You may not be able to tell through the nearly opaque netting lining the underside of their green and white tent, but Terrell and Gina Evans never seem to stop smiling.
If you've heard someone raving this week about enjoying exotic foodstuffs like Bahamian conch fritters (think shellfish hush puppies) or fried alligator tail, they've been to see the Evans at their food stand, Taste and Tell, in the lower concession row near the Bud Light Stage.
But about that smiling thing. It's not like the Evans don't have plenty of reasons to turn those grins upside down.
After spending the day with them, from prep through dinner rush, I saw a lot of work and tedious waiting go into sharing the gospel of 'gator. The Evans and their crew -- Mustafa Shabazz, George Thomas and Santonio Holmes (Mrs. Evans lovingly refers to them as her bipolar misfits "because they're dysfunctional") -- experience a very different Riverbend than most people.
When thousands of Chattanoogans are enjoying a cool beer on the parkway or reclining in the blanket section as the sun sets, Evans and company are grilling skewers of
Caribbean spiced chicken, running conchs through an electric meat tenderizer, doling out heaping portions of rice and peas and generally sweltering in the confines of their tent.
And don't even get Gina started on the horrors of having the break all that equipment down at the end of the week. She'll smile, even as she's putting you in your place.
Despite the trials of the job, the Evans are still showing so many teeth you start to wonder if they've strained their facial muscles.
So what's the deal? At its most basic, the secret is love, Mrs. Evans said.
"One thing that sets us apart is that we pour a lot of love into it," she said as she stirred coconut milk into an enormous pot of rice and peas. "We want people to come back twice or three times a day."
Mr. Evans nodded at this.
"The people who are in it for the money -- they don't care if you come back," he said. "I love to cook."
When they started Taste and Tell seven years ago, the Evans were simply trying to improve the fare at the auctions they used to attend to stock their furniture store in West Palm Beach, Fla.
From a humble kitchen of two coolers, a small grill purchased at Home Depot and a burner, they eventually grew to their current configuration, which this week has served out an average nightly stock of 25 pounds of rice, 20 pounds of alligator meat and 200 skewers of chicken.
"The funny thing is, I never wanted to do this," Mr. Evans said, laughing a big, wheezy belly laugh as the sweat poured down his face. "I told Gina, 'The last thing I want to do when I come home from working a full-time job is take on another gig.'"
Eventually, however, Taste and Tell profits started paying the rent for the furniture store ("robbing Peter to pay Paul," as Mr. Evans put it), and they decided to begin cooking full time in 2005. Since then, they've taken a taste of the Caribbean to events all over the country, primarily northern music festivals during the summer and motorcycle events in South Florida in the winter.
Three hours into my time with the Evans, the first gator tail was dipped into hot oil to flash fry, and a line was starting to form.
Everyone there obviously was tired but still ready to hop to for the 11/2-hour dinner rush.
I'd say I felt bad for the Evans for being stuck to slave away while I escaped to go hear Butch Ross and Joseph Decosimo on the Tennessee Valley Credit Union Stage, but who am I to question love, even if there are alligators involved?