I have a former account who has his "shop/man-cave" out in an industrial area near St. Bonifacious on the far west side of Minneapolis. About 4 years ago as I was driving out to his place and saw a barbecue joint on the side of the road - Buddy Boy Fine Barbecue - that always stuck in my head. On a recent trip to the Twin Cities, I had some time to make the drive out to the Minnetrista area and have something to eat at Buddy Boy.
Joe Cox was a military brat whose father met his mother in Taiwan and married her while stationed there. After Joe was born, the family moved multiple times to different countries with different types of cuisine and different ways of preparing the food. He was fascinated by the different ways to make wood-fired foods, especially the first time he went back to Taiwan and watched his mother cook food over charcoal and wood. After the family relocated to the western suburbs of Minneapolis, the young Joe began to experiment cooking his own food over open flame. As a teenager, he got a job as a dishwasher at local restaurant.
After graduating from high school, Joe Cox joined the Marines. He was drawn to kitchen duty and traveled all over the world while working as a cook. Cox learned to cook over fire from people in such diverse locales as Spain, Indonesia and Portugal. After being discharged from the military, Cox entered culinary school learning the finer points of working in a kitchen.
Pictured right - Joe Cox. Photo courtesy Lake Minnetonka Magazine.
In 2005, Joe and his wife, Jennifer, started their own culinary catering company - Cox Culinary Arts - focusing on providing locally-raised food made for wedding receptions, graduations, parties and other events. In 2010, Joe and Jennifer welcomed Lionel Stewart into their company. Stewart shared Joe's love of smoked meats and Cox's company soon got a reputation for having some excellent catered events featuring their barbecue.
Joe Cox took a full time job with a local food service company in the Twin Cities, but still catered weddings and events on the weekends. Of course, many of the people who had their barbecue at parties told Joe that he needed to open a restaurant. The Cox's thought about it and came to the realization that maybe they could do some barbecue, but on a limited basis.
Joe and Jennifer found an old diner along Highway 7 outside of Minnetrista that had been closed for some time. After some renovation and Jennifer redecorating the restaurant, Buddy Boy Fine Barbecue opened in 2017. Initially, the restaurant was only open for 4 hours on Saturdays, but people would come from miles away to stand in line for the barbecue at Buddy Boy.
The restaurant eventually opened three days a week and is now opened for four days - Wednesday thru Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. By the time the brunt of the COVID pandemic was over in early 2022, the Cox's deemed they needed more room. They tore down the old gas station just to the west of their restaurant and broke ground on a new place in June of 2022. The new - and much larger - Buddy Boy Fine Barbecue opened in May of this year. The old diner that their original restaurant was in is being renovated into a new concept eatery under the name of Hash House. (Pictured left) Cox hopes to have the breakfast/lunch only restaurant opened by the end of 2023.
It was around 1 p.m. when I pulled into the parking lot at Buddy Boy Fine Barbecue. (see map) I was sort of taken aback because I remember the place being smaller with a pitched awning. I didn't know they have moved into a new building earlier this year. The original Buddy Boy was across the parking lot to the east of the new building.
In front of Buddy Boy was an outdoor stone patio with a covered seating area. A stage for live music was on the opposite end away from the building. Off to the side of the outdoor patio area were a number of smokers including a mobile smoker. In addition to being a barbecue chef, Joe Cox also dabbles in welding and he has made many of his smokers with the help of a couple friends who got him interested in welding. Cox has made smokers ranging from a small 36 gallon smoker all the way up to a 1000 gallon-sized smoker.
Entering Buddy Boy, the large kitchen and prep area with electric smokers was off to the left. It was a clean kitchen - one of the more clean kitchens I've seen in a barbecue joint, let alone any restaurant..
It turned out that Joe Cox was tending meat in the smoker and he saw me taking pictures of the kitchen area. He laughed and said, "I hope that you aren't from the health department!" I told him that I had never seen a barbecue joint with such a clean kitchen area. Then I saw the slabs of ribs they were preparing to put into smokers inside and out front. Joe had one of his guys hold up a slab of ribs to show how meaty they were before they were cooked.
I didn't know the drill about ordering at the restaurant and the sign at the front counter said to head directly to the cashier to order. I knew they had a bar, so I figured that it was one of those places where you had to order your food at one place, then order drinks from the bar. After going through the menu, I placed my order with the cashier and went to find a place to sit.
The dining area was a spacious room with kind of a modern industrial look. There was an impressive lunch time crowd in the pace and it was pretty loud because of all the concrete, metal and glass in the restaurant.
Off to the side of the dining area was the Whiskey Room, a room that could be used for private gatherings or overflow seating. There was a garage door that could be opened during warmer weather that went out onto a back patio for additional room.
I ended up sitting at the bar which is on the opposite end from the kitchen. They had a number of beers on tap and I ended up getting the Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing hazy IPA. What I didn't know is that I could have ordered my food from the bartender instead of at the counter from the cashier. It's a guess that after 4 p.m. on the nights they're open they have a wait staff in place.
As with most barbecue joints when I go to them on my first visit, I like to get the sampler platter. But the sampler platter they had on the menu at Buddy Boy consisted of nearly all their smoked meats - turkey, brisket, pulled pork, sausage and a 1/2 rack of baby back pork ribs. That would have been good for two or three people, but way too much for me.
Buddy Boy had barbecue meat by the pound, but that seemed like a lot of meat. Sandwiches on the menu included a smoked BLT with smoked bacon, the Cubano with pulled pork, ham, and pepper jack cheese, and the Big Buddy which had pulled pork, brisket, sausage, and cole slaw. They had a burger on the menu as well as a couple pasta dishes where you had your choice of smoked meats to mix in with the pasta. Wood-fired steaks are available after 4 p.m. on the days Buddy Boy is open.
They had a number of appetizers on the menu - the charbroiled oysters were really of an interest to me. But I was looking for barbecue and I ended up ordering the brisket burnt end appetizer. (They also had pork belly burnt ends on the appetizer menu.) They had three sauces that were distributed in small tubs - a sweet, a tangy and a spicy barbecue sauce. I also got a side of the baked beans.
Now, the burnt ends were REALLY burnt. The first time I had burnt ends in Kansas City years and years ago were also really burnt and hard to chew. I swore off burnt ends until a few years ago when I had some excellent burnt ends at a barbecue place. These burnt ends were similar to the ones I had in Kansas City all those years ago. They were too chewy, dry and well over-cooked. Some were rock hard. Even adding some barbecue sauce on them didn't help the taste and texture. They were highly disappointing.
The baked beans were good, but they were even better when I put some of the spicy barbecue sauce (which I didn't think was all that spicy) on them. They were thick and had chunks of pork mixed in with the beans.
Looking back, I have to think that the overcooked burnt ends had to be an anomaly for Buddy Boy Fine Barbecue. I wish I could have tried some of their pulled pork and sliced brisket, but I didn't want to buy a pound of both to try - considering I was traveling and didn't have a cooler. Given the large crowd in there for lunch, their food had to be good. I just pulled the wrong card out of the deck when I ordered the burnt end appetizers. I don't know if I'll make it back to Buddy Boy Fine Barbecue anytime soon, but I would like to try some pulled pork or brisket on my next visit. I'm sure it would be a lot better than what I had on my first visit.