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Apr 05, 2024

Marshall and Verona restaurateurs compete in benefit BBQ cook

TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox. Eat, drink and remember. An All-American Patriotic Barbeque Cook-Off scheduled

TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox.

Eat, drink and remember.

An All-American Patriotic Barbeque Cook-Off scheduled for Sept. 11 serves the dual purpose of benefiting the nonprofit Team Friends, which provides socialization opportunities for adults with intellectual disabilities, while paying tribute to the lives lost 22 years ago.

The event has a 5:15 p.m. registration time at the Pittsburgh Shrine Center, 1877 Shriners Way, Harmar.

Complementing a sing-along to songs such as “God Bless America” and Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” will be a friendly competition between Mitch’s Barbeque Restaurant & Catering in Marshall and Off the Rails Barbeque and Drafthouse in Verona.

“The food is going to be wonderful,” Susan Cataldi, Team Friends founder, said. “Each restaurant will serve on a blue or red plate. And there’s going to be total anonymity, because the kitchen is going to be closed off.”

After guests vote on their favorite, one of the purveyors will be crowned cook-off champ.

For Mitch’s namesake, Mitch Evanitsky, working with Cataldi is nothing new: He’s known her since she taught in Fox Chapel Area School District, and he catered an event of hers at the North Park Lodge.

“I’ve done numerous drop-offs for Team Friends where they had smaller functions,” he said.

Evanitsky has quite the legacy of appealing to taste buds — he won an award at the Three Rivers Rib and Music Festival in 1994, the same year he drove to Texas to get his first indirect-heat smoker — and is joined in the cooking business these days by son Justin.

For those who remember Mitch’s ice cream shops in Ross and Hampton, the frozen confection will be served during the All-American Patriotic Barbeque Cook-Off.

The event’s master of ceremonies is West Deer resident John Vento, who owns the Steamworks Creative listening room in Hampton. He and Ron “Moondog” Esser of Blawnox founded a musically oriented nonprofit, Band Together Pittsburgh, which has a mission similar to that of Team Friends.

“It’s a real honor for me, personally, to be part of the event, because of Susan and Ted and their whole organization,” Vento said about Cataldi and her husband, who live in Kennedy Township. “They are just doing beautiful work. Their programs create social improvement, interaction, all those very, very important elements for folks who have different intellectual abilities and different struggles.”

Team Friends organizes numerous activities, including summertime favorites like visiting Kennywood Park and watching a Pittsburgh Pirates game from luxury box seats, both made possible through donations of tickets.

At the Sept. 11 event, Team Friends members are sharing the spotlight by leading the patriotic singing, reading a 9/11 poem and speaking about their positive experiences with the organization. Band Together Pittsburgh DJs will provide music.

“Our philosophy of Band Together Pittsburgh is that if somebody’s out there and they’re helping other people, we’re right there with them,” Vento said.

Team Friends has two chapters, led by Susan Cataldi in Allegheny County and Jamie Walker in Westmoreland, and a short-term goal is to establish one in Armstrong County.

A life-skills teacher at Fox Chapel Area High School for 20 years, Cataldi started Team Friends to help fill a social void for students after they graduate and well into the future.

“It brings people together,” she said, “and it’s a sense of community for adults with disabilities.”

To order An All-American Patriotic Barbeque Cook-Off tickets, visit www.teamfriends.org/tickets or call 877-LUV-TEAM.

Harry Funk is a Tribune-Review news editor. You can contact Harry at [email protected].

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