For over a decade, Bartels Harley-Davidson in Marina del Rey has hosted their own chili cook-off. For three of those years, I’ve gone out and been the guy making all the chili the other competitors don’t.
Bartels H-D Chili Cook Off | Cutting Your Competition Teeth
The annual Bartels Harley-Davidson Chili Cook Off isn’t so much a competition to me as a laboratory with chrome and leather. There’s no entry fee, few rules, and I can make whatever the hell chili I want. It’s a smaller event with roughly 15 entries each year. All of these traits make it invaluable for the novice cutting their competitor baby teeth.