Coming off of Memorial Day, it's the start of the summer grilling season so we thought we'd share the story of barbecue pitmaster Stephen Kina. His restaurant, 406 BBQ, catered at the Kentucky Derby earlier this month.
Kina is a Moanalua High School alum and the son of Jason Kina, a former Ko Olina executive chef. After high school, the younger Kina served in the military and later graduated from Penn State Berks. While working as an accountant on the U.S. West Coast, he started to dabble in barbecue.
During the pandemic, he moved his family to Kalispell, Montana. When he realized the town needed a barbecue joint, he gave up crunching numbers to smoke meat. The Conversation recently talked to Kina from the kitchen of his restaurant.
This interview aired on The Conversation on May 28, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
