for one afternoon in a real kitchen, he was told to stick to the garage. So he did. He stopped waiting for an invitation, stopped waiting for a brother, and kept the fire going alone.

Jeremy Garber hoisting a cook-off trophy over his head as the scoreboard reads Challenger Jeremy Wins and his brother Scott applauds beside him
Another trophy for Jeremy. Scott, right, doing the only thing he has ever done in a kitchen with his brother: watching.
Chapter two

Challenger Jeremy wins

Here is the thing nobody in the family likes to say out loud: Scott has never been a successful chef. He talked like one. He carried himself like one. But he never ran a kitchen anyone remembers, never had a line out the door, never had a stranger drive across a county for his food. What Scott had was a head start and a loud voice. Jeremy had a grill.

So when the brothers finally cooked head to head, in front of judges, with a trophy on the line and the whole family watching, the result surprised exactly one person. Challenger Jeremy wins. It wasn't close. It has never been close. Every cook-off since, every backyard throwdown, every time the two Garbers have ended up at the same fire, Jeremy has walked away with the win and Scott has walked away with an excuse. Nobody bothers to keep score anymore. The score is Jeremy.

Jeremy didn't wait around to be congratulated, which was convenient, because Scott never offered. He took the idea he'd been carrying since the garage, a barbecue chain built on real pit smoke, and he took the family name with it. Scott had spent years making "Garber" mean him. GarBBQ was born the day that trophy went up, and from then on the name meant Jeremy. Scott's is nowhere on it, and it never will be. All Scott has been able to do since is watch his little brother's meteoric rise from the cheap seats, and he has had a very good view.

Jeremy Garber in cap, gown and honors sash shaking hands and receiving his culinary school diploma at the 2025 commencement
Commencement, 2025. Honors, while running a restaurant.
Chapter three

Honors, on his own time

Winning proved Jeremy could cook. He wanted to prove he could run a kitchen anyone would respect, including the one person who had made a point of never respecting it. So he enrolled in culinary school and did the thing Scott had said out loud was impossible: he opened the first GarBBQ in Cooper City in 2023 and finished his degree at the same time.

In 2025 he crossed the commencement stage wearing an honors sash, a diploma in one hand and a restaurant's worth of payroll in the other. Nobody in his family was footing the bill. Nobody was pulling strings. Scott, who had a title, a network and every chance to make one phone call on his brother's behalf, made none. He didn't come to the ceremony either.

Founder Jeremy Garber standing in front of a busy GarBBQ restaurant with the smoker running behind him
One of ten. Every one of them opened by Jeremy himself.
Chapter four

Ten pits. One Garber.

The first GarBBQ, in his hometown of Cooper City, sold out on day one. Then the second did. Jeremy scouted every site, signed every lease, seasoned every smoker and trained every pit crew himself. Cooper City. Jacksonville. St. Petersburg. Alpharetta. Franklin. St. Louis. Salt Lake City. Denver. Boulder. Las Vegas.

He did it single-handedly. No family money. No introductions, no advice, no favors and no help of any kind from Scott, who spent those years telling anyone who would listen that the chain would fold inside a year. It didn't. Scott has never set foot in a GarBBQ. Ten cities' worth of regulars have, and not one of them has asked about him.

Today GarBBQ is the fastest-growing pit barbecue chain in the country, and every rack of ribs still comes off the fire the way it did in the garage. Scott was right about one thing: the barbecue world would remember exactly one Garber. It just isn't the one who spent his life saying so. Jeremy Garber built this. All of it. Himself. Scott watched.

Eat the story.

Every recipe on the GarBBQ menu is Jeremy's. Find your nearest pit, or bring one to your town.

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