MBA alum Graham Winch and his wife Julie co-own a barbecue catering business in Napa Valley.
Every region does barbecue a bit differently—Texas is beef-forward; Kansas City is renowned for its thick and sweet sauce of brown sugar, molasses, and tomatoes; Memphis joints specialize in pork; and in Eastern Carolina, connoisseurs have perfected whole hog cooking and the region’s signature peppery, vinegar-based sauce. Then there’s Georgia, which leans into all the meats, with a high degree of smokiness. Marietta native Graham Winch was raised on the latter.
Winch and his wife Julie took their culinary traditions to Napa Valley, where they co-own Southern Stoke BBQ, a catering business that may not have been possible without Winch’s MBA in marketing from Georgia State’s Robinson College of Business.
Winch already had a successful career as a journalist at CNN (he and Julie met in the newsroom), but despite being spared by layoffs, with each subsequent round, he began to see the writing on the wall for the industry. The couple started pondering what a pivot away from journalism might look like. Winch had already earned undergraduate and law degrees at the University of Kansas. Hoping to round out his resume for future job opportunities, Winch worked mornings at CNN and attended marketing classes at night from 2013-2015.
Little did he know that he would eventually be making a living as an entrepreneur and pitmaster, spending his days operating his offset smoker, mastering potato salad and deviled egg recipes, and sharing his love of food with others.
“I'm always cooking, I'm always prepping, I'm always cleaning, and I love it,” Winch said. “I've never been so fulfilled in a professional, holistic, emotional way.”
That sense of calm was elusive to Winch throughout his rewarding and successful but highly stressful career as a newsman. When he and his wife relocated to California in 2018 for her job, Winch did some soul searching about what he really wanted to do with his life. He enrolled in a wine course, took a job in wine sales, and worked a harvest. When he cooked for the entire vineyard crew using his smoker, he realized “this food is not really up here.”
The Winches bottle their own "Atlanta tang" barbecue sauce.
Winch and Julie decided to bring their culinary heritage to wine country. They launched Southern Stoke in 2022, and the rest is business history. Their barbecue has won silver in the Best of Napa County awards and endeared locals at the Napa Farmers Market. The duo also bottles their own “Atlanta Tang” barbecue sauce.
Robinson equipped Winch with not only practical skills needed to run a business but also the ability to analyze his customers’ preferences using data. He credits his degree with giving him the right mindset for scaling his operation, and realizing it’s okay to not know some things.
For instance, Winch enlisted the help of a CPA to handle taxes and consulting with other industry people. “You can learn a lot through shared experience,” he said. “I don't know if I'd be so aggressive if I hadn't earned the MBA.”
The program taught him to be analytical and not overly emotional when making decisions. Perhaps most importantly, it instilled in him the confidence to approach problems.
“Pretty much everything is solvable,” he said. “Resources are out there that can inform your decisions.”