It was a Friday afternoon in Happy Valley and Clem Pantalone had just finished catering his famous barbecue for the ESPN crew that was in town for Penn State’s Whiteout contest with Auburn and College GameDay, the morning show that originated from the lawn of Old Main.
As Pantalone weaved his way through the clogged streets of State College, he talked about the joys of feeding the masses.
“It was fun, about 110 people to feed,” Pantalone says of serving the ESPN crew. “It was good.”
Clem, of course, owns the popular Centre Region food truck, BBQ by Clem.
According to Clem, the folks at ESPN College GameDay liked his barbecue so much that they wanted to feature him on the Saturday morning show. But he declined ― after all, he’s got hungry tailgaters to feed.
“I don’t need to go on TV,” Clem says with a laugh.
Well, he’s right. When you make mouthwatering barbecue that people drive from all over Centre County ― and beyond ― you don’t need any free advertising.
By his count, Clem has been slinging barbecue in the Centre Region since 1994, a grand total of 27 years. His menu is small but mighty. There’s his famous barbecue ribs, chicken leg quarters, pulled pork, and pulled chicken. And, of course, a variety of popular side dishes. There’s mac and cheese, macaroni salad, potato salad, and coleslaw.
Clem’s food truck is more popular than ever.
“It’s insane,” Clem says. “We have a lot of loyal customers. They’re as loyal to us as they are to Penn State.”
The most popular item on the menu?
“Half of our business is ribs,” Clem says.
However, a rib shortage has wreaked havoc on his business.
“We’re only getting 20 percent of what we need. There was a (recent) Sunday, we could have gone through 100 racks and we only had 11,” he says.
And after ribs?
“Pulled pork barbecue is definitely No. 2,” Clem says.
Pulled pork is popular, he believes, because it is so easy. All you need is a serving spoon and some rolls, which is why it is often a staple at tailgates, graduation parties, and the like.
He also prepares special dishes like pulled pork nachos. Imagine pulled pork, and gooey cheese piled high in a paper boat of nacho chips.
“We’ll do those once in a while and it’s really popular. It’s more for festivals and things like that,” Clem says.
And as for those popular side dishes?
“The mac and cheese is No. 1, then the cole slaw, and they love our potato salad,” Clem says.
He’s working on a wasabi coleslaw, so look for that on a future menu.
“It’s just our coleslaw with wasabi mixed in, but It’s really good,” Clem says.
Can there be any doubt?
Clem has survived the test of time and has had many incarnations in Happy Valley. There was, of course, a barbecue stand along state Route 322 in Port Matilda. When Interstate 99 was built, it killed nearly every business along that stretch of highway. Clem adjusted. He simply shifted locations and moved, but he always stayed in Centre County.
And those loyal customers? Oh, Clem has stories.
“We had one guy stop down when we were in Port Matilda. He said, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna have these ribs tonight down in Clemson.’ I said, ‘Clemson? How are you getting there?’ He said, ‘Oh, I flew my jet up to get these,’” Clem said, laughing.
Closer to home, he said that he had a woman drive up to State College from Cresson in Cambria County ― more than an hour drive ― to get some barbecue.
“She came up on a Monday, and we typically aren’t open on Mondays unless it’s a holiday. It was. I said, ‘What would you have done if we weren’t open?’ She said, ‘Oh, I would have turned around and driven to the one in Blairsville [Indiana County, Pa.],’ I said, ‘You guys are nuts,’” Clem says, chuckling.
The woman was referring to Clem’s café, a roadside barbecue restaurant along state Route 22.
“That’s how I wound up here,” Clem says. “So many Penn Staters were from Pittsburgh and were exposed to us.”
Amazingly, Clem didn’t get his food truck until 2019. The yellow truck with the black letters BBQ by Clem on the side is hard to miss.
“This is where it’s at,” Clem says of the food truck. “You can go anywhere and they’ll hit ya hard.”
So how did an Italian guy become a master at barbecue?
Clem got his start at a restaurant called Kangaroos in the early 1990s. There was a Kangaroos along McKnight Road in Pittsburgh and one in Indiana, Pa.
Their slogan was “Ribs, Wings and Fun.”
“They were very similar to Champs,” Clem says. “We would go to these roads that had very few restaurants. There were very few chains. Chains really blew up in the ’90s. That’s how I ended up with the barbecue. Everyone loved my ribs. But I’ve worked on them since then. They were never wood-fired or anything before.”
Clem acquired the food truck in 2019 and was slated to start selling from it in March of 2020. Sure enough, the COVID-19 pandemic began, forcing bars and restaurants to close to indoor dining. All of a sudden, food trucks began popping up all over Centre County.
“We were ready for it. We had meals that people could take home,” Clem says.
The now-defunct Facebook group “Centre County COVID Concessions” would list where certain food trucks would be for the weekend. BBQ by Clem set up shop in the Bellefonte Area High School parking lot and the line was often 15 to 20 people deep.
Where you find BBQ by Clem, you’ll usually find Rosie’s Pierogies, another popular food truck. Clem has teamed up with Ashley Hamilton. Together, he says it’s a fantastic one-two punch.
“We’re partnered up, sister companies. It’s been great,” Clem says.
Through it all, the lines never get too long, though. People come. People wait. Clem loves serving them all, he says.
“Oh, absolutely,” Clem says. “It’s been 27 years. I love it.”
