A new Mr. Pork Chop and family are carrying on their 40-year-plus RAGBRAI tradition

Meet Mr. Pork Chop III.

Four months after Matt "Mr. Pork Chop Jr." Bernhard's unexpected death, his son, Aaron, took the wheel of the pink pork chop bus as RAGBRAI set off Sunday for its 51st edition.

Bernhard died in March, seven days before his 59th birthday, after battling liver disease. He lived fast and fun, cramming many decades of memories into the short time he had and acquiring dozens of friends along the way, his son says.

Now, Aaron Bernhard and his sisters Amanda and Ava are keeping the family business — the Mr. Pork Chop RAGBRAI roadside concession — alive.

It's not what Aaron Bernhard expected. He grew up around the business. But after marrying his Iowa State University sweetheart, Rachel, and moving to Washington state, where he's in irrigation supply sales, he hasn't spent a RAGBRAI week with the business for years. The last time was in 2017, when he returned for a tribute to his grandfather, the original Mr. Pork Chop, who had died the previous year.

Now, it is his father who will be honored. RAGBRAI has declared Friday Mr. Pork Chop Day and will pass out special stickers to the riders on the route from Ottumwa to Mount Pleasant.

Aaron Bernhard, 34, jokes that his father "went to the extremes to get us all back together on the ride." But then he turns serious, saying he is determined to keep Mr. Pork Chop around for many more editions of the world's oldest, longest and largest annual bicycle tour.

"Part of it will be surreal. It will be great to see people I haven't seen for years," he says. "Then part of it will be tough. Little things that will remind us of him. … Things that make you wish you could bring him back for 5 minutes and show him how many people loved him."

How did Mr. Pork Chop become a RAGBRAI legend?

Bernhard's grandfather Paul wasn't just a great pork chop grill boss. He was a longtime hog farmer known around Iowa as an advocate for raising the healthiest livestock possible. He became a mobile RAGBRAI vendor in 1983 after he served his special Iowa-style pork chops to riders passing through his hometown of Bancroft in 1982.

Paul Bernhard never cycled much, but he fell in love with the cycling community, who made him their carnivore king. He would sit on his throne next to his roadside grills full of smoldering corncobs and belt out his signature "Pork-ch-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh-ahhhhhhhh-aa-hhhh-p-p-p-p-s-s" to the passing riders.

Paul Bernhard became one of the best-known RAGBRAI celebrities. Until he retired in 2007, he would often be found on RAGBRAI with at least one woman kissing him on the cheek.

"He never had a complaint about that," Aaron Bernhard jokes.

Matt Bernhard, who worked for Bancroft agronomy management company Precision Management, was one of 11 children. He shared his father's love for the ride and farming, joking in 2023 as he grilled chops for participants on the RAGBRAI route inspection ride that even vegetarians eat his pork.

Aaron Bernhard grew up in Algona and worked his first RAGBRAI week with Mr. Pork Chop in 2000, when he was in fifth grade. Young family members typically start out by handing out pork chops, he says, then learn like he did by doing anything needed, from taking payment from riders to loading corn husks in the signature pink bus to mastering the art of grilling the thick, juicy chops.

In 2017, cycling champion Lance Armstrong, seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson and fellow longtime NASCAR driver Matt Kenseth made a point of stopping by the stand.

"That was pretty bad-ass," Aaron Bernhard says. "We thought it was cool that grandpa and then Dad later had that much respect and that they were well-known enough. It's silly because we're cooking just a piece of meat across Iowa for a week. But it developed into this crazy thing over the years."

Mr. Pork Chop was his father's alter ego, Aaron Bernhard says. For years Matt Bernhard had a cowboy hat in his closet, but he never liked it. One day he wore it, and it became part of his signature Mr. Pork Chop look, his son says.

"He always said, 'I don't know if I'm blessed or burdened with this business,'" Bernhard says.

But his Dad was more than just Mr. Pork Chop, Aaron Bernhard says. He, his father and grandfather shared a deep love for baseball and the Chicago Cubs, and his father assiduously documented life through photos and videos. His kids nicknamed him "Photo Matt" because he always had a camera around his neck or a camcorder on his shoulder.

The Bernhards also were infatuated with creating gargantuan sub sandwiches. After Aaron Bernhard moved to Washington state, he and his father would each take pictures of their meaty creations as they tried to out-do each other.

Late last February, his father began to feel ill, dying a month later of liver failure. As his father lay in his hospital and then hospice bed, they talked about the future of Mr. Pork Chop.

"He was saying we have to be out getting sites" for the coming 2024 RAGBRAI, Bernhard says.

As Bernhard speaks by phone from Washington, some of his father's ashes are in a container behind him. A memorial service will be held in the fall, with the date yet to announced.

During the 50th anniversary RAGBRAI last year, Bernhard says, his father told his younger sister, Ava, a 19-year-old sophomore at Drake University, to take notes.

"Maybe he was hinting at something, and we didn't pick it up," he says.

Passing the RAGBRAI pork chop tradition to the next generation

On March 23, the final night of Matt Bernhard's life, his family members gathered around him at the hospice and watched home movies.

Afterward, amid their grief, they set to work. Aaron Bernhard, his sisters and their uncle Tony divided up the tasks to get the business ready for RAGBRAI, while their aunt Audrey will run the Sassy Lemonade the family also operates.

To feed hungry cyclists this summer, they had to scope out sites on route-side farmsteads. Aaron Bernhard tended to the business end of things while his sisters handled public relations and social media. They had to get temporary food-service licenses in counties across Iowa and work with municipalities.

Now, the Bernhard family has taken up the tongs. Mr. Pork Chop sells 500 to 800 1.25-inch-thick, bone-in Iowa chops per day. Each chop weighs 11 to 13 ounces and is smoked over corn cobs provided by an Iowa farmer who still shucks his own corn. The chops are then coated with butter before being served.

Aaron Bernhard says that when he moved to Washington, he swore he would never take a week off to work a second job in Iowa during the hottest time of the year.

But now, without his Dad, he feels pulled back home. Every story a RAGBRAI rider tells him and his sisters fills in gaps, he says. The week will be a "roller coaster of emotions" but will maintain a Bernhard tradition that now spans more than 40 years.

"It is a great tradition and one that will live on with our family," he says.

Philip Joens is riding his 19th RAGBRAI. He has completed the river-to-river trek seven times. He covers retail and real estate for the Des Moines Register and can be reached at 515-284-8184 at [email protected] or on Twitter @Philip_Joens.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: RAGBRAI tradition returns with a new Mr. Pork Chop at the helm