Bluff City Law & The Secret Of Dry Rub Barbecue Richard Ross (from left), NBC’s Senior Vice President of Production, is pictured receiving several slabs of the famous Rendezvous dry rub ribs from chef Pat Donahue, Robert Stewart Jr. and Betty Robinson at the Memphis City Council’s October 15th meeting. The Memphis City Council presented a resolution and a rack of ribs from the Rendezvous to creative team of NBC Universal’s Bluff City Law at the council’s Tuesday, October 15th meeting to honor their choosing to film the show here in it’s namesake locale. Recreating an episode from the series’ first season, the fun moment was well featured in the news here, and NEWSCENE was able to get a capture an inside moment we thought you’d enjoy. Bluff City Law has created quite a buzz here for quite a while now, readily evident as council chairman Kemp Conrad read the resolution into the record. NBC’s Senior Vice President of Production Richard Ross gracefully accepted, and the Rendezvous team were called up. Betty Robinson, Robert Jr., and chef Pat Donahue, comprised the three-person team from the Memphis landmark that brought the ribs properly wrapped in aluminum foil on a silver tray. Surrounded by city, county and state election officials there to get souvenir credit for the $10 million incentives grouped together for the production, NBC exec and staff members from the show, after the official photos were taken, Ross proved his stated sincerity about filming in Memphis when he rushed over to chef Donahue to grill him about grilling. Specifically, how do you get dry rub ribs right? “I grill in my backyard, and in Los Angeles, nobody has this,” he said. “How long do you cook it? Do you leave the membrane on or take it off?” he gleefully asked Donahue, and kept on going, getting tips to use when he cooks—excuse us—grills, his ribs back home. Visibly pleased with the brief primer, the grilling tips underlined what Ross has stated to media about filming Bluff City Law here. “The city officials have gone way above and beyond but it’s also the citizens of Memphis that have opened their arms to being very helpful to being just supportive as no place I’ve ever been.” Such person to person moments are a hidden, but potentially valuable plus Convention and Visitors Bureau chief Kevin Kane says is part of the business of marketing Memphis to the world. “I rushed home to watch the premiere. It made me feel great. This is a billboard for the city,” he continued. “Memphis scenery going out to millions of people every week is good for the Memphis brand, and quite honestly, the subject matter they’re dealing with, taking on tough issues, I think that speaks well of Memphis.” (NEWSCENE contributor Tony Jones, INK! is a Memphis based independent writer & publicist.) 22
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