Our Story

Rocklands wins the Sustainable Business of the Year Award from the Arlington Chamber of Commerce! Proud to have been able to have one of our sustainability goals come to fruition this year – installing a solar roof at our Rocklands Arlington! Solar energy production reduces our carbon footprint, saves resources, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and our utility bills!

We survived the changing mask mandates and everything that comes with that. No need to rehash. It reinforced that our team and our community are amazing!

We’ve turned 30! Thank you to all our customers for your support over these past three decades. We couldn’t have come this far without you. Cheers!

ROCKLANDS continues to expand opening a Barbeque and Beer Pop Up across the street from Nationals Park center gate. Baseball fans can sit outside and enjoy their favorite barbeque and beer 90 minutes before most home games!

ROCKLANDS new house made sauces are bottled and sold on our Wall of Fire! Now producing and bottling two new additions to our family of sauces are the Spicy Mustard Barbeque Sauce and the Sweet and Smoky Barbeque Sauce.

Capital One Arena undergoes a multi-million dollar facelift and ROCKLANDS gets it’s very own service kiosk moving to section 103/104– and the sports fans continue to go wild!

The Verizon Center becomes the Capital One Arena…and ROCKLANDS starts serving there at every home game. Caps and Wizards fans go crazy for the combination of ROCKLANDS barbeque and Devil’s Backbone beers, available at section 105/106.

FOUR food trucks? You bet. The streets of the DMV smell delicious as our trucks serve lunch curbside, or appear at local breweries. And a pop-up at National’s Park brings one of ROCKLANDS four food trucks to Nats fans for every home game.

This year, ROCKLANDS turns 25. A quarter-century since we opened our doors on Wisconsin Avenue in Glover Park (where we are still in our original location). Thank you to every person who has come through those doors. And thanks to our staff, who together have worked for ROCKLANDS for a total of 656 years.

We cater our largest party to date — 3,900 people — and help 38 couples celebrate their marriages with weddings catered by ROCKLANDS.

For the fifth year in a row, fans vote us “Best of DC: BBQ” in Washington City Paper’s well-known annual poll (thanks, all!).

The launch of ROCKLANDS Malt Salt and Blackening Rub adds two more homemade products to our restaurants and to our retailing partners (like Whole Foods and Wegmans).

Our first tweets go out to the world. We now tweet blue-plate specials from each location every day.

ROCKLANDS thanks all its restaurant and catering customers for 20 amazing years. We’re happy to serve you barbeque!

Marking the inauguration of the nation’s 44th president, ROCKLANDS introduces limited-edition Barack Obama Hot Sauce, a chipotle-rich condiment we can all support.

In December, ROCKLANDS Arlington opens its doors at 3471 Washington Boulevard. The mural is an instant hit.

The next ROCKLANDS opens at 25 South Quaker Lane in Alexandria, VA, as both a restaurant and catering kitchen. There’s now more elbow room for the catering team to create great events!

ROCKLANDS is awarded the “Good Neighbor Award” by the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington.

With two locations and full-service catering and party planning, the ROCKLANDS staff now numbers 75 employees serving over 100,000 pounds of pork annually.

Determined to bring a taste of ROCKLANDS to the nation, John bottles ROCKLANDS Original Barbeque Sauce and begins nationwide distribution.

Overwhelmed by demands for quality catering services, ROCKLANDS staff increases to 20 people.

John Snedden gets a call from the White House, asking for menu suggestions. His ideas are used in Bill and Hillary Clinton’s first State Dinner.

At the end of its first year of business, ROCKLANDS has served over 20,000 pounds of pork.

John’s dream of owning his own real barbeque restaurant finally comes true. In December, ROCKLANDS Barbeque and Grilling Company opens its doors at 2418 Wisconsin Avenue in Washington DC, and John hires his first 7 employees.

John moves to Washington, DC, where he caters his first party. In the same year, he enters the International Barbeque Competition — and wins first place for ribs.

Unhappy with store-bought sauces, John experiments to create ROCKLANDS Original Barbeque Sauce, named after the farm where he lives. The new sauce is an instant success among John’s pals and local barbeque lovers.

John Snedden leaves home to attend Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA, where he barbeques whole pigs for fraternities and local farms.