By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

Before anybody gets alarmed by the quantity of smoke coming from downtown on Sunday, here’s the news: Rookie’s Sports Bar & Grill is responsible.

The bar won’t have set the city ablaze. But they will have set tongues a-wagging, so to speak, with a battery of burning grills.

The First Street watering hole is hosting what it hopes will be a regular event, the Big Rib Cookoff to benefit Benicia High School’s sports programs.

“I wanted to do something as a fundraiser for the school,” Rookie’s owner Rob Storelee said. “I know they’re having difficult times. A lot of the parents have to subsidize their kids so they can play football, basketball, baseball, and purchase uniforms, stuff like that.

“I thought, ‘What could we do at a sports bar that could raise money for the high school? Then I thought, ‘Cookoff.’”

Storelee said his inspiration came from the Great Bowls of Fire Chili Cookoff in February, sponsored by The Herald and organized by Herald contributor Ken Paulk. “I met Ken prior to the chili cookoff and he gave me some hints — I had never cooked chili before, but we entered.”

Storelee said he thought it would be fun for Rookie’s regulars who like to do backyard cooking to have an event of their own. And through a little publicity and the tireless efforts of Texas grillmeister Paulk, 23 participants signed up for Sunday’s event, most of them local but some from Martinez and Antioch — and one from as far away as San Francisco.

Storelee said a grand total of 175 racks of ribs will be cooked Sunday — the source of that smoke you may see wafting over downtown. Each of the participants will cook three for the competition, and the remaining racks will be prepared for the public’s enjoyment.

“Our house barbecue guys, the Bibber Barbecue Guys, they’re going to cook a hundred racks that we’re going to have for lunch. Hopefully we sell them all.”

The parking lot in front of Rookie’s will be closed off, with each of the 23 spots designated for a cookoff participant. The space in front of the bar will have tables for the public; tickets are $15.

But what’s a competition without expert judges? Local “shakers and movers” — police Chief Andrew Bidou, acting Economic Development Manager Mario Guiliani, City Councilmember Mark Hughes, former city Fire Marshal Ray Iverson and Claudine Wong of KTVU — will serve in that capacity Sunday, said Paulk, who not only is the event co-chair but a competitor who knows his way around a rack of ribs.

The judging will be “blind,” Paulk said, with the judges facing the street as the cookoff proceeds behind them.

They’ll have a scorecard with nine different categories — appearance, scent, smoke, flavor, seasoning, sauce, texture, moisture and balance — and scoring will be from one to 10 in each category. So, “a perfect score would be 90 points,” Paulk said.

Cookoff participants will be setting up at about 6 a.m., and the judging will take place “no earlier than 2, no later than 2:30 (p.m.),” Paulk said.

The winning team will get its name on a plaque on the Rookies “Wall of Fame” — and, of course, bragging rights. “At the end of the day, everybody wants to win,” Paulk said.

“But the real winner is going to be the school.”

Ticket sales aside, the school athletics program also will benefit from a silent auction that includes such items as a round of golf for a foursome at Hiddenbrooke, tickets to a San Francisco Giants game, or an offshore boat ride in the Rookies 32-foot Skater race boat to have brunch at Sam’s in Tiburon, then to McCovey Cove for a Giants game. “See if we can’t catch a ball,” Storelee said.

He said he’ll donate the day’s bar profits to Benicia High athletics, as well.

All in all, organizers of the Big Rib Cookoff are hoping to raise $5,000 to $10,000 for the sports program — but they won’t rest on their laurels. They have an eye to staging more cookoffs — maybe two or three more in 2012.

“I’d like to do a brisket cookoff for the next one, a smoked brisket,” Storelee said.

“We decided, ‘You know what? Let’s do something unusual, let’s have four in the next 12 months,’” Paulk said. “Let’s see how much money we can raise.”

If You Go
The Rookie’s Big Rib Cook-Off will be open to the public for lunch at noon on Sunday at Rookies, 321 First St. Tickets for the public to enjoy ribs and sides are $15. Silent auction items, 50/50 raffle and live auction items will be raffled at 3 p.m.