Out visiting dealers in Fort Wayne a few weeks ago, one of my dealers was telling me about a new barbecue place that had opened up down the road from them. "Actually, it's not new," he explained to me. "But it's a new location for them." He gave me directions to Shigs in Pit BBQ and Brew on N. Maplecrest Road on the north side of Fort Wayne. (see map)
It turns out that they people behind Shigs in Pit BBQ are the same guys who founded Mad Anthony's Brewing Company in Fort Wayne nearly 20 years ago. (Click here to read about Road Tips' visit to Mad Anthony's.) Todd Grantham and Jeff Neels were old college roommates who got together with Blaine Stuckey to open Mad Anthony's in 1999. But it turned out that in addition to brewing beer, Grantham got his kicks smoking meats. He met a like-minded local guy, Stefan Kelley, who was a networks services manager for a local software company in Fort Wayne. Grantham and Kelley entered a local barbecued ribs competition in 2005 naming their team "Shigs in Pit" - a takeoff on the Midwestern phrase "pigs in shit" (as in "happy as pigs in shit"). When they won that competition, they caught the bug and decided to enter other contests around the Midwest.
Grantham and Kelley enlisted Jeff Neels to go to their first Kansas City Barbecue Society-sanctioned event in Madison, IN and picked up a sixth place finish for their smoked chicken. Knowing that they could do even better, the group invested in commercial traveling smokers and took off for barbecue competitions around the country.
Pictured left - Jeff Neels, Todd Grantham and Stefan Kelly. Photo courtesy Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette.
Shigs in Pit eventually won eleven Grand Championships and five Reserve Grand Championships in KCBS-sanctioned events in addition to a number of other awards they gathered at other rib contests around the country. Shigs in Pit have also been invited to participate in two of the largest barbecue contests in the nation - the American Royal in Kansas City and the Jack Daniels World Championship Invitational in Lynchburg, TN.
Of course, like many other successful barbecue competition teams, the group decided that they needed to let the public try their award winning smoked meats. Along with their Mad Anthony's partner Blaine Stuckey - and with the blessing of Kelley - Grantham and Neels opened the original Shigs in Pit barbecue in 2012 at the corner of Fairfield and Taylor just south of downtown Fort Wayne. (see map)
The success of the original location meant that they could easily sustain two locations in the city. They found a lot along N. Maplecrest Road and built a stand-alone building from the ground up. They opened Shigs in Pit BBQ and Brews - featuring many beers on tap that were brewed at Mad Anthony's - in the summer of 2017.
It was around 1:30 p.m. on a cold, gray day when I made it into the north side Shigs in Pit location. The was plenty of parking around the front of the building. A young guy was attending to the smoker that was attached to the front corner of the building.
I found an open and expansive seating area when I went inside. Barn boards were on the facade of the front counter while corrugated tin wainscoting lined the half walls that partitioned the dining area.
There was a small two-sided bar also with a barn board facade underneath the bar. Flat-screen televisions hung from a barn board overhang above the bar. They had over 20 beers on tap from Mad Anthony's Brewing Company.
Out back behind the place was a large concrete patio with a number of lights hanging above. It was large enough that it could possibly double the amount of patrons the restaurant can serve in the warmer months. More parking was available behind the restaurant, as well.
The drill at Shigs in Pit is order at the counter, they give you a number on a table pole, you find a seat and they bring your food out to you. The menu for both dining in and carry out was on the wall behind the counter with a window that looked into the kitchen along the back wall. (Shigs in Pit also has an extensive menu for catering events such as receptions, parties, corporate events or reunions.) The meats featured at Shigs in Pit included Indiana-raised St. Louis-cut pork ribs, pulled pork, chopped chicken, smoked ham, smoked turkey, and jalapeño cheddar sausage, as well as brisket and burnt ends for a $1.00 upcharge. All the meats could be made into sandwiches, but they also had gourmet sandwiches such a smoked ham Creole po' boy sandwich, a smoked turkey sandwich with a cranberry mayo with cheddar cheese and bacon, and the "Big Shig Pig" which featured smoked bologna, pulled pork, pimento cheese and topped with creamy cole slaw.
After I ordered up my lunch, I was told that I could get my beer over at the bar. (They rang me up at the front counter, but alerted the bartender that I would be coming over to get the beer.) I got an Ol' Woody pale ale that I'd had before on a previous visit to the Mad Anthony Brewing Co. I found a seat at a table near the bar, and set my table pole with my number affixed to the top of it. They had some pretty good music playing that day - some good blues that varied from the likes of Peter Green (a founding member of Fleetwood Mac), Chicago's Lil' Ed and Blues Imperials, and classic blues from Willie Dixon, and Freddie King.
I had about a 10 minute wait before they brought out my lunch order. I got the ribs and brisket combination. I also ordered a side of their fries and a side of their interesting sounding green chile mac & cheese. A slice of garlic bread came with the meal. The lunch was served on a small metal tray on top of a piece of wax paper.
They had three different types of barbecue sauce to go along with the smoked meats at Shigs in Pit. They had a tangy sauce that was vinegar-based. I usually shy away from vinegar-based sauces, but this was actually pretty good. Their original barbecue sauce was a sweet molasses and smoky sauce, while they had a "hot" sauce that was basically the original sauce with a hot pepper mixture added. I thought it was very good.
The ribs had a rub on the outside that gave the meat a bit of a spicy kick. But it was far from overpowering. I'd have to say that I liked the combination rub they used. But the ribs, themselves, were very dry. It was like they had either cooked them too long, or had left them in a warming pan too long. The meat on the ribs was tough and chewy. The couple of good bites that I was able to get were very good. But the ribs were just too tough for my tastes. Even with putting sauce on the ribs didn't help that much.
The brisket, however, was very good. It was moist, tender, and had a great smoky beef taste. I found that I didn't need to put much - if any - barbecue sauce on the brisket as it was very good on its own.
The fries were thin cut and fresh, but I didn't concentrate too much on them. I was sort of surprised they didn't have baked beans as an option for sides, but they did have some something that caught my eye - green chile mac & cheese. I ordered that for my second side, but what I thought I was getting and what I got were two different things. I thought that the mac & cheese would be topped with a green chile sauce, but it appears that they just put chopped green chiles in the mix. I mean, it was all right. But I was expecting something completely more Southwest in a culinary nature.
While I didn't care for their dried out ribs, I thought the brisket at Shigs in Pit was very good. I should have tried the pulled pork, but I have a funny feeling that I'll be back there at some point. The beer selection from the Mad Anthony's Brewing Company was wide and varied giving beer lovers a chance to have about any style they wanted. It was a nice place on the inside, open and airy; and the played some very good blues music over the sound system. And while I thought their sauces were also very good, I just wish the ribs wouldn't have been so tough and chewy.
Comments