One evening when I was in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago last winter, I passed a barbecue place that I'd never known about, a place called JD's Q and Brew. I turned around and went back to get something to eat, but found that they had closed for the evening at 8 p.m. (winter hours). I made a mental note to go back there at some point and I had the chance to do so earlier this summer.
The two men behind JD's Q and Brew are cousins Peter Veremis and Thanos "Tom" Grigorio. Veremis and Grigorio both have extensive backgrounds in barbecue - Veremis has been in the restaurant business for over 25 years and ran a barbecue place in Calumet City on Chicago's far south side before opening JD's in the fall of 2012. He brought in Grigorio because of his extensive knowledge around a barbecue place - over 30 years of expertise.
Veremis wanted a place that also had an extensive selection of beers. A restaurant consultant told him to keep the beer menu to a minimum, but Veremis dismissed the advice and went with a large number of bottled beers from craft breweries around the Midwest and beyond. The beer menu at JD's features over 100 different beers to choose from.
JD's Q and Brew is located on Rand Rd. in Arlington Heights, just north and west of Palatine Rd. (see map) I had just come from a dealer in the area and decided to grab some lunch at JD's around 1:30 one afternoon. The dining area was spacious with a number of tables and chairs in the middle with comfy booths along two walls.
The menu is located on a board behind the front counter where you order. They serve all the regular barbecue items at JD's - ribs, pulled pork, brisket, chicken and turkey. Sandwiches include pulled pork or pulled chicken sandwiches, a smoked turkey breast sandwich, and smoked Cajun sausage. They also feature hamburgers, shrimp, grilled tilapia, and beer battered cod on the menu.
Having such a large selection of beers can be troublesome for a restaurant - just as the restaurant consultant told Peter Veremis when he opened for business about three years ago. I ordered a Lagunitas IPA that they had on tap, but the first taste told me that the keg had turned flat. I took it back to the counter and the young lady had a manager come over to try the beer. He poured some from the tap into a glass and took a swig. "Yep! That's gone flat," he pronounced.
From there, I had to pick another beer. I looked through the beer menu that they had and saw that they had the Three Floyd's Dreadnaught IPA in a bottle. Well, it's turned out that no, they didn't have that particular beer in stock. I was trying to find something else to have and I noticed in the glass doored cooler that they had the Lagunitas IPA in a bottle. After some confusion with the girl taking my order as to whether I could actually change from a Lagunitas draft to a Lagunitas bottle, I ended up getting one of those. It was a bit of a hassle, but at least I got a beer.
I ordered the brisket and burnt ends combo platter and got baked beans and onion straws for sides. I hadn't sat down for anymore than three minutes before they brought my plate out to me. The first thing I noticed was that the onion straws - plenty on my plate - were woefully burnt and I found them to be inedible. That was a bummer because I really like onion straws. Frankly, I'm surprised the person back in the kitchen even let these get put onto a plate with the other food. (Click on the picture to get a closer look. Some of the onion straws appear to be black from overcooking.)
I've never been big on burnt ends, but I've sort of grown to like them on a couple recent trips to a couple of my favorite barbecue places in Kansas City. The burnt ends at JD's Q and Brew were tender and tasty. I added some of their chipotle sauce to give it a little kick in taste. The chipotle sauce had a nice smoked pepper flavor to it, but it wasn't all that spicy in taste. The regular house sauce was actually sort of bland and lifeless.
The brisket was also moist and tender, easily cut with a fork. It had a nice smoke ring on the outer edge and was good without any sauce added. I'm a sauce guy with my barbecue and while the chipotle sauce was fine, it wasn't anything that jumped out and made me go "Wow!"
The baked beans had chunks of bacon and pork in them. They were all right - sort of bland in taste. I added some of the regular house sauce that did nothing to add to the bland taste. Adding some of the chipotle sauce only made them marginally better.
The confusion with the server on the beer choice after the draft beer I'd ordered turned out to be flat, the overcooked onion straws and the simple barbecue sauces sort of put a damper on the overall meal at JD's Q and Brew. The interior and exterior were very nice and inviting. The brisket was all right, as were the burnt ends. The barbecue at JD's was average - at best - and I don't think I'd go out of my way to go have barbecue there again.
I was traveling with a colleague in the Kansas City area recently and he wanted to try some good authentic KC-style barbecue. We were on the east side of the metro area in Independence and a place that I'd heard about wasn't far from where we were. We drove to a place called A Little BBQ Joint along U.S. Highway 24 in the heart of Independence, not far from the Harry S. Truman Library. (see map)
Like many barbecue places, A Little BBQ Joint got its start in the backyard. Don Bauer and his son Fabian are the owners of Glory Days Custom Shop, a company that restores classic cars. In their spare time, the Bauers would do some barbecue in their backyard for family and friends. Fabian was the main guy with the smoker, mentored by Ed "Fast Eddy" Maurin, a long-time championship pit master in the Kansas City area. Fabian impressed enough people who eventually talked him into opening his own barbecue place in Independence.
The Bauers opened A Little BBQ Joint in April of 2013. Fabian Bauer installed a pellet smoker, one that was designed by "Fast Eddy" Maurin and marketed by Cookshack. On their first day they sold out of everything. It got to a point that they were selling up to 500 pounds of brisket, 300 pounds of pork and 14 cases of ribs each week. To help out in the restaurant, Fabian's sister Amy joined the family business, and he hired Nick Alonge as a pit master for the restaurant.
The building that A Little BBQ Joint is housed in looks like it could have been an old repair shop at one point in time. A large garage door faces the east side of the building. The Bauers used their expertise in metal fabrication of classic cars to outfit the restaurant. Car seats from classic cars are used in the booths, one of the bench seats up front for people waiting for tables to open or for "to-go" is from a 1967 Cadillac. Forged into the bar is the front end of a 1965 Chevrolet Impala.
The decor is fantastically creative. The Bauers fabricated everything in the restaurant from the bar to the tables to much of the automotive-inspired decor. Everything from old car doors to shop tools to the top of an old school bus are used inside and out of the building for functional, yet whimsical decorations. Even if you weren't hungry, a stop for a beer and a look around at the decor would be worth it. And I would be remiss in telling you that the men's restroom is one of the nicest - and most interesting - that I've encountered in a barbecue joint.
We were seated at a table in the center of the restaurant during the noon lunch rush. A lot of people were getting barbecue to go, but the restaurant was over half full on what was a beautiful Spring day in Kansas City. Our server, Margo, came over with a couple menus. She asked if we wanted anything to drink and my colleague spied that they had Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap. How appropriate for a barbecue joint with a decided blue collar feel! We both got a PBR while we looked through the menu.
While the food offerings aren't overly extensive at A Little BBQ Joint, but there's enough of the staples of barbecue to appease most customers. Ribs, pulled pork, brisket, burnt ends and chicken are the main attractions. A number of sandwiches are available as well as a handful of appetizers such as onion rings, chicken tenders and chili cheese fries.
It was Wednesday and the special that day was the bacon-wrapped smoked meatloaf for $8.99. That's what my colleague ordered that came with two sides. He got fries and potato salad for his sides. And it was a thick slab of meat loaf, at that. They definitely didn't skimp on the size of the meat loaf served at A Little BBQ Joint.
I went with a two meat sampler plate with brisket and pulled pork. I knew I wanted baked beans as my side, but I wasn't certain what I wanted for my second side. The spicy cole slaw caught my eye and I asked Margo how it was. "Oh, my gosh," she gushed. "It's my favorite!" I took her word for it and got the spicy cole slaw.
All the meats at A Little BBQ Joint are smoked without sauce. But they provide three different sauces on the tables. The Sweet Sister had a nice Kansas City-style thick and sweet taste to it. The Mad Housewife sauce had a bit of a zippy taste with what seemed like the Sweet Sister base. But the Mad Mother-in-Law was definitely an attention getter. It snuck up on the back end with a definite spicy taste. I mixed some of the combinations to test with the brisket and pulled pork.
I'm big on barbecue sauces, but if you aren't then you'll still like the brisket and the pulled pork at A Little BBQ Joint. The brisket was thick sliced with a nice little smoked taste to the beef. It was tender and cut easily with a fork. It was excellent brisket. The pulled pork was on par with the brisket. Moist and flavorful, the pulled pork also had a distinct smoky flavor that was pleasant but not overpowering.
The two sides didn't disappoint either. The spicy slaw was, well, spicy! I mean REALLY spicy, but in a very good way. The sweetness of the slaw helped balance the overall spicy taste. It was simply outstanding. But I can't even begin to tell you about how much I liked the baked beans. Normally, I have to add some sweet and spicy barbecue sauces to most baked beans that I get at other barbecue places. But the baked beans they have at A Little BBQ Joint were an exception. They had a sweet, somewhat spicy and nice smoky taste to them. I did add a bit of the Mad Housewife sauce to the beans, but they didn't need the boost in taste or texture. They were very, very good on their own.
My colleague was more than happy with his smoked meat loaf. He remarked that he was going to get some ribs, but he couldn't pass up the temptation of the smoked meat loaf. And he was glad he went in that direction. It did look good and I may have to go back there on a Wednesday at some point to give it a try.
A Little BBQ Joint is certainly getting a following for diners on the east side of the Kansas City metro. I've eaten at a number of outstanding barbecue places in the greater Kansas City area over the years and I'd have to put A Little BBQ Joint up there with some of the best. The barbecue was outstanding and I can't say enough about the taste sensations of the spicy cole slaw and the baked beans. The sauces they have were also very good. Margo's friendly and efficient service just heightened the experience we had at A Little BBQ Joint. Go for the food, linger for the decor and enjoy your visit to A Little BBQ Joint.
I was calling on an account in the far northwestern suburbs of Chicago on a recent visit there and it was past 7 p.m. when I left the dealer. I was making my way back toward my hotel when I passed a place on Algonquin Road in Arlington Heights (see map) that piqued my interest. I took a turn and headed back to try a place by the name of the Rack House.
With a name like the Rack House, I figured that it was probably a barbecue joint. I was partially correct - they do feature smoked meats in the restaurant. But the focus of the sports bar/restaurant centers upon the number of food items they serve that are flavored with bourbon. A "rackhouse" (also known as a "rickhouse") is a building where aging barrels are stored in whiskey making operations. The Rack House has a long drink list that features "moonshine" drinks, bourbons, Irish whiskey, and single malt Scotch.
But they also have an in-house Southern Pride smoker that allows them to smoke ribs, brisket, pork butt, chicken and sausage. They also smoke chicken wings and salmon in the larger smoker. The Rack House uses hard woods to smoke the meats allowing for a "low and slow" cooking technique.
The Rack House opened in March of 2013 in what was a former Boston Blackie's location. When the father-son owners of Boston Blackie's were indicted on a nearly $2 million bank fraud scheme in 2010, all of their Chicago-area restaurants closed up. Partners Luke Johnson - who owned the LM Bistro in the trendy River North area of Chicago - and Matt Lewandowski - who owned the Trademark Tavern in Lombard - bought the building and renovated it into the Rack House. They closed their respective eateries and concentrated on their new venture in Arlington Heights.
It was around 7:30 when I got into the restaurant. I was greeted by a hostess who asked if I wanted to eat in the bar area - filled with a lot of flat screen televisions and a lot of people - or in the dining room which was a little more laid back and rather quiet. I went with the dining room. And I'm glad I did. I was escorted to a dining area that featured a gas fire place with a large flat screen television above the hearth that was tuned to a basketball game. The hostess dropped off a menu and soon thereafter my server for the evening, Rachel, came to take my drink order. I got a Lagunitas IPA, one of nearly two dozen beers they feature on tap It was served to me in a pint-sized Mason jar.
In addition to the barbecue items on the menu, the Rack House also features the normal sports bar/restaurant appetizers, a number of burgers, salads and wraps, and a number of sandwiches. They also had a handful of entrees that included a ginger/soy-marinated skirt steak, apple cider-glazed pork chops, and a smoked beer-can chicken (available on a limited basis).
I was leaning toward getting the "Over Easy" burger which consists of a burger patty topped with Swiss and cheddar cheese, strips of bacon, caramelized onions, a fried egg and finished with a whiskey BBQ sauce. But I had been getting burnt out on burgers up to that point and I thought I needed something else.
That's when I saw that they had grilled fish tacos. I'm a sucker for good grilled fish tacos (you know that if you're a regular reader of Road Tips) and the ones at the Rack House seemed promising. The fish was seasoned with a blackening spice, then topped with shredded pepper jack cheese, garlic aioli sauce, and shredded cabbage and served in three soft flour taco shells. A medley of tortilla chips came on the side, but those were mainly throw-aways - the fish tacos were actually pretty damned good. The blackened seasoning gave the tacos a bit of a bite, but the garlic aioli was a great touch. I usually make my fish tacos at home with a chipotle/mayo sauce that really gives it a bite. But the garlic aioli may have turned my head in a different direction. It was far from a heavy meal - something that I didn't need that evening. It was simply a spot hitter.
For taking a chance on a place that I just happened to spy as I was driving by, I can't say that I was disappointed in the Rack House. Far from it - I liked the laid-back and welcoming atmosphere, Rachel's service was professional and efficient, and the blackened grilled fish tacos were very good. I wasn't full, nor was I hungry after I finished my meal. I would like to get back to try some of their barbecue at some point. But for what I had this particular evening, I was very happy with what I got. (Picture courtesy The Daily Herald)
I was calling on a dealer in the Champaign area recently and afterward I decided to head to the Friar Tuck liquor store in nearby Savoy and do a little "beer hunting". When I pulled up in front of the Friar Tuck located in the Savoy Plaza shopping center (see map), I noticed that there was a barbecue place next door - Smoky's House BBQ. After making my purchases in Friar Tuck, I took the beer out to my car to put it in the trunk. I thought for a moment, "Hmmm... I AM kind of hungry and it IS close to dinner time..." I decided to give Smoky's House a try that evening.
Joe Evans is the owner of Smoky's House BBQ in Savoy. He has a long resume in the restaurant industry in that part of Illinois - he was the General Manager for Hickory River Smokehouse in nearby Urbana for a number of years, then he became the G.M. of the Buffalo Wild Wings location in Savoy that just happens to be on the other side of Friar Tuck. Evans and his wife opened the first Smoky's House BBQ in Charleston, IL, about 50 miles south of Champaign in April of 2011. Feeling a need for a full menu barbecue place on the south side of Champaign/Urbana, the Evans' opened their second Smoky's House BBQ in July of 2013 in a spot that used to house a Thai restaurant. (UPDATE - I got a message from Joe Evans who told me that he sold the Savoy location in 2014. He still owns the location in Charleston, IL.)
I entered Smoky's House BBQ around 7 p.m. and there was a moderate crowd of people in the place. The sign at the hostess stand said to take a seat anywhere and I found a booth toward the front corner of the restaurant. Not long after I sat down, my server for the evening - Staci - came over with a menu. I ordered up a beer and took a look through the menu.
All of Smoky's House BBQ's meats are smoked in-house and many of the side dishes are made from scratch. The menu is very extensive with a number of appetizers (the "Cow Pattie" caught my eye - it consisted of jalapeños, cheese, black beans and sweet corn), salads, and smoked meat sandwiches including specialty sandwiches as a smoked turkey reuben and a pulled pork sandwich topped with Swiss cheese, grilled onions and a spicy ranch dressing and served on marble rye bread. They also had burgers, smoked meat wraps, wings, and their variations on the Horseshoe sandwich - a staple of Central Illinois cuisine only made with smoked meats.
For smoked meats, Smoky's House offers everything from baby back ribs, pulled pork, and brisket to smoked turkey, chicken and sausage. Burnt ends are also available from time to time at the barbecue joint. Smoky's also offers full catering for big and small events.
I'm glad the menu was so large because it took me a long time to get through it. But once I figured out what I was going to get, I noticed that Staci still hadn't brought my beer to me. It turned out that she was the only waitress in the place that evening. They needed - at least - one more server to work the crowd that was in there. When she finally did get to me to give me my beer, she apologized. "I'm the only one here tonight," she said. "The other girl called in sick." It was a minor inconvenience.
I ordered up the sampler platter with sliced beef brisket and pulled pork. For an extra $5 bucks I could get a sample of the pork ribs, so I ordered that, as well. For sides, I had a number of choices and I ordered the pit beans and I started to order the vinegar and oil cole slaw. But then I saw the au gratin potatoes. Then I saw the steak fries. For some reason I went with the steak fries.
About 15 minutes after I ordered my food, a young man from the kitchen brought out my food. Now, for just two meats and two sides for the sampler platter Smoky's charges $15.00. To add some ribs to the sampler platter is an additional $5 bucks. I looked at the plate and said to myself, "That's it? For $20 bucks?" There were three small end bones from a rack of ribs, four small slices of brisket and probably 3 ounces of pulled pork on the plate. I've had more food on sampler platters at other barbecue joints for a lot less money in my travels. This was not a good value.
And the ribs were pretty basic. They were small, somewhat dry and short of meat off the bone. They were far from the best ribs I've ever had. The brisket tasted like basic roast beef. There was no pizazz to the taste of the brisket. The pulled pork was the best of the bunch. It was moist and tender, and had a bit of a smoky taste to the meat.
To help things along, Smoky's House BBQ offered six made-in-house barbecue sauces to put onto the meat. The first sauce I tried was the Memphis Sweet sauce. It had a hint of a sweet smoky taste and was thick and rich. It was pretty good.
They had three sauces that had some kick to them - the Little Heat, Chipotle Mango and the Perfectly Hot. The Chipotle Mango had a subtle chipotle taste that was tamped down by a nice fruit aftertaste. But I think they got the Little Heat and the Perfectly Hot mixed up. I thought the Little Heat had more of a spicy taste - especially on the back end - than the Perfectly Hot. I mixed some of the Memphis Sweet with both the Perfectly Hot and Little Heat to try with my brisket and pulled pork. All three were above average sauces.
They also had two other sauces that I didn't care for. One was a root beer-based barbecue sauce that was sweet and a little runny. The other was a vinegar based sauce called the Hogwash that I put on some of the pulled pork to give it a try. It was all right, but I don't care much for vinegar barbecue sauces.
The steak fries came in handy to try some of the combinations of sauces that I came up with. They had a crisp outer shell with sort of a spicy seasoning and a moist and flaky inside. The beans had a heavy mustard base that I didn't care for at all. Even adding some of the Little Heat and the Memphis Sweet sauce with the beans didn't help them.
Other than being disappointed in the overall value of the meal, the barbecued meats I had at Smoky's House were average to just above average, at best. Some of the sauces were good and Staci's service - even though she was overwhelmed at times since she was the only one working the dining area - was acceptable. I'm sure some people like the barbecue at Smoky's House, but it's my opinion there are better places to get barbecue in the Champaign/Urbana area.
Kansas City has long been my favorite place for barbecue. The last couple of visits to the city, I've gone in different culinary directions searching out burgers, Mexican food and Indian cuisine. On my last visit to the area, I made it a point to search out a barbecue joint that has been on my radar for quite sometime, a place on the far west side of Kansas City, KS called Papa Bob's Bar-B-Que.
Bob Caviar is the man behind Papa Bob's, a nickname bestowed on him by his seven grandchildren. A big guy with grey hair and a pony tail, Bob Caviar fell in love with barbecuing and smoking meats when he was in his mid-teens. He opened up his barbecue joint along a stretch of Kansas state highway 32 near Bonner Springs (see map) and not far from the Cricket Wireless Amphitheater (a.k.a. Sandstone Amphitheater) where Papa Bob's maintains a concession booth to sell their barbecue during concerts.
To help call attention to his little barbecue place, Bob Caviar came up with a sandwich called the Ultimate Destroyer. It is over five pounds of a combination of pulled and sliced pork, smoked turkey, three smoked burgers, smoked brisket, smoked sausage, a bunch of bread and barbecue sauce, and topped with Papa Bob's homemade horseradish dill pickles. Oh, and for good measure they throw in a pound and a half of fries on the side. Dozens of people have failed to finish the behemoth sandwich in the allotted 45 minute time period including Adam Richman from the Travel Channel's Man vs. Food program. (Pictured right) Only five people have been able to finish the Ultimate Destroyer including Omaha's Molly Schuyler who is one of the best competitive eaters in America.
Finding Papa Bob's - which is just about two miles west of the Kansas 32 exit along Interstate 435 - I pulled into the parking lot only to find the lot was full of cars. This was good thing, I thought initially. However, I couldn't find a parking spot and ended up heading in toward Bonner Springs to get some gas. By the time I made it back out to Papa Bob's about 15 minutes later, a car was pulling out of a space near the front door. I took that spot, parked the car and went inside.
As I walked in the front door, I figured out why the parking lot was full. I was met by a large crowd of men who were standing in line to pay their food checks. They had just finished a dinner meeting for some club they were involved in. I took a seat in a booth in the back corner of the front dining room (there was a back dining room that the men had just come from) and waited patiently for the young lady - who was both cashier and waitress - to finish up to come over.
The main dining room at Papa Bob's kind of has a 60's-diner motif to the place. Brightly lit with a series of vinyl-topped booths and tables, it also had an old style counter that looked like it was more home to a malt shoppe than a barbecue joint. On the wall near the door that went into the side dining room were dozens of pictures of the people who tried - and failed - to eat the Ultimate Destroyer, as well as pictures of the five who were able to eat everything in under 45 minutes.
While the girl was still cashing the rest of the men's dinner checks, a worker from the back came over with a menu and asked me if I wanted anything to drink. I ordered up a draft beer and figured that I had a lot of time to take a good look at the menu.
The menu at Papa Bob's Bar-B-Que is rather extensive. First of all, the featured nine or ten appetizers including fried okra, sweet potato fries, chicken fingers and mini corn dogs. For barbecued and smoked meats, they featured brisket, ham, turkey, sausage, pork, pulled pork and, of course, ribs including baby back ribs. And they also serve a Kansas City barbecue staple - burnt ends. I've never been a big fan of burnt ends, but there are tons of people who love 'em.
Papa Bob's also features a number of sandwiches including a grilled chicken sandwich, a breaded pork tenderloin, and hickory-smoked corned beef or pastrami served on rye bread. They also have smoked burgers on the menu, as well as a long list of sides that include tater tots, creamy or sweet and sour cole slaw, pesto pasta salad, onion rings, and potato salad.
When the young lady finally finished up at the cash register, she made it over to the table to greet me. She apologized for the wait and I told her it was no problem. I asked what the large group was all about and she said that she got a call around 5:30 to see if they could accommodate 16 people at 6 p.m. She said that it wasn't any problem until she found out that it was more like 28 people instead of 16. "We've been running around here like we've had our heads cut off for the last hour and a half," she told me.
I was ready to order my dinner and I went with the deluxe meat platter - your choice of two types of smoked meats and with it you get two ribs and two sides. I picked pulled pork and brisket for my meats and I ordered fries and something they called "Brooke's Bad Ass Beans" - slow simmered baked beans that were full of chunks of pork and beef. I also had to get a side of the horseradish dill pickles. The young girl asked me, "Do you like horseradish?" I said that I did. "And you like dill pickles?" Again, I said that I did. She said, "OK, well, some people order them up and say they don't like them." She said the description is pretty self-explanatory - horseradish dill pickles - but people are still somewhat surprised by the taste. I told her that I would give them a shot.
About 10 minutes after I ordered, Papa Bob, himself, brought my platter of food out to my table. As you can see by the picture, it was a ton of food. The ribs were big and meaty, there was easily a 1/3 pound of both the pulled pork and the sliced brisket. A large plate of fries accompanied the smoked meats along with a cup of the baked beans. The horseradish dill pickles were in a small dish - about nine or ten chips in total.
There were two different bottles of barbecue sauce on the table so I asked Bob Caviar what the story was on the sauce. He said one of the two bottles was their sweet barbecue sauce, the other was sort of a sweet and spicy sauce. "And..." he said as he hesitated for a moment looking back behind him, "...she's bringing out some of the Bob-anero sauce for you." Some what? "Bob-anero sauce. It's a special concoction I came up with that's sort of sweet with a spicy bite from chopped habanero peppers." I told him that I'd like to give that a try.
"We've got others that are hotter," Bob volunteered. He named a couple - H2 OMG sauce, Crazy Dog chipotle sauce. "We got this stuff called Blazin' Butt sauce, too. I can bring some samples of that our for ya." I declined his offer. I was fine with the three sauces that were on the table.
The first thing I ripped into were the ribs. The ribs were huge with a lot of tender meat that pulled easily away from the bone. The meat had a slightly smoky taste and I enjoyed them with the little bit of the regular sauce that was on them.
The next thing I tried was the brisket. Thinly sliced, the brisket had a slight smoke ring along the outside rim and the taste was very good. I like a good brisket and Papa Bob's had some very good brisket.
The pulled pork was slightly dry and copious amounts of the barbecue sauce helped make it a bit more moist. Of the three items on the plate I'd put the pulled pork at the bottom. It was still good, but the ribs were outstanding and the brisket was very good.
I'm a sauce guy when it comes to barbecue and the sauces at Papa Bob's were all very good. The regular sauce was a thick sweet and smoky Kansas City-style that hung onto the meat very well. The "hot" sauce at Papa Bob's had sort of a black pepper aftertaste to it and had a nice lingering spicy bite. Surprisingly, the Bob-anero sauce had a lot of things going on. It had a sweet front end that slowly turned into a spicy back side. There seemed to be a lot flavors going on between the initial sweetness to the lingering spicy taste on the Bob-anero. Quite actually, I thought the "hot" sauce was more spicy than the Bob-anero sauce.
The fries were crisp and I ate just a handful of them, primarily using them to test the sauces. I probably should have gotten the sweet and sour cole slaw instead of the fries, but the fries served their purpose in allowing me to try the different sauces with a more neutral taste.
The baked beans - served in a common coffee cup, an interesting twist - were thick and had a lot of chunks of pork and beef mixed in. On their own, the beans were very good. As I'm wont to do with baked beans, I added some of the hot barbecue sauce to them to zip them up. The beans were outstanding.
But the winner of the evening at Papa Bob's were the horseradish dill pickle chips. They had a slight - but not overpowering - taste of fresh ground horseradish. Mixed with the vinegar dill flavor, the overall taste of the pickles was immensely heightened. Looking back, I should have just bought a quart jar of the horseradish dill pickles to take back home with me. But I still had three more days on the road and I was worried that they wouldn't last the week.
The barbecue at Papa Bob's, well, I'd put it up against many other places I've tried in the Kansas City area. I don't know if I can call it the best I've had - the pulled pork was really the only thing that I can say held it back from being a truly memorable meal. But the ribs and brisket were very good, as were the baked beans and the sauces provided. And the horseradish dill pickles? They were to die for. I'm going to make it back to Papa Bob's to try more barbecue at some point, as well as picking up a quart jar of the horseradish dill pickles. I'll have to hide them in trunk of the car, though - out of sight, out of mind. That way I wouldn't be tempted to eat them as I'm driving down the road.
I was traveling with one of my European manufacturers over a three day period not long ago and we were in Chicago seeing one of my dealers. The dealer has a condo in the upscale Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago where he has some displays and will put up clients when they come to town. We met at the condo one evening and ended up going down the street to a barbecue place that he talked highly about - Chicago q.
Chicago q calls themselves an "urban barbecue restaurant" and is owned by chef/partner Lee Ann Whippen and developer Fred Latsko. Both are somewhat famous in both of their fields - Whippen has been featured on The Learning Channel'sBBQ Pitmasters and on the Food Network'sThrowdown with Bobby Flay. Latsko is a major developer of prime real estate in the downtown Chicago area.
Lee Ann Whippen is sort of an anomaly in the barbecue business. You don't see a lot of ladies running their own barbecue place. But she got her start in the business as a hotel catering manager for 15 years before she started Wood Chick's BBQ Catering Company and Wood Chick's BBQ Competition Team based out of Chesapeake, VA in 2002. Whippen and her team won a number of regional barbecue competitions in the Southeast and was the 2009 Grand Barbecue Champion in Virginia.
Pictured right - Lee Ann Whippen
In 2010, Latsko offered Whippen an opportunity to move to Chicago to open Chicago q. It meant that she had to eventually close her Wood Chick's restaurant in Chesapeake, but she still enters some national competitions from time to time. Whippen won the Grand Champion honor at the Safeway National BBQ Battle in Washington, D.C. in June of 2012 and won second place overall at the 2013 World Food Championships held in Las Vegas.
Chicago q is located just south of the corner of Dearborn and Division street in the heart of the Gold Coast's entertainment district. (see map) The place is far from being just a barbecue "joint". As you enter the restaurant, you go into the bar area you find an upscale lounge with leather seats, contemporary lighting and a lot of dark wood furnishings.
The dining room is a long narrow room with the kitchen in the back. You can see the workers through a big serving window. Lush leather seating for both booths and tables offer an upscale barbecue dining experience. There's an upstairs dining area for private functions and receptions. I took a peek up there before we left and it was very nice.
There were four of us that evening - my dealer and a client of his, my manufacturer and myself. We were seated in a large booth in the corner of the dining room and given menus. After a short while, our server for the evening, Daisy, came over to greet us. Right off the bat, my dealer said, "Hey, let's get a couple orders of the smoked chicken wings going."
Chicago q also has a somewhat impressive beer menu as well as an even more impressive menu of bourbon, rye and Scotch whiskeys. I ordered up a Capital Supper Club lager, one of my favorite beers and something I didn't expect to see on the menu.
The chicken wings are dry-rubbed and cooked low and slow in Chicago q's smoker. Now, I'm not usually big on smoked chicken wings, but these were absolutely delicious. The chicken meat was most and tender, easily falling off the bone when pulled. The rub spices had a definite spicy flavor to them, but nothing oppressive. Along with the smoked chicken wings, we also got bowls of spicy bread & butter pickle slices that were excellent, and housemade potato chips that were lightly sprinkled with the housemade rub they use on their meats. But compared to the smoked chicken wings and the spicy pickle slices, the potato chips were just all right.
Three of us went with barbecue - I had the American Kobe beef sliced brisket with a half-rack of Chicago q's St. Louis style ribs. It featured three long slices of the brisket and seven or eight meaty rib bones. Some pickled red onions came on the side and I got a bowl of French fries on the side. The brisket was fine - tender and moist - but it was missing something that I like in my brisket. It didn't have much of a smoky taste and it was more like well done roast beef than brisket. The ribs had a plentiful dusting of the rub spices from Chicago q and were also tender and moist. The bones were rather small, though, and didn't yield a lot of meat. But what pork I did get off the bones was very good.
My dealer's client went with the q burger. The classic American style burger features a huge beef patty char-grilled and topped with Swiss cheese, bacon and cole slaw and served on an onion bun. Quite seriously, I almost got that when I was reading about it on the menu. But I had to do the barbecue. The beef patty was - quite probably - 3/4's of a pound and the client couldn't eat the whole thing. He ended up taking what was left home for him. "I can have the rest for breakfast," he said. "I'm not about to let this go to waste."
My manufacturer colleague got the smoked half-chicken. I couldn't get a picture of it as he was clear on the other side of the rather long table in the booth, but the four large pieces covered his plate. It looked similar in style to the smoked chicken wings in regard to the rub spices on it. He, too, couldn't eat the whole thing but since we were traveling he didn't take any of the left overs with him.
There were four sauces that were brought to the table. Chicago q's original sauce is a sweet and tangy sauce that is pretty mild. They had a spicy barbecue sauce that was a little more forward in taste and left a bit of a spicy aftertaste. I tried a bit of the vinegar sauce on one of the rib bones, but didn't like it as much as the spicy barbecue sauce. And Chicago q also has a mustard barbecue sauce that I didn't try because I really don't like mustard-based barbecue sauces.
I have mixed feelings about upscale barbecue places. Chicago q was very nice and the food was quite good. But I sort of like the downhome feel of a good ol' barbecue joint a little bit better. Barbecue is messy and I sort of got the feeling while eating at Chicago q that you couldn't get too messy with their barbecue. Would I return if I had the chance? In a heartbeat! But I'd still feel more comfortable in a casual and folksy barbecue joint.
I was in Omaha on a recent fall evening and I had a hankering for some barbecue. I was staying on the southwest side of the city and I was looking for places that were in the immediate area. I found a place called Doc & Eddie's BBQ that wasn't far from the hotel. I made it over there to find out a pretty interesting back story on how the place came to be.
Dr. Jeff DeMare is a renowned critical pediatric care doctor at Children's Hosptial and Medical Center in Omaha. When Dr. DeMare began to work at Children's Hospital in 2002 he befriended a security guard by the name of Eddie Vacek. It turns out that DeMare and Vacek had a number of things in common - they liked to talk about sports and about girls. But they also found out that they both had a deep appreciation for good barbecue. This unlikely friendship turned into a partnership where DeMare ended up buying a portable professional smoker and Vacek and he would spend their summer weekends in 2006 along side a road in the Omaha suburb of Gretna drinking beers, smoking meats and selling it to the people who would stop by.
The two decided that they needed to have a full time barbecue joint. They found a spot in a strip mall on the southwest side of the city, but just before the place opened up Eddie Vacek suddenly passed away. DeMare was determined to soldier on in remembrance of his friend and he opened Doc & Eddie's BBQ in July of 2007. (There is a former chain of sports bars that was called Doc & Eddy's, but they're not affiliated with DeMare's barbecue joint.) DeMare ended up hiring Lynette Hughes to be the manager and part-owner of Doc & Eddie's.
Doc & Eddie's is located in a strip mall just northwest of the corner of 168th and Harrison. (see map) It's set back from the street a bit, so there was a bit of driving around the parking lot before I found the small storefront of the restaurant. If I'd had my window down in my car I would have been able to find the place a lot quicker. The smell of the smoke of there restaurant was wafting in the cool fall air.
I got there at the right time - it was around 7:30 and they were only open until 8 p.m. that evening. A couple other people were in there eating when I got there and, interestingly, a number of cops came in to pick up orders to go from the time I got in there up to the time I left.
The place isn't all that big - it probably seats three dozen or so people. There are a number of tables and booths between the brick walls. The kitchen area is open behind the front counter.
The menu is located on the wall above the counter. Doc & Eddy's specializes in meaty St. Louis style ribs as well as beef brisket, pulled pork, smoked sausage and turkey. They also have grilled chicken sandwiches and burgers on the menu. As I'm wont to do with most barbecue places that I visit, I want to try a couple three things. I was looking at getting the ribs, brisket and pulled pork platter, but I was told by the young girl at the front counter that it was a lot of food. The guy manning the kitchen in the back said, "Yeah, if you're really hungry, go for it."
I decided to just go with the pulled pork and brisket combo. I got two sides with it - I chose baked beans, but was having trouble figuring out if I wanted fries, cole slaw, potato salad, corn fritters, or a handful of other sides. I asked the girl for a suggestion and she said, "We sell a lot of the mac and cheese." OK, I'll do the mac and cheese as a second side. And the one great thing about Doc & Eddy's - they had beer. I like a cold beer with barbecue so I was happy they could accommodate me that evening.
The barbecue platter was brought out to me about five minutes after I ordered at the front counter. The first thing I noticed was that they had chopped brisket rather than sliced brisket. I normally don't go for the chopped brisket, but that's what I got. But the first bite pretty much allayed any trepidation I had toward chopped brisket. The brisket had a great smoky taste, it was moist and tender, and it literally melted in my mouth. It was some of the finest brisket I've ever tasted.
The pulled pork was also moist and tasty, but it wasn't as good as the brisket. The pulled pork and chopped brisket were served on pieces of white bread, a nod to Southern-style barbecue places.
Doc & Eddie's BBQ had three different types of sauces - their original sauce had a sweet taste with a bit of spiciness on the backside; the chipotle sauce had a faint chipotle taste with more of a spicy kick, but nothing that was overbearing; and a sweet pineapple sauce that was sweet and fruity. I didn't care for the sweet pineapple sauce, but found myself going more toward the chipotle sauce than the original Doc & Eddie's sauce.
For the sides, the girl steered me wrong on the mac and cheese - it was pretty pedestrian and bland, but the baked beans were good. And they were made even better when I added in a mixture of the chipotle and original barbecue sauces.
I'll have to say that my meal at Doc & Eddie's surpassed my expectations. The brisket was outstanding, the pulled pork wasn't that far behind the brisket, the sauces were above average - not outstanding - but still good, and the beans totally saved the sides over the limp tasting mac and cheese. I'll say Jeff DeMare has done a wonderful job keeping the memory of Eddie Vacek alive with the fine barbecue at Doc & Eddie's BBQ.
(Update - Doc & Eddie's closed in December of 2015 without any announcement as to why they shut their doors.)
I wanted to try a couple three place for barbecue when we were on our short vacation to Memphis last year. We had been to the famous Rendezvous on our first visit over a dozen years before, but we wanted to try another venerable Memphis place that had been open for 30 years - Corky's Ribs and Barbecue. After a morning visit to the Memphis Zoo, we went to Corky's for a late lunch.
Don Pelts was a Memphis native who worked at his parents furniture store while he was going to college believing that he'd someday own the story. However, the store closed in the late 60's and Pelts suddenly found himself out of work. After a year or so of figuring out what he wanted to do, Pelts and his brother-in-law, David Soren, bought a famous barbecue place in Memphis called The Public Eye. It wasn't long after starting at The Public Eye that Pelts had his own vision of the type of barbecue joint that he'd like to own at some point. He wanted a premium, sit-down barbecue restaurant that had sort of a 50's fun flair to the place.
It took him a few years later to realize his dreams, but he found a building on Poplar Ave. that had previously housed a failed barbecue restaurant. He outfitted the restaurant with a rustic look, put a bunch of neon signs up on the walls, played 50's and 60's music over the restaurant's speakers and offered up a mix of wet and Memphis-style dry-rubbed ribs and barbecue. It was a sit down place where waiters wore white shirts and bow ties. And after seeing the success of fast food restaurants with drive-thru windows along Poplar Ave., Pelts put in a drive-thru pick-up window at Corky's. The place became one of the most popular barbecue places in Memphis and a destination for travelers who came to town.
Pictured right - Don Pelts
Over the years, Don Pelts influenced a number of off-shoot barbecue places in Memphis and the South. People who worked for Pelts at both Corky's and The Public Eye started a number of restaurants such as the Pig and Whistle, Sticky Fingers BBQ, and Buckley's Grill. When a group of Washington D.C.-based politicians wanted to bring good ol' Southern-style barbecue to the nation's capital, they turned to Don Pelts for help and advice in starting what turned out to be the Red Hot and Blue barbecue chain.
Corky's grew to two more locations in Memphis and a number more outside of Memphis over the years with franchise locations opening in Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi. He also started his own meat packing company to ship Corky's ribs, meats, spices and barbecue sauce around the U.S. And Corky's has been a featured partner on the QVC home shopping network selling a Corky's cookbook as well as Corky's sauces and spices.
In 2013, Don Pelts was enjoying a game of bridge - a passion of his - at a local bridge club in Memphis when he experienced a fatal heart attack. Pelts was revered by thousands in the community and the outpouring of grief and sympathy from around Memphis and beyond overwhelmed his family. The Pelts family, including son Barry, daughter Patricia Woodman, and her husband, Andy, continue to run Corky's today.
We had passed Corky's a number of times on our trips up and down Poplar Ave. to and from our hotel on the far eastern side of Memphis. (see map) We pulled in just after 2 p.m. to get something to eat. After being greeted at the hostess stand, we we taken to a booth in the main dining room.
The interior of the original Corky's probably hasn't changed much from the day Don Pelts opened the place. There is the barn board walls, still a lot of neon signs giving the dining area a sort of eerie glow, polished brass railings and a number of sturdy pinewood booths and tables. We were given menus and it wasn't long before our server, Joy - an outgoing middle-aged lady - came over to greet us. I needed a beer and I saw that they had something called Corky's Memphis Brew. I asked Joy about that and she said it was an amber beer that was brewed for them by the Abita Brewing Company in Louisiana. I signed up for one of those. It was actually a pretty good beer, but I like many of the Abita beers.
All of Corky's barbecued meats are cooked low and slow over a combination of charcoal and hickory wood. They featured rib platters, barbecue combo plates and sandwiches on the menu. They also had a number of appetizers on the menu including a staple from nearby Mississippi, tamales and chili.
Cindy got the pulled pork dinner plate. It came with a side of cole slaw that she thought were pretty bland and a side of baked beans. The pulled pork was slathered in some of Corky's sweet and smoky barbecue sauce.
I got the ribs and brisket combo - a half slab of ribs in rubbed with Corky's proprietary dry-rub spices and seven or eight slices of brisket. I also got beans and cole slaw and we also got some butter basted housemade rolls with our meals. This was a lot of food.
The ribs were all right for me. They probably had too much of the rub to my liking and I couldn't really get a lot of the good pork rib taste to the meat. The brisket was fine, tender and somewhat moist and juicy. I wasn't certain I cared for the barbecue sauce, it was pretty weak compared to other comparable sweet and smoky sauces that I've enjoyed in the past.
We shared food back and forth and Cindy didn't care for the ribs, but did like the brisket. I tried some of her pulled pork and it was moist and tasty. Not the best I've had, but certainly not bad. But both of us decided that the baked beans were pretty weak and that the very bland cole slaw was even more "blah!"
I've eaten in a lot of barbecue places over the years and I'd put Corky's sort of in the middle of the ones I've tried in the past. The barbecue was fine, but it didn't exactly make me pat my head and rub my tummy at the same time. There was too much of the dry rub on the ribs to my liking. The pulled pork and brisket were fine, but not outstanding. We enjoyed Joy's service and the ambiance of the place was fine. We'll try other barbecue places in Memphis on our next visit, but Corky's was all right for what they're trying to accomplish.
Skip Steele is the Godfather of St. Louis barbecue. He was one of the co-founders of the very good Super Smokers barbecue place (click here to see the entry on Super Smokers), then he became involved with former Super Smokers general manager Mike Emerson in Pappy's Smokehouse. (Click here to see the entry on Pappy's.) Steele and Brian Scoggins then opened Bogart's Smokehouse with Emerson as a partner in the place. (Click here to see the entry on Bogart's.) While at Pappy's, Steele mentored the two men who went out on their own and opened Adam's Smokehouse in October of 2013. I had Adam's Smokehouse on my "have to visit" radar for a number of months before I finally went there on a recent visit to St. Louis.
Emerson and Steele are two of the partners in Mothership, the corporation that oversees the operations for Pappy's and Bogart's and sold the license for Adam's Smokehouse to Frank Vinciguerra and Mike Ireland, both of whom worked at Pappy's for several years working with Emerson and Steele learning the trade from two masters. (Pictured right - Mike Ireland and Frank Vinciguerra. Photo courtesy Riverfront Times.) Their close friend and co-worker at Pappy's, Adam Gaffney, died unexpectedly in 2012 at the age of 25 and to honor his memory they wanted to open their own place to celebrate Adam's love for both barbecue and sports. They found a small location in St. Louis' Clifton Heights neighborhood and opened their doors about 15 months ago.
Adam's Smokehouse is located on Watson Road, literally across the street from Chris' Pancake and Dining. (see map) I first spotted Adam's when my wife and I dined at Chris' earlier this year, making a note because I had it on my "to-do" list of restaurants to visit. (Click here to see the entry on Chris' Pancake and Dining.) Parking is available on Watson Road, so I parked just down the street and walked back to Adam's Smokehouse.
It's not a big place - probably seating a couple dozen people, tops. Dozens of pictures and posters of St. Louis sports teams adorn the walls. The large windows up front help shine natural light into the place with fluorescent ceiling fixtures augmenting the brightness in the dining area. The smell of the smoker was prevalent in the neighborhood on the cool day that I was there.
Like both Pappy's and Bogart's, Adam's Smokehouse opens at 11 a.m. and is open until around 6 or 7 p.m., or until the meat runs out. (They're closed on Monday and open until 4 p.m. on Tuesday.) And, unfortunately for me because I like beer with my barbecue, Adam's - like Pappy's and Bogart's - doesn't sell beer. I'm going to have to find out if these places are B.Y.O.B. establishments.
The menu at Adam's Smokehouse is your typical barbecue fare, but both Vinciguerra and Ireland insist that it's different from Pappy's and Bogart's in both the cuts of meat and offerings. One thing that I saw on their menu is tri-tip, something you just don't see at barbecue joints. Like I'm wont to do at most barbecue places, I wanted to get a meat combo platter to try their brisket and pulled pork. When I ordered at the counter I was told I got two sides. Their pit beans were a given for me, but I wasn't certain what I wanted for my second side. They had something called Billy Goat chips that were sort of a fried potato side, cole slaw, housemade applesauce, a pasta salad and potato salad. When I asked the guy at the counter what I should get for my second side he immediately said, "We sell a lot of our potato salad. It's got a little spicy kick to it." Potato salad, it is!
Not long after I found a table to sit at, a person brought out my barbecue plate. There were ample amounts of sliced brisket and pulled pork piled on a bun crown. The beans and potato salad also looked good to me.
The first thing I tried was the pulled pork. Although it was a tad dry to my liking, it still sort of melted in my mouth. It had a hint of smoky flavor and was very good. A bit more moisture in the pork would have made it outstanding.
The brisket more than made up for the very slight problem with the pork. It was tender and moist with a bit of a smoke ring along the outside. The brisket was some of the best I've had.
They have three barbecue sauces at Adam's Smokehouse. The Sweet Jane sauce is their regular sweet and smoky sauce. They have a cranberry cayenne sauce that had an interesting blend of a fruity taste with a bit of a spicy taste on the back side. I liked it, but not as much as other spicy sauces that I've had in the past. The third sauce was a Carolina vinegar sauce that had a bit of a peppery taste. Runny in its consistency, the Carolina vinegar sauce was actually pretty good, especially on the pork.
Now, I normally like to jazz up most of the baked beans I get at barbecue joints with a combination of the sweet and spicy sauces. But the pit beans at Adam's Smokehouse didn't need much help. They had a nice sweet and smoky taste to them with bits of pork in with the thick sauce. Not quite as good as the baked beans that I make at home, but these were excellent for a barbecue place.
The potato salad did have a bit of a spicy taste to it, but it wasn't my favorite. They were good, but I should have gotten a double order of the pit beans.
As I was getting ready to leave, I was taking my plate toward the trash receptacle by the front counter. Frank Vinciguerra came out and said, "Here, let me take those from you." Then he asked, "How was it? Did we do all right for you?"
I'll have to say that they did very well for me. As big of a fan that I am of both Pappy's and Bogart's, I'll now have to include the barbecue at Adam's Smokehouse in my favorites in St. Louis. The pork was very good - not the best - but still very good. The brisket was outstanding. And I really enjoyed the baked beans. Pappy's and Bogart's are 1A and 1B in my book when it comes to barbecue in St. Louis. Adam's Smokehouse is now 1C. I don't think you can go wrong at any one of those places.
Years ago, I used to work for a company out in the far western St. Louis suburb of St. Peters. Across Interstate 70 from our office was a Super Smokers barbecue restaurant. It was probably the first of what has turned out to be a number of excellent barbecue places in the St. Louis area. But nearly 9 years ago they all just sort of disappeared. Only one remains open today - the Super Smokers in the southwest St. Louis suburb of Eureka. Coming back to St. Louis from a day trip to Springfield, MO, I stopped into Super Smokers to get reacquainted with their barbecue.
Terry Black was an Arkansas native whose day job was as a pharmaceutical representative, but on weekends he'd team up with his old college roommate, Walter "Skip" Steele and their friend Ron Skinner to compete in barbecue competitions. Like many competitive barbecue teams, they decided to start selling their award winning barbecue to the public. In 1995, the trio started to do catering work with their barbecue before opening their first restaurant in Eureka in 1997 featuring Memphis-style (dry-rubbed) barbecue to the people of St. Louis.
And with their success, they grew and grew at a dizzying rate. Super Smokers had 7 locations in the greater St. Louis area by 2000. It was, by far, the most popular barbecue place in St. Louis. They also had satellite locations in local grocery stores where people could pick up pre-cooked meat, and each home game for the St. Louis Rams they'd have a tent with a smoker set up outside the stadium.
During all of this, they continued to enter competitions. In 1999 at the prestigious World Barbecue Championship Cooking Contest as part of the Memphis in May celebration in Memphis, TN, the group garnered second place in the whole hog competition. A year later, with a hand-picked hog, they trio won first place in the same category.
Now, if you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you may recognized Skip Steele's name. After selling his shares of Super Smokers, Steele ventured to Las Vegas to help start a barbecue place there. In a short time, however, he was back in St. Louis helping develop Pappy's Smokehouse with former Super Smokers general manager Mike "Smokey" Emerson. Steele was the first pit master for Pappy's and Emerson had been learning from Steele for years at both Super Smokers and on the competition trail. (Click here to see the entry on Pappy's Smokehouse.)
In late 2010, Steele and one of the partners in Pappy's, Brian Scoggins, broke away and started Bogart's Smokehouse in the Soulard neighborhood of St. Louis. (Click here to see the entry on Bogart's Smokehouse.) You can flip a coin to see which place has better barbecue - both are winners in my book.
While things were going great for Super Smokers going into the 21st century, the economy tanked in 2001 causing some financial problems for the small chain. In 2003, Ron Skinner passed away from a heart attack. Super Smokers was feeling the effects of post 9/11 with high gas prices causing people not to venture out as much and they had two unprofitable years in a row. Toward the end of 2005, Super Smokers' bank called in the loan and Terry Black was forced to declare personal bankruptcy. The bank took over the Super Smokers locations in January of 2006 closing them all.
This is where friends came in to help Terry Black regain his footing. The landlord of the original Super Smokers in Eureka, Bob Gudermuth, rebuffed many attempts of other restaurants to take the space that Black gave up. Paul Endraske, the president of River Town Food Corporation, bought the rights to the Super Smokers name and began to sell the myriad of barbecue sauces that Black had helped develop over the years. (After Super Smokers closed, River Town Food was selling over 2000 cases of the barbecue sauces in a month to local grocery stores.) He leased the Super Smokers name back to Terry Black. And Jerry Ackerman, the owner of Ackerman Toyota in St. Louis, came in with financial backing. By March, everything was in place for Super Smokers to reopen in the original Eureka location, and in May, Black re-opened the doors to Super Smokers hiring back 16 of his original workers.
Pictured right - Terry Black in front of his "secret weapon" - a Cookshack industrial smoker with apple wood. Picture courtesy Patch.com.
I believe that the group has opened a couple of other Super Smokers locations since they reopened in 2006. I know that they had a Super Smokers location in the planned community of WingHaven in St. Charles County, but that closed in 2013.
It had been a long day on the road with a couple meetings in Springfield when I got into Eureka around 7:30. I knew that Super Smokers was a B.Y.O.B. place, so I stopped off at a liquor store in Eureka to pick up a six pack of my current favorite beer Kona Big Wave Golden Ale. I pulled into the parking lot at the corner of N. Central and Stockell Dr. just north of Interstate 44 and where old Route 66 used to be. (see map)
I had not been to this Super Smokers location in my previous visits to one of their many locations. It seemed like it was a true barbecue shack with hand-written menus on paper stuck to the walls by the front counter. Trophies of their previous competition wins were on display up front. All the barbecue staples are available - ribs, pulled pork or chicken, brisket and turkey. I ordered up one of their combo plates with the pulled pork and brisket. I got a couple sides with that and I remembered their beans were always pretty good, so I went in that direction. I was going to get their sweet and sour cole slaw - also a favorite of mine from years ago - but I was informed that they were out of the cole slaw that evening. Bummer. So, I cut my losses and went with the fries.
I found a table in the back corner of the dining room. The main dining room featured a number of tables with bench seats with a dizzying amount of paraphernalia on the walls. There is the "party room" on the front of the restaurant that had large windows letting in natural light. I was happy enough where I was seated.
Not more than 5 minutes after I'd ordered at the front counter, a young lady brought out my barbecue plate. I ordered the large platter - 12 ounces each of the brisket and pulled pork. When she set it in front of me, I began to wonder if I'd ordered too much. (Smaller 8 ounce platters are available, as well.) There was a lot of food on the plate. Half slices of Texas toast delineated the two meats.
On the table - as it was in the past - were six different bottles of barbecue sauce. It was said that years ago Terry Black read that the St. Louis area was the second largest consumer of barbecue sauces in the nation. He decided during the first incarnation of Super Smokers that he'd put multiple types of barbecue sauce on the table - the first to do so in the St. Louis area. I'm a sauce kind of guy and I love to try different sauces and even make combinations (sweet and hot is probably my favorite ones to combine). More on the sauces in a bit.
The pulled pork was the kind that sort of melted in your mouth. It was tender and juicy with a lot of a good apple wood smoked flavor. It wa simply delicious. The brisket wasn't far behind. Thin cuts of beef brisket were plentiful on the plate and while the meat was tender, I didn't get the smoky taste like I got with the pulled pork. Also, there didn't seem to be much of a smoke ring on the outer side of the brisket. Still, it was very good.
The beans weren't as good as I remembered them to be. I mean, they were fine, but I seemed to remember the Super Smokers beans as being excellent in the past. Now, it had been nearly 12 years since I was last at a Super Smokers, so I'm sure that my memory may have failed me on that part. The beans were sweet with a bit of molasses and brown sugar mixed in. When I put in some of the Kansas City sauce (sweet and smoky) and the Texas Hot barbecue sauce (sneaky hot) in with the beans to zip them up, I liked them a little bit more.
The fries were crinkle cut and pretty much more of a throwaway for me. But I did use them to sample some of the different sauces before I decided which ones to use on the meats. As I said, the Kansas City sauce was a sweet and smoky thick barbecue sauce that was very good. The Texas Hot certainly got my attention, but it seemed to have a strange aftertaste along with the slow burn. Not unpleasant, mind you. But one that left an aftertaste where I wasn't certain that I liked it or not.
The Sweet Carolina was a sweet vinegar mustard sauce that I didn't like at all - I've never been a big fan of that style of sauce. The St. Louis sauce was a mild tomato-based sauce that was about as neutral as you could get in a barbecue sauce. And the Tennessee sauce was, well, I really didn't know what to think of it. First of all, I couldn't get a grasp of what types of flavors I was experiencing with the Tennessee barbecue sauce. It was good, but it was probably fourth on the list of the sauces I liked at Super Smokers.
The barbecue sauce that I really liked is Super Smokers Championship barbecue sauce. This was the first sauce that the team of Terry Black, Skip Steele and Ron Skinner came up with and it garnered them their first championship ribbon in 1989 at the Arkansas State Barbecue Championships. It has a peppery aftertaste to it that I really liked giving it a bit of a spicy bite that went well with the sweetness on the front end.
You ever have one of those meals where you know you're overeating to all get out, but you can't stop? That was my meal at Super Smokers that evening. The combination of the barbecued meats, the sauces, the beans and even the fries with the barbecue sauce on them were all very good. I think I left a handful of fries, maybe a couple bites of Texas toast and pools of barbecue sauce on my plate. I was stuffed!
It was great to get back to Super Smokers after all these years. St. Louis has been making tremendous inroads with their barbecue over the past 10 years and Super Smokers is probably the one who started the revolution. The barbecue was very good and there was a lot of it. If you ever go to St. Louis on a barbecue quest, I suggest you start out with Super Smokers and go from there.
On our trip between Memphis and St. Louis a few weeks ago, we had contemplated staying the night in Cape Girardeau having a nice dinner for an anniversary we were having and then heading back to Iowa the next morning. However, we found that many of the nice "fine dining" restaurants in the town were out of business. We decided to head up to St. Louis for the evening. But it wasn't before we stopped at a place in downtown Cape Girardeau for lunch - Port Cape Girardeau Restaurant and Lounge.
Port Cape, as it's known to the locals, celebrated their 40th anniversary this year. The building that houses the restaurant dates back to the 1830's making it one of the oldest buildings still standing west of the Mississippi. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant used the building as an office during the Civil War. During Prohibition, it housed a bootlegging operation and was basically abandoned in the early 60's.
Missouri native David Knight came back to his home state after graduating college in Arkansas and teaching at a college in Alabama. Upset that the old structure was sitting empty for so long and in such a state of disrepair, Knight bought the building along the riverfront in Cape Girardeau with the idea of putting in a restaurant with an emphasis on barbecue. Along with his sister and brother-in-law who went in on the venture with him, Port Cape opened in 1974.
Knight grew up in Poplar Bluff and one of his best friends, Dale Pruitt, worked in the Pruitt family's barbecue place. When Knight opened his place in Cape Girardeau, he asked Pruitt to come to work for him at his new restaurant. Pruitt eventually worked at Port Cape for 38 years - becoming the honorary mayor of Water Street - before he passed away in 2012.
Dave Knight and his brother built a large brick barbecue pit in the restaurant. He was able to control the temperature by opening or closing a damper in the flue. The problem was that the flue went three stories up and there were times when the fire would flare up and cause problems. After the third time the fire department had to come and douse the fire in the pit, Knight decided that he had to build a better smoker. Out of that came another company that grew into one of the most popular commercial grade smokers on the market today - Ole Hickory Pits wood burning smokers.
With the success of Ole Hickory Pits, Knight decided to sell Port Cape to someone who could spend more time running the business. In 1988, Dennis "Doc" Cain bought the restaurant and bar. Cain's son, James, had a degree in culinary arts and had moved back to Cape Girardeau to run two fine dining restaurants - both of which sadly failed soon after they opened. In 2012, James Cain joined his father in Port Cape as the head chef. Earlier this year, the Cain's opened CQ (the Captain's Quarters) in what was the banquet facility of the building. It features more of an upscale menuthan what is offered at Port Cape. As I said, Cape Girardeau used to have some fine dining restaurants in the 80's and 90's when I first began to travel there for work. But they're all closed up. I'm hoping that the old "third time's a charm" works for James Cain with CQ.
We found a parking spot on Water Street in front of Port Cape (see map) and walked into the first door we found. It turned out that we had walked into the lounge area of the restaurant.
The bar, itself, wasn't large, but had a nice back bar filled with liquor. The lounge had a nautical theme including a large ship's wheel on the wall. It was just a bartender and a man sitting at the bar and I asked if this was where we could get something to eat. The bartender pointed us down a hallway toward the dining room.
We went down the hall, past a number of articles on Port Cape that were hanging on the wall, and found the dining room to the place. There were only a couple other people in the dining area so the server who greeted us said we pretty much had our choice of where we wanted to sit.
The dining room was spacious and featured long rows of tables with sturdy wooden chairs. Antique fixtures and artifacts were hung on the wall or sitting on shelves. The original brick walls dating back to the mid 19th century gave the room an old time feel.
Along the south side of the dining room was what amounted to an ice cream parlor. Rows of ice cream in tubs were in the glass enclosed counter. We were told that the ice cream part of Port Cape is a popular place in the evening.
Our server dropped off menus for us and I immediately ordered a Deschutes Inversion IPA. My initial reaction was that I was impressed that the place had a good beer like Deschutes (out of Oregon) available on tap.
The menu was slanted toward barbecue, but they also had a number of appetizers and salads, as well as burgers and sandwiches. Dinner entrees included a charbroiled filet steak, fried catfish, grilled salmon and a smoked rib-eye steak that actually sounded sort of intriguing.
After thinking about getting a burger, I ended up getting the brisket and pimento cheese sandwich. It was served on toasted Texas toast and came with an ample side of what they called steak fries, but were nothing more than hand-cut fries. A small amount of a smokey and sweet barbecue sauce came with the sandwich.
The sandwich was filled with thin cuts of the smoked brisket and topped with pimento cheese. Quite actually, the brisket was very good and the combination of the taste of the pimento cheese with the brisket was a great combination. The fries were basically a throwaway for me. It was like they had been made a half hour earlier and put into a warming bin. But the sandwich - especially the brisket - was very good.
Cindy ended up getting the Gala apple salad with marinated grilled chicken. The salad featured sliced Gala apples with chopped walnuts and shaved red onions on a bed of spinach and topped with chunks of gorgonzola cheese and a citrus vinaigrette. Cindy's been on some spinach kick recently, trying to eat better or something like that, and as soon as she saw the spinach salad with the Gala apples she went for that. She said she was very happy with her choice, but she was having a tough time finishing the salad.
My dealer in Cape Girardeau just semi-retired and closed his doors after over 30 years in business so I probably won't be getting back to "Cape" anytime soon. But if I do, I think I'd like to come back to Port Cape and give the barbecue a try. With what I experienced with the brisket and pimento cheese sandwich, I'm somewhat intrigued by what else they may have in terms of barbecue. Port Cape was a nice little stop for a late lunch and we were both happy with what we got.
We took a late summer trip down along the Mississippi River to Memphis. We hadn't been to Memphis for about 14 years and we decided on this trip that we'd stay away from the tourist-trap places in the downtown area and branch out to see the rest of the city away from the lights and glitz of Beale Street. Of course, Memphis barbecue is part of the Mid-South/Midwest triangle of St. Louis and Kansas City - at least to me. We wanted to try a couple three places while we were in town and I was particularly interested in giving Central BBQa try.
Memphis-style barbecue features dry-rubbed ribs and other meats. The Rendezvous is the most famous place, but we didn't think it was all that good when we first went there years ago. We checked on other places and found that Neely's Bar-b-cue had closed (I ate at the location in Nashville - click here to read that entry), we were told their uncle Jim Neely's Interstate Barbecue wasn't as good as it used to be, and that some of the really good places for barbecue aren't places you'd necessarily go to at night. But the consensus with people that we talked to was that Central BBQ was quite possibly the best in town. (Some people will dispute that, I'm sure. We found that almost everyone in Memphis has an opinion on their favorite local barbecue joints.)
As I've found with a number of barbecue joints I've visited over the years, Central BBQ came about from the barbecue competition circuit. Back in the mid-80's, Roger Sapp and Craig Blondis met on the competition trail. The two began to compete the annual Memphis in May World Barbecue Championships and got the bug for competition-style barbecue where you have to do everything - smoked meats, sauces, sides - very well.
In 2001, Sapp and Blondis formed a company - Central BBQ LLC - and began to look for buildings for their first barbecue restaurant. They found a small place on Central Ave. about a mile from the University of Memphis and opened on April 1, 2002. The inside of the place only sat 45 people, but they built an outdoor patio area for additional seating in warm weather.
A little over four years after opening their first location, the partners found a building that housed a former Red Lobster restaurant on Summer Ave. on Memphis' east side and opened their second location in the fall of 2006. The kitchen area was appreciably larger than their original location allowing for two large smokers to be installed. Plus, a lot of the kitchen equipment was still in place from the old Red Lobster so the move in was a snap. The second location also seated about 220 people more than tripling the seating capacity of the original location on nice days.
A couple years ago, Sapp and Blondis opened a third location in an old warehouse location in the South Main Arts District near downtown Memphis. The downtown location is the biggest of the three Central BBQ locations seating over 250 patrons. The two also continue to do barbecue competitions as the time allows.
Even though we said we didn't want to visit Beale Street during our visit, we decided to head down and walk up and down the street to see if anything had changed since our last visit well over a dozen years before. Some things had changed - most had not. It was bike night on Beale Street that evening and a number of large motorcycles - many of them were tricked out - were parked up and down the block. We grabbed a beer from one of the many street vendors and sauntered up and down the street looking at the bikes.
After about a half hour of doing that, we decided to go get some barbecue from Central BBQ's original address on Central Ave. (See map) (Actually, we didn't know the downtown location wasn't far from where we were. See map) We got out to the Central BBQ location around 8:30 p.m. It turns out that they quit serving on weeknights at 9 p.m.
As you come into the Central BBQ location there's a large outdoor patio area. On warm weekend nights, I understand Central BBQ has live music on the patio. We thought about eating outside but it was rather buggy, especially with the hanging lights above the tables.
The main dining room inside is small, but well lit. There are a handful of booths and tables in the room. It's cozy and has a little bit of a good ol' funky vibe to the place. Classic soul music from the likes of James Brown and Sam & Dave were playing on the sound system in the dining room. A mixed crowd of urban hipsters and middle-aged people were in there that evening.
Entering the building, the ordering area up front has the menu on a board above the counter and a small bar area off to the right. The focus meat at Central BBQ is pork, but they also feature beef brisket, chicken, turkey, bologna and sausage from their smoker. Central BBQ is also somewhat locally famous for their smoked chicken wings and their barbecue nachos that feature pulled pork, cheese, jalapenos and barbecue sauce on tortilla chips. (You can also get beef, chicken or turkey for a meat topping on the barbecue nachos.) We noticed a lot of the younger people in the dining area noshing on the barbecue nachos. They actually looked pretty good.
We decided to get a combo plate - a half-rack of ribs with one side wet (with barbecue sauce) and one side the traditional Memphis-style dry rub along with sliced brisket and pulled pork. For sides we had our choice of items such as fries, green beans, potato salad, pork rinds, onion rings, collard greens and mac & cheese. They also had baked beans - a must for me - and cole slaw, which is what Cindy wanted.
We also got a couple beers with the dinner. They had Yazoo Brewing Company products on hand, a small brewery located in Nashville that I've had a couple times before. They had a limited release beer - the 10 Year IPA - that signified their 10-year anniversary of being a brewery that I got. Cindy wanted to try the Summer Seasonal beer they had on tap. After we placed our order and paid at the front counter, we were given a number and found a booth in the small dining room.
A young girl brought out our food about five minutes (or even less) after we ordered. We should have just ordered the ribs completely dry because Central BBQ has a couple of barbecue sauces that turned out to be very good. The mild sauce was sweet, but it had a little bit of a spicy bite on the backside of the taste buds. The spicy sauce, well, it certainly got my attention. You immediately got the spicy taste on the front of the tongue. Both were very good. (We ended up buying a bottle of the mild sauce before we left.)
The ribs pulled apart easily and were moist and meaty with a hint of a smoky taste on top of the dry rub that they used. It wasn't loaded with the dry rub like you find with other Memphis-style barbecue places. The pulled pork was moist and almost melted in your mouth. The brisket was a tad more dry, but still good enough with some sauce added. Out of the three I would say the pulled pork was the best, the ribs a close second and the brisket was an even closer third.
The baked beans featured chunks of pulled pork. I added some of the hot barbecue sauce to the beans to give them a little kick. I had a bite of the creamy cole slaw and while it was good, the beans were much better. Cindy thought the cole slaw to be just "all right".
Much has been written about Central BBQ since they opened over 11 years ago, so I really don't have much more to say than other people who have been there. I have to say that we were both very impressed with Central BBQ. I loved the fun and funky vibe to the place, the barbecue was very good to outstanding, and the overall experience was excellent. I knew there had to be better barbecue places in Memphis than the old stand-bys the tourists go to. Central BBQ showed us why they continually receive honors for the best barbecue in Memphis.
In the western suburbs on a recent trip to the greater Chicago area, it was getting to be around lunch and I was hungry for some barbecue. I hit the GPS and looked for barbecue places in the area. One of the first ones that popped up was a place called Q-BBQ in downtown La Grange. I headed over to find that place and was pleasantly surprised to see a nice building along La Grange Road in downtown La Grange. (see map) I was able to find parking nearby and went into the place.
Michael LaPidas is a graduate of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and is a self-described "trained-eater, not a trained-chef". After college, he opened a Roly-Poly sandwich franchise in the Q-BBQ location in downtown La Grange and dabbled in local politics and in charity work as a fundraiser.
LaPidas discovered a love for good barbecue after having a particularly good beef brisket during a trip in the South and and began to travel extensively looking for the best barbecue places. Immersing himself into the culture of barbecue, LaPidas learned about smoking techniques, what types of wood to use, different types of sauces - everything that went into what he called "America's original comfort food." After a year of figuring things out, LaPidas opened Q-BBQ in 2009.
LaPidas must have done a good job of figuring things out - he opened a second location in Naperville in 2012 and the third Q-BBQ location opened in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood in the fall of 2013. Also in 2013, Q-BBQ snagged a coveted Bib Gourmand rating from the Michelin restaurant guide for Chicago. That was something I never realized until after going to the original Q-BBQ in La Grange earlier this summer.
The interior of the restaurant has sort of a contemporary industrial look. There's an outdoor patio seating area for the warm months with a main dining room that is split in two by a center aisle that takes patrons to the ordering area. The menu is on chalkboard on the wall behind the front counter with a small glass door refrigerator stocked with bottled beers. Country music from the 80's and 90's was playing in the background on the rib joint's sound system.
While the menu isn't extensive, it features Memphis-style (dry rubbed) baby back ribs, Carolina-style pulled pork, either chopped or sliced Texas-style beef brisket, along with pulled chicken and spicy sausage. I ordered up the two meat sampler plate of sliced brisket and pulled pork. The only problem was that I was told that they were out of brisket. Hmmm.... That was a problem because I don't really care for pulled barbecued chicken or sausage all that much. But then someone from back in the kitchen announced that they did, indeed, have brisket. I also ordered some of their baked beans and fries to go along with the meal. For a beer, I ordered the Lagunitas IPA.
The plate was brought out to me about five minutes after I ordered. It was served upon a metal sheet pan with wax paper below the food. There was a generous amount of sliced brisket and pulled pork sitting in opposite corners. A large amount of hand cut fries sat in the middle of the two meats with a small container of baked beans off to the side. A signature item at Q-BBQ - hush puppies - were provided at no charge. I'm not big on hush puppies, but I did try one and it wasn't too bad.
The sauces they had on the table included a sweet Memphis-style sauce that had a bit of a smoky flavor to it. The Texas spicy sauce got my attention with its subtle spicy flavor. There was also Carolina vinegar sauce that looked more like balsamic vinegar and it didn't do anything for me when I tried it on the pork. The fourth sauce - a mustard sauce - I didn't want any part of that. That may taste good on sausage, but I'm not too fond of mustard sauces for barbecue.
The meats were very good - the pulled pork was moist and flavorful. It had a nice bark on the outside of the meat and had a great taste on its own. Adding some of the Memphis sweet sauce along with the Texas spicy sauce gave it a great and zippy taste.
The brisket had a nice smoke ring around the outside. It, too, was very flavorful - easy to cut and chew. I like a good brisket and the brisket at Q-BBQ was some of the best I've had.
The baked beans had small chunks of pork mixed in with them. On their own, the beans were very good. I usually have to add some barbecue sauce to most baked beans I get at barbecue joints just to help jazz up the taste. But the beans at Q-BBQ didn't need much help at all.
And the hand-cut fries were thick with a crispy outside and a nice potato taste inside. I alternated dipping some of the fries into the sweet and the spicy barbecue sauces. But there was way too many of the fries for me to finish. By the time I got down with the pulled pork, brisket, a good portion of the beans and about half the fries I was stuffed. I'm not certain that I even got dinner that evening because I was still full from lunch.
Q-BBQ was a pleasant and surprising find. The overall dining experience was very good including the very good barbecue they serve at the place. Given the amount of barbecue places I've been to during my travels, Q-BBQ acquitted themselves very well against more established rib joints that I've been to. Q-BBQ is highly recommended by Road Tips.
While I was on the road earlier this year, I got into a streak were I just seemed to crave barbecue all the time. I was in Columbia, MO for an appointment one day and I cranked up the GPS to see if there were any barbecue joints in the area. One that came up wasn't far from where I was at the time - Buckingham Smokehouse Bar-b-que. I thought I'd go find the place and see what it was all about.
It turns out the owner of Buckingham Smokehouse - Mark Brown - has a pretty interesting back story as to how he ended up doing barbecue. In the early 70's, a band out of Springfield, MO - the Ozark Mountain Daredevils - became a popular band in Southwest Missouri. In 1974, their first hit "If You Wanna Get to Heaven" became somewhat of a hit song hitting number 25 on the Billboard Top 100 chart. The next year, "Jackie Blue" made it all the way to number 3 on the charts. The Ozark Mountain Daredevils were suddenly rock stars touring the nation.
Mark Brown was a buddy of the guys in the Ozark Mountain Daredevils and was working for the City of Springfield at the time. In 1976, the OMD's road manager called him one evening and basically told him, "We need you to come on the road with us. We just had a roadie who broke his leg. There's a prepaid ticket to L.A. for you at the airport." He flew to Los Angeles in the morning and became an equipment guy for the Ozark Mountain Daredevils.
When the Ozark Mountain Daredevil tour ended later that year, Brown found himself building stages for the Eagles on their Hotel California tour. And when that ended a year later and the OMD's going nowhere but down after their earlier successes, Brown ended up back home in Springfield wondering what he was going to do next.
He knew a guy in Nashville who leased tour buses to rock and country stars. Giving him a call, Brown was asked by the owner if he would like to drive a band around on a bus. Brown needed a job and he readily agreed to go to work driving tour buses for the company.
His first job was to drive from Nashville to Hollywood, FL in May of 1979 to ferry around the Moody Blues on the second part of their "Octave" tour. The band played 17 shows in 22 days. After three years of riding around on tour buses, Brown found out that he really liked driving the bus.
Over the next 20 years, Brown drove tour buses for the likes of Kiss (he's still friends with Gene Simmons), Bon Jovi, Phil Collins, Elton John, Prince, Stevie Nicks, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac and the Grateful Dead. Brown met his soon-to-be wife while on tour - she worked rock tours, as well. They married and while she worked nine months out of the year, Brown continued to work around the calendar going wherever he needed to drive a band or performer.
Brown and his wife had a couple kids and, quite tragically, she was diagnosed with cancer and died in 1996. Knowing that he had to raise his children who now had no mother, Brown got off the road and wondered what he was going to do with his life. He didn't want a job where he had to punch a clock, considering he was pretty much living a high lifestyle for so long. He could always cook, so he decided to open a barbecue place in Springfield.
The name "Buckingham" and the logo with the cowboy riding the pig came from rock guitarist Lindsay Buckingham, a personal friend of Brown's. Buckingham's grandfather once had a produce farm and he showed Brown the logo of the "bucking ham" (or pig) that his grandfather used. Brown was trying to come up with ideas of names for his place in Springfield and he asked Buckingham if it was OK to use his grandfather's logo for his new restaurant. Buckingham thought it was a great idea and that's how Buckingham Smokehouse Bar-b-que came to be.
In 1998, Brown opened up his first Columbia, MO location in a leased space on the north side of town. With most of the growth in Columbia - business and residential - going to the south of the main part of the city, Brown eventually bought a building on Buttonwood Drive in 2006. (see map) Today, in addition to two locations in Columbia, MO, there are five locations in and around the greater Springfield, MO area.
With a back story like that, one has to figure that the barbecue is pretty good at Buckingham Smokehouse. I was certainly going to find out. It was around 1 p.m. when I got into Buckingham. I was seated by a hostess at a booth near the front door and given a menu. Not long after, my server Taylor came over to greet me.
The menu at Buckingham is your typical barbecue fare - smoked meats such as brisket, pulled pork, ham, turkey and sausage links. Interestingly, they didn't do chicken at Buckingham Smokehouse. They had baby back pork ribs, but nothing along the lines of beef ribs. Sandwiches featuring brisket, pulled pork, turkey and ham were available. The sides were somewhat interesting, however. They included the staple pit beans and fries, but they also had horseradish cole slaw and deep fried corn-on-the-cob.
They smoke their meat on-site at Buckingham. They have a large walk-in smokehouse in the back of the restaurant with a large pile of wood just outside the doors. I couldn't tell what kind of wood they had, but I'm guessing it was oak that they were using at Buckingham Smokehouse. Oak is becoming a very popular choice for barbecue places in the Midwest mainly because it's cheaper than hickory and mesquite, and it lasts longer in the smoking process than most other smoking woods.
The good thing is that they had combination meat platters at Buckingham allowing someone to try up to four different types of meat, or a half-rack of baby back ribs with one smoked meat selection. Whenever I see that on the menu I always opt for the brisket and pulled pork. Two sides came with the combo plate. I knew that I was going to get the baked beans, but I deferred to Taylor as to what I should get for the second side. "A lot of people like our cole slaw," she said. I was leaning that way, anyway. They also had a great selection of beer at Buckingham Smokehouse. There's nothing better than a cold beer with good barbecue.
Taylor brought out my two meat platter with side bowls of the pit beans and horseradish cole slaw. They had two different types of barbecue sauce - a thick sweet mild barbecue sauce and a hotter barbecue sauce that had a nice little spicy kick on the backside. As I'm usually prone to do, I mixed both sauces together to get that spicy sweet flavor.
The brisket was thinly sliced and I didn't get much of a smoked taste with it. Actually, it reminded me more of deli-sliced roast beef than a good smoked brisket. It was all right, but it was certainly lacking that true brisket type taste and texture.
The pulled pork, however, was excellent. The pork had a good moist consistency with a hint of a smoky flavor. Along with the mixture of the sweet and spicy sauces, the pulled pork was just outstanding.
Normally, I like to add barbecue sauce to the baked beans at most barbecue joints. I really didn't need to with the pit beans at Buckingham Smokehouse. They were good on their own. But even after adding the mixture of sweet and spicy sauces and mixing it all together, I thought the beans were outstanding.
However, the highlight of the meal - to me - was the horseradish cole slaw. It had a hint of spicy fresh ground horseradish mixed in with the sweet taste of the slaw. The combination of tastes with each fork full of the cole slaw sent me over the top. I wished after the meal was over that I had gotten a double order of cole slaw even though the pit beans were excellent in their own right.
I came away pretty darn impressed with the overall meal at Buckingham Smokehouse. The brisket was somewhat disappointing, but the pulled pork, the pit beans, the beer menu, the barbecue sauces and - most importantly - the horseradish cole slaw more than made up for it. Even with the sub-par brisket, I can't complain much about anything else regarding Buckingham Smokehouse. I may have to try one of their locations when I get back down to Springfield at some point.
My wife is one of those creatures of habit when it comes to eating food. I learned long ago that she needs three square meals a day. It doesn't matter how much she had at breakfast, she needs lunch and dinner - even if it's just a little something. As we were driving through Alabama to get to Florida for our vacation, I kept asking her if she was hungry. After the breakfast we had early in the morning at the Loveless Cafe outside of Nashville (click here to see the entry on the Loveless Cafe), I certainly wasn't hungry and she really wasn't either. Well, that is until we got into the deep southeastern part of Alabama around 2 p.m. The only problem is that we didn't find anything worth stopping at. We passed into Florida and we were going through the town of Defuniak Springs. By this time my wife was crawling up the windows because she was so hungry. It was around 2:30 and I happened to look over at a strip mall along the road and saw a sign that simply said "BBQ". I turned around and went back to get something to eat at a place called 4C BBQ.
4C BBQ calls themselves an authentic Texas barbecue joint. The owners - Robin and Teresa Ford - are from Texas and got into the barbecue business when Robin, who was a deputy sheriff in Williamson County in Texas (just north of Austin), bought a smoker and would cook barbecue for co-workers, friends and family for these sort of "stress relief" parties. Ford was a deputy for 10 years before packing his wife and two kids up and heading up north to Pennsylvania to help out some family members there. The Ford's bought a convenience store in the small town of Claysville and set up his smoker one day for a local celebration. He ended up selling just short of a couple hundred pounds of brisket that day and he was hooked as a barbecue entrepreneur.
In 2006, the Ford's moved to the Florida panhandle opening a small place in Ponce de Leon. The "4C" name comes from their devout Christian faith - 4C stands for "4 Christians for Christ". In the heavily religious bible belt of the Southeast United States, they'd found a home. Business got so good that the Ford's decided to move to nearby Defuniak Springs (a town I'd NEVER heard of until I drove through the place) in 2013 opening in a strip mall toward the south side of the town, not far off Interstate 10. (see map)
The inside of 4C BBQ is a rather large and well lit place with a series of tables and booths throughout. There's a stage on one end for bands and live events.
The bar is located in the back of the space with the kitchen behind it. Video games, dart boards and other games are back in this area, as well.
We took a seat at a booth along the wall and a girl came over to drop off some menus. In addition to barbecue, 4C also had a number of burgers, pork or beef steaks, grilled or blackened fresh seafood, and slew of appetizers.
For barbecue, they had ribs, brisket, pulled pork and smoked chicken breast. I found that they had a sampler platter consisting of 2 ribs and a 1/4 lb of both brisket and pulled pork with two sides. I still wasn't overly hungry from breakfast, but I thought I could eat something. When I proposed getting the sampler, Cindy asked, "To share?" Absolutely! She said that would be perfect. We also got a choice of two sides that included a baked potato, seasoned fries, fried okra and something called corn nuggets. Cindy decided on baked beans and cole slaw for the sides. That was fine with me.
I also decided to order up a beer for the meal. After I found out that the owners were deep Christians I was sort of surprised that they sold beer in the place. And on top of it, it was two for one "Happy Hour". We only had about another 30 minutes of driving until we got to my cousin's place in Santa Rosa Beach, so a couple beers wouldn't be bad.
The young waitress brought out the barbecue sampler and it featured two meaty ribs, a couple slabs of brisket and a small portion of pulled pork. Two half slices of Texas toast accompanied the barbecue and the sides.
The ribs were meaty, but I also found them to be a little fatty. They had a nice smoky flavor and the thick housemade tomato-based with a nice sweet flavor was a nice complement to the ribs. Not the best I've ever had, but certainly not bad.
I tried some of the pulled pork and it was moist and tender, easy to consume. With the barbecue sauce, it, too, was very good.
But I liked the brisket the best. It had a nice smoke ring on the outer edges with a spice-rubbed bark on the outer shell. The beef was tender and had a wonderful texture, easily pulling apart with little effort. The brisket was the highlight.
The baked beans were all right on their own, but were helped with a little bit of the barbecue sauce added. The cole slaw was "Meh!" It was pretty bland.
For a quick find on the side of the road, 4C BBQ was a good choice. It was reasonably priced and you can't beat two for one beer specials. There didn't seem to be a lot of barbecue joints in the area, but I thought 4C BBQ more than held their own against other barbecue places I've been to.
Driving between Jefferson City and Springfield, MO on a recent trip through the Ozarks, I had a hankering for some barbecue. I knew there were a couple places in Osage Beach and I found one on my GPS by the name of HalfSauced Barbeque. I pulled into the restaurant nestled in between Osage Beach Parkway North and Osage Beach Parkway South. (see map)
Tell me if you've heard this story before - a couple friends go on the barbecue competition circuit and win a few contests. They then decide to open their own barbecue place. That's the story of the vast majority of barbecue places I've come across in the Midwest and HalfSauced Barbeque is no exception. Kirk Streed and Randy Heimgartner were doing barbecue competitions before they decided to open their own place about 10 years ago in Osage Beach. They cut down on their time on the competition circuit to get their business up and going, but within the past four or five years they've returned to their roots, so to speak, and have won numerous awards again. Three years ago, they moved into what the former Captain D's seafood restaurant in Osage Beach, their current location. Kirk Streed's wife, Cindy, and their daughter, Haley, help out around HalfSauced Barbeque, as does Randy Heimgartner's wife, Andrea, and their son Andrew.
There were only a couple three people in the place when I walked into HalfSauced Barbeque as it was well past the lunch rush. The restaurant is divided into two sides and a nice young lady led me to a table in the dining room to the right as you come in. She dropped off a menu and soon thereafter my server Elizabeth came over to greet me. I got a beer while I poured through the menu.
The barbecue offerings are typical as to what you'll find at most other joints - brisket, ribs, pulled pork, pulled chicken, double-smoked ham, turkey and burnt ends, many meats available as a sandwich. I always like to get a combo plate when I try a new barbecue place and they had the HalfSauced Sampler Platter that consisted of three baby back ribs, brisket, burnt ends and pulled pork with a couple sides. That was a lot of food for lunch, but I ended up finding a two meat combo platter consisting of 10 ounces of your choice of meat and two sides.
When Elizabeth came back to take my order, I told her that I wanted the two meat combo - pulled pork and brisket. I got the pit baked beans for one side, but hemmed and hawed over what to get for the other side. They had potato salad, a dinner salad, onion rings, French fries, green beans, and two different types of cole slaw - a creamy style with a little bite to the taste, and an oil and vinegar based cole slaw with sliced toasted almonds and sesame seed. The creamy cole slaw with the bite sounded good to me and I ordered it up. "I'm sorry," Elizabeth said to me. "But we're out of cole slaw today. Both kinds." I sort of groaned - more so for the creamy cole slaw than the oil and vinegar slaw with the almonds. I'm not big on almonds. I ended up getting fries with the baked beans.
Elizabeth brought the barbecue out to me not long after I ordered it. I'm glad I didn't get the bigger combo platter because there was enough food on the plate for me and possibly one other person. I got three large slabs of brisket, a good sized portion of the pulled pork, fries that probably came from TWO potatoes and a small bowl of the pit baked beans.
The brisket had a nice smoke ring and a nice seasoned bark on the outer shell. It pulled apart very easily and had a nice smoky taste to it. It was very, very good.
The pulled pork didn't seem to have much of a smoky flavor to it, but it was moist and had a good pork flavor on its own. I added some of the medium sauce they had on the table to the pulled pork. It had sort of an essence of Worcestershire Sauce and soy sauce to it along with a sweet flavor. They also had a spicy sauce that sort of reminded me of salsa. It wasn't the best spicy barbecue sauce I've ever had and I found that I sort of liked the medium sauce a little better.
The pit baked beans were fine - nothing special on their own. I added some of the medium barbecue sauce to them to give them a little more of a zippy taste and it helped. The fries - to me - were basically a throwaway. After the anguish of not having the creamy cole slaw, the fries were sort of an afterthought. But they were crisp on the outside and had that moist potato taste on the inside. I dipped some in the medium barbecue sauce and it turned out that I liked them very much.
Overall, the barbecue I had a HalfSauced Barbeque was well above average. I liked the brisket a little better than the pulled pork. The beans were all right and even though I was disappointed they didn't have the creamy cole slaw, the fries filled in admirably. The sauces - to me - were pretty average. The spicy sauce had a little zing, but - once again - it tasted sort of like salsa. The medium sauce was fine, but not a big winner to me. Elizabeth's service was fine and she was on top of things for me. It was a nice experience at HalfSauced Barbeque. Not the best BBQ I've had, but certainly far from the worst. It was worth it to stop and try the place.
In the mood for barbecue while staying in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago one evening, I found that there wasn't any barbecue restaurants in the immediate area around my hotel. I quick look on my GPS for barbecue joints came up with one in Des Plaines - T-Bob's Smoked Barbecue. I took at look at the reviews on Yelp and Urbanspoon and most of them were very favorable. I decided to go find T-Bob's and give them a try.
Four or so years ago, high school buddies Ted Roombos and Bob Kuzmanic found themselves laid off again from working in the home construction industry. Ted decided to buy a smoker and give smoking meats a try. He found that he had a knack for barbecue, even coming up with his own barbecue sauces. Roombos and Kuzmanic decided they'd get into the barbecue business. The two found an old Dairy Queen on S. Elmhurst Road just north of Algonquin Road in Des Plaines and T-Bob's Smoked Barbecue opened in May of 2011. (see map)
T-Bob's is a "bring-your-own-bottle" place and I stopped off at Binny's just up the street to pick up a six-pack of the Kona Longboard Lager. I took a couple bottles in with me and Ted Roombos was standing there talking with another guy. Ted looked at my bottles and loudly asked in a thick Chicago accent, "What do you have there?" When I showed him the bottles he sort of scrunched up his nose, probably because he wasn't familiar with the beer. "Is that good stuff," he asked. I told him that I would have rather had the Kona Big Wave Golden Ale, but that Binny's only had the Longboard Lager in the cooler.
T-Bob's is also a place where you place your orders at the front counter, pay for your food there, get a number and take a seat to wait for someone to bring it out to you. The menu is above the counter and in addition to the regular barbecue fare, T-Bob's also features grilled or smoked burgers (smoked burgers on Monday only), char-broiled chicken breast sandwiches, grilled skirt steak sandwiches, and even a turkey or a veggie burger for the health conscious. Their soups and sides are all made from scratch in-house, as are the wide variety of desserts including a flan that is made from a secret family recipe courtesy of Bob Kuzmanic's wife.
They have a combo plate on the menu - you get your choices of three meats out of brisket, pulled pork, smoked chicken or hot links, along with a salad and a choice of potato on the side (French fries, sweet potato fries, baked potato, baked potato au gratin, etc.). I really don't like smoked chicken, although I do like a nice indirect grilled chicken breast, and I'm not big on hot link sausages. I asked the girl if I could get double brisket and pulled pork. She said she couldn't do that. I protested mildly and she turned to Ted Roombos who was finishing up his conversation with the other guy. He said, "No, I can't do double brisket. I hardly make money on brisket the way it is."
Then he said, "What's the matter? Don't you like my hot links? I have the best hot links around." When I explained to him that I don't care for smoked chicken or sausage, he finally relented and said, "All right, I'll do it just this one time. But never again!"
She asked me what I wanted for my salad dressing. Wait a minute - salad at a barbecue joint? I said, "You know what, I'm gonna save your boss some money. I don't want a salad." When she explained to me that it came with the meal, I said, "Yeah, I know. Like I said, I'll pay for the dinner, but you guys just keep the salad." In fact, I should have told her to do the same with the French fries I ordered as my potato side - I was just interested in the meat portion of the meal. She asked me what kind of sauce I wanted with the meat and I got some of the "Sweet and Heat" sauce they make in-house.
When I was paying, I turned to Ted Roombos and asked him how long he had been in business. "Three years," he said. Since it says on their web site that they feature "competition quality barbecue at neighborhood prices", I asked him if he had been on the competition trail before opening a restaurant. "Naw, I don't have time for that stuff. I just bought the smoker and opened the place," he said to me dismissively. "I'm tellin' ya, fella. It ain't nothin' to smoke meats." I found him to be sort of Chicago-style brash and cocky.
Not long after I found a booth along the wall, the young girl who took my order brought my food out to me. I guess I thought I'd get more brisket for what I paid ($13.95), but it was what it was. A generous helping of the "Heat and Sweet" sauce was on top of the meat, but I asked her if I could get some more on the side to be able to dip my fries into. She brought some back to me and said, "I like to dip my fries in barbecue sauce, too."
The brisket had a nice smoke ring under the bark. It was juicy and tender and had a nice little smoked flavor. The meat was a little fatty, but nothing bad. The "Sweet and Heat" barbecue sauce did have a nice little kick at the end of it, but I wouldn't call it overly spicy. The beef easily pulled apart. It was very good brisket.
The pulled pork was equally moist and tender, also with a nice little smoked taste to the meat. The crinkle cut fries were all right, but I wished I would have gotten a side of their baked beans ($2 extra) to try.
As he was leaving for the evening, Ted Roombas came by and said, "How's the barbecue? Good?" T-Bob's Smoked Barbecue was good, not outstanding, but definitely worth the trip from my hotel. If I make it back, I'll want to try a half-rack of ribs along with the baked beans. There's not a lot of barbecue places in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, but T-Bob's did a fine job on my first visit.
On a recent trip from Kansas City to Jefferson City, my GPS had me head over to the capital city of Missouri on U.S. Highway 50. Halfway between K.C. and Jeff City is Sedalia, MO, a town that I don't think I've ever been to before. It was getting to be around 1 p.m. and I thought I'd stop somewhere for lunch. Looking up on the GPS for restaurants in the area, I saw a place under "Barbeque" called Kehde's Barbeque. I thought I'd seek it out and give it a try.
I found Kehde's on the south side of Sedalia, just across from the grounds of the Missouri State Fair. At first look, it seemed like it used to be a drive-in. It turns out that it once was. But on the second glance, it looked like there was a train car attached to the side of the restaurant. There was. In doing some background work on the place, I found a pretty interesting story of Kehde's Barbeque and the Kehde (pronounced KAY-dee) family.
Ed Kehde moved to Sedalia in 1947 and saw that the future would be the mobility of Americans due to the automobile and cheap gasoline prices. Dog n Suds Drive In had started in Champaign, IL in the early 50's and they almost immediately began to offer franchises around the Midwest. Ed Kehde jumped at the chance to open the first Dog n Suds in Sedalia in 1955. Helping him out in the restaurant was his wife, Ruth, and his 10-year-old son, John. Sedalia's first Dog n Suds was located just south of the intersection of U.S Highways 50 and 65 on Limit Ave. Each summer, thousands of people would stop by Ed Kehde's Dog n Suds to get hot dogs and a root beer float on their way to and from the Ozarks.
The Kehde's built a second Dog n Suds just down U.S. Highway 65/Limit Ave. in 1960. Nine years later, they built their third Dog n Suds at the corner of W. 20th St. and S. Limit Ave., the present day location of Kehde's Barbeque. (see map) It was at this location that John Kehde - then 24-years-old - was helping to run the day-to-day operations for the family business. At one point, Kehde's Dog n Suds sold the most root beer annually of all the nearly 600 franchises across America at the time.
The 70's came and a proliferation of fast food burger joints cut into Dog n Suds' business. Local lore has it that Ed Kehde was involved in a high stakes poker game and one of the participants put up a secret barbeque sauce recipe as collateral to stay in the game. He lost and Ed Kehde won, and with that he got the sauce recipe that set the motion into a change of a business model for the Kehde's. The Kehde's changed their Dog n Suds franchise into Kehde's Barbeque in the mid-70's. In the late 70's, the third generation of Kehde's, Roger Kehde, joined his father and grandfather in the business.
At first, the Kehde's, admittedly, didn't know what they were doing when it came to barbecue. There were no barbecue societies or master barbecue chefs at the time. But the Kehde's found that high quality meat made all the difference in the world. They would also trim the fat off their meat and take the skin membrane off the back of ribs before cooking them. (I've heard both ways when it comes to removing the membrane or not.) Eventually, Roger Kehde took over the chore of smoking the meats for Kehde's Barbeque. But the one thing they had going for them was the delicious sauce that they served.
Pictured left - John Kehde
Ed Kehde died in May of 1989, almost 4 months after Ruth passed away. A few years later, John Kehde decided to do something to help remind people of the rich heritage of what the Missouri Pacific and Katy Railroads meant to the early growth of Sedalia. He bought a 1920's-era train car - the Katy Flyer - restored it, put booths for dining in it, and attached it to the side of the original Dog n Suds building from 1969. Unfortunately, the interior of the original building was damaged by fire in 2005, but the Kehde's rebuilt and redecorated the place with railroad signs and memorabilia. John Kehde - now approaching 70 - still runs the place along with his son, Roger.
I entered the front door of the restaurant and it looked like the front counter was where the original Dog n Suds counter once was. Old railroad signage, old license plates and assorted railroad memorabilia was in the front entrance area. A waitress saw me and asked how many in the party. She grabbed a menu and took me into a dining room that look like it had been added on to the original building at some point. The room had tin ceiling tiles and sort of a faux-antique look.
The waitress took me to a booth toward the back. There were a lot of old pictures on the wall. The room was almost too busy looking with the abundance of pictures and other railway memorabilia.
I took a long look through the menu at Kehde's Barbeque. In addition to standard barbecue fare on the menu, they feature burgers, sandwiches, salads, chicken entrees, Tex-Mex food, and something called Posh potatoes - a variety of buttered and seasoned baked potatoes topped with melted cheese, veggies, and barbecued meats. They're also big on portabello mushrooms at Kehde's featuring a number of sandwiches with grilled portabello's on them. They even have deep fried portabello mushrooms, as well as their popular deep fried dill pickles.
But I focused on the barbecue. They have a sampler plate at Kehde's that consists of a 1/2 rack of ribs, and your choice between brisket, pulled pork, ham or turkey, all smoked on-site. That sounded like a lot of food, so I just concentrated on getting one of the "plates" - your choice of sliced smoked meat and sides that they call "baggage" at Kehde's.
A nice lady came back to wait on me and I was ready to order. I told her that I'd take the brisket plate and that I'd take baked beans for one of my sides. I said, "I don't know about the other side. What do you suggest?"
She said, "The cole slaw is real popular. It's a family recipe from the owner's grandmother." I looked on the menu and, sure enough, it said, "Slaw - My Grandmother's Recipe". She said it was sweet vinegar slaw, "but it also has a little kick to it." I signed up for that. They do have beer at Kehde's, but I decided to just have water with my meal.
It wasn't long after I ordered when she brought my plate out to me. It featured a generous portion of sliced brisket topped with an equally generous amount of Kehde's barbeque sauce. The baked beans and slaw were in seperate bowls. The plate was also adorned with Texas toast and a dill pickle spear.
The brisket was tender and very good. The barbeque sauce was thick and had a sweet smoky taste with a bit of a spicy bite on the back end. I can see why John Kehde's dad would want to win it in a poker game.
The beans were very good. They had chunks of beef, ham, turkey and pork in them. Even though they didn't need it, I still poured a little bit of the Kehde's barbeque sauce in and mixed it up. They were outstanding beans.
The cole slaw, however, was out of this world. First of all, it reminded me of the sweet marinated cole slaw at the old Belgian Village Inn in Moline, IL. But it had flakes of red peppers mixed in to give it a nice little spicyness on the back end. It was absolutely fabulous. And in doing on-line research of Kehde's Barbeque, I found the recipe for the slaw, courtesy of John Kehde, himself.
Grandma Anna Kehde’s Cole Slaw
2 pounds cole slaw mix 1/4 cup onion, chopped 3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1 1/4 cup sugar 3/4 cup vinegar 1/2 cup water 3/4 teaspoon celery seed 3/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 teaspoon pepper
Mix together red pepper, oil, sugar, vinegar, water, celery seed, salt and pepper. Stir seasoning mixture into slaw mix and chopped onion.
This is definitely something that I'll be making at some point this summer.
Before I left, I went back to the railroad dining car. They fashioned small booths - about a dozen or so -into the old car. It was ornate with a restored 1920's feel to it. The booths weren't big - comfy enough for two people each, but four people in a booth would feel a little crowded. It was a nifty use of an old railroad car.
I had little to complain about on my visit to Kehde's Barbeque. The brisket was tender and flavorful, the beans were outstanding and the family-recipe cole slaw was even better. My server was very friendly and helpful I was thoroughly impressed with my visit to Kehde's Barbeque. I don't know if I will be back through Sedalia anytime soon, but Kehde's would be worthy of another stop if I should have the chance.
(Note - Kehde's Barbeque is open every day except Tuesday.)
I follow a handful of national and regional sportswriters on Twitter and on more than one occasion when one of them have ended up in Lincoln, NE, they've tweeted about going to a barbecue place by the name of Phat Jack's. I tried to go to Phat Jack's on a visit to Lincoln last year, but I found that they close at 7 p.m. After a meeting with a dealer in Lincoln recently, I made it a point to go in for a 5:30 dinner at Phat Jack's.
If you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you've found that many of the barbecue places I've been to started after the owners had been on the competition trail for a few years. That's exactly how Phat Jack's started out.
Matt Burt was a Lincoln native who married his wife, Jackie, in 2004. They soon moved to the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, KS to be closer to her parents. Matt Burt was a plumber by trade, but his hobby and passion was barbecue. In 2006, Matt Burt, along with his father-in-law, Tony Mateer, and a neighbor, Phil Allen, the trio started a competition barbecue team.
The team needed a name and they came up with a number of ones that had a barbecue theme, but none of them stuck. Finally, someone came up with "Fat Jack's" which was changed to "Phat Jack's" taking the urban slang acronym for "Pretty Hot and Tempting" and making it "Pretty Hot and Tasty". There was no Jack in the bunch - the closest being Phil Allen's young son, Jack, who wasn't fat or phat - but the name just sort of stuck.
They entered their first competition in Shawnee, KS and, according to Matt Burt, they didn't do too well. However, they regrouped in time for the 2007 season and placed 4th overall in the World Brisket Open sponsored by the Kansas City Barbecue Society.
While they didn't win any contests in 2007, they placed high enough in many of the events to garner the attention of many barbecue aficionados. But the team didn't last much longer than that. The team was just down to Phil Allen and Matt Burt when they were invited to compete in the prestigious American Royal Invitational in 2008.
Matt Burt's parents, Ron and Kris, convinced the young Burt's to move back to Lincoln and they would help them open a barbecue joint of their own. This was a daunting task because Lincoln had a pretty lively barbecue scene at the time. However, when they opened in 2008 in a spot that used to house a former barbecue joint at 40th and Cornhusker Highway, the original Phat Jack's was a hit.
And almost immediately the place proved to be too small for the hordes that came in to try their barbecue. That location didn't have much seating, it had no kitchen and it had a very small parking lot. The Burt's made do with that place, getting their business built up and Matt going out to barbecue competitions in the summertime, until they moved to their present location in the Belmont Shopping Center, a strip mall in the bottoms of north Lincoln at 11th St. and Cornhusker Highway, just east of Interstate 180 that goes between downtown Lincoln and Interstate 80. (see map)
This place appeared to seat about 50 people and looked like it could have been a small burger joint in a previous life. Trophies and awards from competitions that Phat Jack's have won over the years were on shelves on the wall. I got in at the right time. There was just two other tables that were filled and I had no problem getting up to the counter to order.
The menu at Phat Jack's is on the wall behind the counter with the sign above it that says "Order Here". The barbecue at Phat Jack's is - of course - Kansas City style with Matt Burt coming up with the rub concoction for his brisket, ribs, pork shoulder and chicken. The menu is pretty basic with sandwiches, racks of ribs, combo meals and meats by the pound. They also feature burnt ends - when available - and loaded baked potatoes with either a choice of brisket or pulled pork. Interestingly, they have a couple of menu items that are vegetarian friendly - the Debbie's Way that features coleslaw, tomato, shredded carrots, and a red onion slice that's drizzled with a Carolina-style vinegar BBQ sauce and served on a bun. You can also get a Debbie's Way loaded baked potato, too.
Well, I'm not a vegetarian and I was up for barbecue. I was greeted by a lady behind the counter and I looked over the menu. It was a little difficult to comprehend for a first timer at Phat Jack's. At the top of the combo list was the Jack Jr. Combo - three ribs and your choice of a meat. (If I'd paid attention and read down one more line, I would have seen the Jack Combo - three ribs and your choice of TWO meats. Next time, I'll get that.) I ordered the Jack Jr. Combo with brisket. I also got a choice of two sides. Baked beans was an easy choice, but I hesitated on the second one. I asked her, "What would you get?"
"A lot of people like our cheesy hash browns," she quickly replied. I signed up for that as a second side.
Phat Jack's doesn't have a liquor license, so I couldn't get a beer with my meal. That was disheartening because I do like a cold beer or two with barbecue, but it certainly wasn't a deal breaker. I got a bottle of water instead. I got a number and she said she'd call it out when it was ready.
Because there was no one else in line, I was barely settled into my seat at a two-seater table when a young lady brought my barbecue out to me. It was served in a paper boat with the beans and cheesy potatoes in styrofoam cups. A paper towel roll was on the table along with bottles of Phat Jack's homemade sweet barbecue sauce and spicy barbecue sauce.
The ribs were meaty and had a nice rub spice on the bark. The pink smoke ring was present and they pulled off the bone rather easily. The ribs were outstanding. I'm a sauce guy, but I was hesitant to put any sauce on the ribs because they tasted so good on their own.
The brisket was served on a piece of white bread. It, too, had a nice pink smoke ring and the meat was tender and had a great flavor. I tried some of the sweet sauce on the brisket and it was good. It was a little spicy on its own, but not bad. I thought the same thing about the spicy sauce when I tried it - a little spicy at first. But then about five seconds later, the heat very sneakily kicked in. It wasn't overpowering, but it was enough to get your attention. I really liked the spicy barbecue sauce at Phat Jack's.
The baked beans, I have to say, were also outstanding. I usually like to add barbecue sauce to baked beans at most barbecue joints to liven them up. I didn't have to do that with the beans at Phat Jack's. They featured chunks of brisket and pork in with the beans, and they were thick and flavorful. I couldn't help, however, to put a little of the spicy sauce in with the beans. To me, that made them even more outstanding.
The lady's recommendation of the cheesy hash browns was also spot on. They, too, had a great flavor, but were very rich. I concentrated more on the barbecue and the beans making sure that I wouldn't get filled up on the cheesy hash browns.
While I was eating, I decided that I came at the right time as a long line formed from the door to the counter about 15 minutes after I arrived. People were flocking in for Phat Jack's barbecue before they closed at 7 p.m. (They're open at 11 a.m., Monday thru Saturday.) For my first visit to Phat Jack's, I was mightily impressed. The ribs and brisket were very good, and the baked beans were outstanding. I liked the cheesy potatoes, but I'll probably try the cole slaw next time - or get double baked beans. Everything I expected from Phat Jack's came to fruition for me. It's one of the better barbecue joints I've found in the Midwest. Even if they don't serve beer.
During a recent trip to St. Louis, I stayed out in the Chesterfield Valley for a morning meeting the next day. Searching for food choices for the evening, I came across a barbecue place that I wasn't familiar with - even though it had been in business for over 30 years - Charlotte's Rib. I decided that I'd go over and try their barbecue in nearby Ballwin. (Photo courtesy Pitch.com)
To people over the age of 50 in the St. Louis area, they all remember Charlotte Peters, dubbed the "First Lady of St. Louis Television". Peters answered an ad looking for performers for a noon time variety show on KSD-TV (now KSDK) in 1947. Even though she was late for the interview, her audition went so well that she was hired on the spot. For seven years, Peters was part of the performing cast on a show that was geared toward housewives called "To the Ladies". She was immediately popular with her singing and comedic skills. When the original host of "To the Ladies" decided to quit, KSD named Peters the new host of the show and renamed it "The Charlotte Peters Show". The show was largely unscripted, and being that it was live television it was totally unpredictable. Peters, guests (which included Bob Hope, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Alfred Hitchcock and dozens of other notables of the day) and studio audience members - along with thousands watching at home - all went along with the intermittent chaos that a show like that could produce. Peters' mantra before each show was "Let's just wing it."
(Pictured right - Charlotte Peters)
A dispute with KSD management in the early 60's forced Peters to jump to rival station KTVI (along with a vast majority of her sponsors and viewers). Peters continued the Charlotte Peters Show - still a live show - until the popularity of locally produced live variety shows began to decline. Charlotte Peters hosted her last show in 1970. She continued to work in local theaters and penned a column for the local paper after she retired from television. Charlotte Peters died in 1988.
Not only did Peters have a highly successful television show, she was also a stage actress, columnist, and was an advocate for local St. Louis charities. But above all, she was a mother. Her son, Mike, became famous in his own right as the man behind the highly popular Mother Goose and Grimm comic strip. And her daughter, Pat, used a barbecue sauce recipe that her mom came up with to be the impetus for what eventually became a barbecue joint called named after Charlotte Peters - Charlotte's Rib.
Pat, and her husband, Herb Schwarz had a love for Kansas City-style barbecue and they opened their first Charlotte's Rib location in suburban Kirkwood in 1977. The next year, the couple moved their business to a location out in West County on Manchester Road in Manchester, just west of Missouri Highway 141.
Herb Schwarz began to enter the world of barbecue competitions using the name "Dr. Rollin' River" to hide his association with Charlotte's Rib. (I believe, at that time, professional barbecue chefs couldn't enter some barbecue cook-offs.) In 1981, Schwarz/Dr. River won a regional barbecue cook-off to qualify for the American Royal Barbecue Cook Off in Kansas City - the World Series of Barbecue. Schwarz/Dr. River won the Best Pork category that year and it soon solidified Charlotte's Rib as the barbecue joint to go to in St. Louis. In 1982, Pat Schwarz used a family recipe that had been handed down in the Peters family to win a regional chili cook off in St. Louis. In 1985, the Schwarz's began to market their barbecue sauce - Mild Hickory - through local grocery stores, and began to develop new sauces and their own barbecue rub.
By the late 90's, the Schwarz's daughter, Lisa, and her husband, Scott Brown, joined Herb and Pat in the family business. The same year that the Schwarz's retired from the business and handed the reins over to their daughter and son-in-law, Charlotte's Rib was forced to move to a new location thanks to urban renewal. They moved to what is their present day location in Ballwin in 2001. They thought it would be a temporary move until they found a stand-alone building like their location on Manchester Road, but they settled in and decided to stay.
Their location is in a strip mall at the northwest corner of Clayton Road and Kehrs Mill Road. (see map) Through the week (they're closed on Monday) Charlotte's Rib is open until 8 p.m. (9 p.m. on the weekends). I got there around 7:15 and there was a light crowd in the place. As you walk into the restaurant, you come face-to-face with the multitudes of awards Charlotte's Rib has accumulated over the years. After Herb Schwarz's death in 2007, Scott Brown and Lisa Schwarz got back into local and regional competitions to pay homage to her father. In 2008 they won second place in the coveted "Cook's Choice" category at the Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational. They've also won a number of awards at local St. Louis area barbecue competitions since then.
80's and 90's country music from Sirius XM was playing over the sound system in Charlotte's Rib. The decor in the place was sort of a Western/ranch-style theme.
I found a spot in a booth toward the back of the place and was greeted by a young woman who gave me a menu. She asked what I wanted to drink and I told her I'd take a Budweiser. She brought me back the beer and asked me if I was ready to order. I had only been there for a couple minutes and hadn't had the chance to figure out what I was looking for yet. She told me that she'd check back and I said that was fine. That was a mistake. More on that later.
Charlotte's Rib is famous for their hand-cut pork steaks. They cut a steak out of pork shoulder (a.k.a. pork butt) and grill it. It's been a signature menu item for over 30 years. But I was looking for barbecue and they have St. Louis cut spare pork ribs, baby back pork ribs, brisket, pulled pork and chicken barbecue dinners. They also have a slew of appetizers including Pat Schwarz's chili and a Southern-style Burgoo stew that consists of Beef, Chicken and a variety of vegetables in a chicken stock. Burgoo is popular from about Central Missouri and Central Illinois south to heart of Dixie. I've been to Burgoo festivals before and they're pretty fun.
Charlotte's Rib also features pulled pork and brisket sandwiches, they have a handful of burgers on the menu, and they also have something called the C.B. Joe - a chopped beef and pork sandwich mixed with a combination of spices and topped with barbecue sauce. Charlotte's Rib also has a kid's menu, has menu items for family gatherings and can do large catering jobs.
They have a combo meal at Charlotte's Rib - 3 rib bones, 1/4 chicken, ham and beef brisket. But I don't care for smoked chicken all that much and ham is great for holidays, but I find it to be rather boring for barbecue joints. I found that I could just order different sizes of ribs and get a half pound of brisket. They had two different sizes (small and large) of the sides they offer which included seasoned French fries, potato salad, baked beans, cole slaw and chunky applesauce.
I had finished my beer and I had figured out what I wanted - 1/3 slab of ribs, 1/2 pound of brisket and a small side of the baked beans. I was waiting for the young girl to come back - and she never did. There was another girl looking after a small group of people toward the front of the restaurant, but my server was nowhere in sight. I walked into the restaurant just after 7:15 and it was now 7:25. Then it was 7:30. Then it became 7:35. I was seriously thinking of just laying three bucks on the table for the beer and getting up to walk out. Finally, nearly a full 25 minutes after I walked in, I got the attention of the other server. "My waitress has forgotten about me and I've been ready to order for over 15 minutes."
She apologized profusely and ran back into the kitchen to grab the other girl. My server came out and she said, "Oh my gosh! I am SOOOOO sorry. What can I get you?"
I just sort of sat there, looking up at her. I was just so incredulous that this happened to me in a restaurant - AGAIN! Figuring that I made her feel guilty enough and didn't have to tell her "Don't forget about your customers" (my eyes and facial expression was doing a good enough job of that), I ordered up my barbecue and baked beans along with another beer. She brought out another beer to me and said, "This one is on the house. Again, I am SOOOOO sorry."
She brought me out my barbecue about 15 minutes after I ordered and it was a hearty slab of meat on my plate. She asked if I wanted any additional barbecue sauce other than the mild hickory sauce that they had on the brisket and ribs. I asked what she had and she said, "Let me get you some more sauce." She came out with a spicy Southern sauce and a Western blend sauce.
I got more than a 1/3 rack of ribs, I'm guessing because of her forgetting about me, but probably more because it was the end of the rack. The ribs at the end were a little tough, but toward the middle of the rack they were more tender. The outer bark of the ribs was tasty, the ribs had a nice smoke ring under the bark, and they had a nice subtle smoky taste. The ribs middle ribs were pretty meaty and pulled off the bone pretty easily. They were pretty good.
The brisket was also very good. It was thick cut, tender and easy to cut with a fork. The brisket was served on a slice of white bread and it, too, had a nice smoky flavor to it. I think I liked the brisket a little bit more than I liked the ribs.
The baked beans were very good on their own. Most of the time, I have to add some barbecue sauce to some place's baked beans because they're usually drab in taste and they're too runny. Charlotte's Rib baked beans had a thicker consistency and a very good overall flavor. I did add some of the Southern spicy sauce to the beans, but they really didn't need it.
The sauces were just all right, I thought. The mild hickory had a nice sweet and smoky taste. The Southern spicy wasn't all that spicy to me. The Western blend was pleasant enough, but it wasn't ass-kicking in taste. The sauces from Charlotte's Rib are all acceptable, but they weren't remarkable enough to the point where I wanted to run over to Dierberg's to buy some to take home.
I paid the bill and left a small tip for the young lady. She didn't deserve a 15 percent tip and barely deserved a 10 percent tip. As I was leaving, I was taking a few snap shots and a man came out of the kitchen and asked me how the food was. I guessed after the fact that this was Scott Brown. I told him that the food was good, but I was a little disappointed in the service. He said, "Yeah, I heard about that. I'm really sorry. I had her back in the kitchen doing some stuff and she just forgot."
A couple three weeks later, I was reconciling my expense report versus my credit card statement and I noticed that the tip that I had included on my credit card receipt was not on my statement. I don't know if she refused it or if Scott Brown didn't include it after I signed the credit card receipt. I thought, "OK, that's the way to do it."
So, other than the poor service, the ribs and brisket at Charlotte's Rib were decent and respectable. The sauces were all right, but unexceptional. The decor, I thought, was a little too kitschy, but it was tolerable. With a growing number of good to excellent barbecue places in St. Louis, Charlotte's Rib will have to work hard to maintain its long standing place in the market. They just can't forget about their customers.
A place that has been on my culinary radar for a couple years has been Black Dog Smoke and Ale House, a barbecue joint located near the University of Illinois campus in downtown Urbana, IL. I had a morning meeting with one of my dealers in twin city Champaign and decided to head over to Black Dog for an early lunch before I hit the road.
Mike Cochran had been a bartender at the Esquire Lounge in Champaign since 1993. One of the co-owners was a guy by the name of Pedro Heller. Cochran got into smoking meats about three years later when he bought a small backyard water smoker. He started to work some shifts in the kitchen at the Esquire, and once a week he made ribs to sell at the bar. The ribs were an immediate hit.
Cochran began to dream about one day owning his own barbecue place. But for an area like Champaign/Urbana, there was no dearth of barbecue places. The people in Chambana really like their barbecue. Cochran knew that his barbecue joint would have to be different and he partnered with Heller with his plan to have his own style of barbecue in a restaurant that would serve craft beers from all over the Midwest. In February 2009, Cochran and Heller opened Black Dog Smoke and Ale House in what was the former Tod and John's, a tavern that was popular with the locals. The barbecue joint was named after Cochran's two black dogs, Lola and Oscar.
Cochran was influenced by many different styles of barbecue - Memphis-style with the seasoned rubs, Carolina-style with pork and vinegar-based sauces, and the sweet and smoky Kansas City-style barbecue featuring burnt ends. Cochran wasn't very big on adding sauces to his smoked meats, saying that the meat should stand on its own. But they offer seven different types of barbecue sauce that can be served with the meats.
Black Dog Smoke and Ale House is located on the corner of Walker and Broadway in downtown Urbana. (see map) They share the parking lot on the north side of their building with Bunny's, another popular and long-time eatery in Urbana. I could smell the wood smoke when I got out of my car.
It was just after 11:30 and they had been open since 11. When I walked in, the place was already packed and there was a wait at the door. A guy was manning the stand up front and he asked me how many there was in my party. When I told him, "Just one," he looked toward the bar and asked me if I wanted to have a seat at the bar. I had no problem with that whatsoever.
Black Dog is not a large place. There are some tall tables up front and a row of booths along the wall opposite the bar. The bar, itself, is an old ornate structure that looked like it had been made back in the 30's or 40's.
After I sat down, a personable bartender came up to greet me. He said, "Welcome to Black Dogs. We're out of burnt ends, catfish and ribs today. I hope you didn't come for those."
I said, "Already? You guys are out of the ribs already?"
"We got some smoking right now," he explained. "We had a catering job that came up that left us short."
But they still had pulled pork, brisket, smoked Polish sausage and smoked chicken available. They also have smoked salmon available at times, as well as smoked duck on occasion. Black Dog also features locally-raised grass-fed beef for their burgers, brisket burritos, Cuban sandwiches, vegetarian food items, as well as a slew of appetizers. For a cold beer, I ordered up a Bell's Two Hearted Ale.
They had a two meat platter on the menu that I ended up ordering. I got a couple sides with it and I ordered the pit baked beans, but was sort of torn between a couple of other things. The bartender said, "You can't go wrong with the spicy potato salad." OK, I'll sign up for that.
He asked me, "What kind of barbecue sauce do you want?" I asked what he had and he started to rattle them off - Georgia Peach, Hot Georgia Peach, Milo's Mustard, Carolina Red... I stopped him and asked if I could have a little bit of everything. He said, "For a two buck upcharge, we have a sauce flight that we serve." Sure! You bet!
The pulled pork, brisket and sides were served on a deep metal tray with wax paper covering the bottom of the pan. There was a healthy sized glob of pulled pork and about four or five slices of thick cut brisket. The sides were good sized and looked interesting.
The sauces were also served in a similar pan inside small plastic tubs. In addition to the ones I named before, there was a Carolina vinegar sauce, a Texas barbecue sauce, and a chipotle sauce. More on the sauces in a bit.
The pulled pork was moist and tender, and had a great smoky flavor. The brisket was not quite as tender as I like, but it was still very good. The rub on the bark of the brisket had a nice tangy appeal. Both the pulled pork and the brisket were well above average.
The pit beans, on their own, were good. But I mixed some of the Hot Georgia Peach and the Texas BBQ sauces in with the beans and they got zipped up in taste pretty well. But the highlight was the spicy potato salad. The bartender didn't steer me wrong - it had a zippy and tangy taste. There appeared to be hot peppers mixed in with the potato salad and it was some of the finest potato salad I've had. I really wanted to get the recipe for it.
The sauces were, well, interesting. If you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you'll know that I'm big into the different barbecue sauces, going more toward the sweet and spicy sauces (sometimes having to mix both together to get the desired taste), and not too particularly fond of the mustard or vinegar based sauces. Both the hot Georgia Peach and the regular Georgia Peach sauces were very good. The hot Georgia Peach had the nice mixture of sweet and hot that I like. It was just excellent.
I thought the Texas BBQ sauce was a little bland, but I did like the chipotle sauce. Mixed together, the combination was very good. The Carolina red was a vinegar-tomato mix that was all right, but not my favorite. And although I'm not fond of the mustard or near pure vinegar-style of sauces, I did try the Milo's Mustard (found it tangy, but a little sour to my taste buds), and the Carolina vinegar that was all right, but not my style of sauce. It's definitely an acquired taste.
For $12.95 for the two meat platter (a three meat platter is $17.95), plus $2.00 for the sauce flight, it was a lot of food for lunch. And good food. In 2013, Maxim magazine named Black Dog one of the top five hottest BBQ places in the United States. It's not that they needed more accolades - they were doing fine well before getting the national recognition. But in the fall of 2013, Cochran and Heller announced they would open a second - and larger - Black Dog Smoke and Ale House in an old railroad freight building in Champaign.
I liked everything about Black Dog, save for the fact that they were out of ribs on my visit. But the brisket and pulled pork were both very good, the sauces were, as I said, interesting, and they had a wonderful selection of craft beers from all around the Midwest. Getting in early doesn't always guarantee a seat and they may be out of some meat. But I'd go back to Black Dog Smoke and Ale House in a moment's notice.
For years, St. Louis has been famous for their butcher cut-style of ribs, but there weren't many true barbecue places that actually smoked their meats. Most of the places that served ribs cooked them low and slow in a sauce that didn't allow for the flavor from wood-fired smokers to permeate the meat. That all changed a few years ago when a handful of barbecue smokehouses began to pop up around St. Louis. Over the past couple of years, nearly a dozen barbecue places have opened in St. Louis and a lot of people think the best of the new ones is a place called Sugarfire Smokehouse. I'd learned about Sugarfire earlier this summer on a previous trip to St. Louis and put them on my "restaurants to visit" list. A few weeks ago, I had the chance to give Sugarfire a try.
Unlike most barbecue places that get their start from someone starting out on the barbecue competition circuit, Sugarfire has a more refined background. Chef Mike Johnson started out his career studying at the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont. After graduating from there, he went to Europe to try his hand at cuisines served at restaurants in France, then he moved out to Napa Valley, then down to Los Angeles before settling in at the highly-regarded (and now closed) Charlie Trotter's in Chicago. Johnson then went to work for another celebrity chef, Emeril Lagasse at Emeril's in New Orleans.
Johnson settled in St. Louis and worked at a handful of restaurants before he ended up at Boogalooas chef/owner serving Caribbean and Creole food. Johnson then sold his share in Boogaloo and went on to Cyrano's in Webster Grove working with Charlie and Carolyn Downs. Johnson eventually became a part-owner in Cyrano's, but he had other ideas for another restaurant.
(Pictured right - Mike Johnson and Carolyn Downs. Photo courtesy St. Louis Magazine.)
Johnson decided that he wanted to get into barbecue and he began to travel to New York to learn more about that city's exploding barbecue scene. Eventually, Johnson went down to Georgia to study under legendary pit master Myron Mixon who heads Jack's Old South Barbecue cooking school that takes place once a month over a long weekend at Mixon's home.
With barbecue in his blood, Johnson then found a location in the Olivette area of St. Louis that used to house a former Dickey's Barbecue franchise that had gone out of business. He went out and bought a smoker - the same smoker that Pappy's Smokehouse uses (click here to see my entry on Pappy's). And along with Carolyn Downs who was in charge of making pies, cookies and pastries for the new endeavor, Sugarfire Smokehouse opened in the fall of 2012.
It was just after 6 p.m. when I pulled into the parking lot of the Price Crossing shopping complex, a strip mall on the south side of Olive Blvd. just a half mile west of the I-170 innerbelt freeway. (see map) The parking lot was nearly full as there were some other businesses still open including a pub next door to Sugarfire. I walked past the deserted outdoor seating area (it was a cool evening) and into the front door of Sugarfire. It was there that I encountered a line snaking down the long hallway.
The place was full of diners even at 6 p.m. Many were seated at tables pushed together in the center of the room, sort of communal style-eating. A few four-seater and a couple two-seater tables were available along the walls.
The line curved around in front of a drink dispenser and an iced-tub of beer and bottled soda pop. They had local beers available at Sugarfire from Anheuser-Busch products to Schlafly and other local microbrews.
It took about 15 minutes for me to make it to the front of the line. The menu was on a chalkboard above the front counter. In addition to ribs, Sugarfire features brisket, turkey breast, pulled pork, and smoked sausage. One of the things I immediately liked about Sugarfire is that they had a number of different portion sizes that you can order. You could get just a quarter-pound of pulled pork or brisket, all the way up to a one pound serving. You also had your choice of getting a four-bone rib sampler, a half-rack or a full-rack of baby back ribs.
Sugarfire also touts their grass-fed burgers. They get their beef for their burgers from Rain Cow Ranch just outside of Cape Girardeau, MO and the hand-pattied burgers are a proprietary mix of chuck, brisket, and boneless short rib ground together. The burgers are cooked on a flat-grill using only salt and cracked black pepper for a seasoning and served on a Fazio's Bakery egg bun. Each burger comes with lettuce, tomato, sliced red onions and pickles, and Sugarfire also features homemade ketchup and mustard. Add-ons such as in-house smoked bacon, balsamic-sauteed onions, smoked portobello mushrooms, a farm fresh eggs and three different types of cheese are an extra charge. I saw a couple burgers getting made when I was going through the line. They looked damned good.
When it came time to place my order, I told the guy behind the counter that I wanted to try a little bit of everything. I ordered 4 oz. of pulled pork, 4 oz. of brisket, and 4 bones of the baby back ribs. He said, "We have a special tonight that if you add the smoked sausage, it will be $20 bucks for the whole tray." I thought about it for moment and decided that I didn't want any smoked sausage. This was going to be enough meat for me.
The food is served cafeteria style with the ribs and brisket cut on a board, and the pulled pork fished out of a pan in front of you before it's placed upon a piece of wax paper that's on top of a rectangular tin pan. For my side that I got with my four bone sampler, I got their baked beans. The list of sides at Sugarfire is not extensive - in addition to the baked beans, they have potato salad, fries and cole slaw.
I had my eye on a two-seat table that was open near the second of the two cash registers, but a large crowd had gathered around it who were waiting to pick up to-go orders. I found an open seat at one of the large tables in the center of the room - actually, they're three four-seaters pushed together - with a number of sauce bottles sitting in front of where I was seated. A large roll of paper towels was placed near the sauces.
The brisket was cut thick and I got about four healthy slices. The pulled pork was stringy and the guy had given me a nice amount to try. It was more than 4 ounces, I figured. The ribs were cut into one small slab with a nice bark on the outside and a nice pink ring around the edge of the meat.
One of the problems with the food being served cafeteria style - and with a lot of people standing in line to get food - the ribs and the brisket are sitting out on the cutting board. The ribs were lukewarm - at best. They had a nice seasoning flavor on the outside bark, but I didn't get much of the hickory and cherry smoke that Sugarfire uses in their smoker. The pork pulled away from the bone rather easily and it was very easy to chew.
The brisket was even more cool in temperature than the ribs. They, too, had a nice flavoring on the bark with a nice pink ring toward the outside of the meat. The brisket was tender and had some good flavor, but it was just served too cold for my liking.
The pulled pork was warmer than both the ribs and the brisket, but not by much. The pork was moist and had a nice pork flavor to it. The clumps of pulled pork held together well when I'd pick it up with my fork. While it was good, I couldn't call it outstanding.
I tried some of the different sauces with the meats on my tray. The sweet sauce was similar to a Kansas City-style sweet sauce. The Texas Hot was not all that hot - to me, at least. They had a vinegar-based Carolina sauce that was interesting on the pork, but it wasn't my favorite. There is also a white sauce at Sugarfire that is sort of a horseradish base. I tried some on the brisket, but I found that I liked a mixture of the sweet and the Texas Hot barbecue sauces the best on all the meats. But the most interesting barbecue sauce on the table was the coffee barbecue sauce. You could see small flakes of ground coffee in the sauce. It had sort of a sweet and coffee taste to it. I remember nodding approvingly when I tried it on some of the pulled pork and the ribs.
The baked beans side was all right. There was a mix of black and Navy beans in a somewhat runny sauce. As I'm wont to do, I added a mixture of the sweet and Texas Hot sauces to both thicken the beans and zip up the taste. After I did that, I was much more happy with the beans.
I made it through the four ribs, all the brisket slices and a good portion of the pulled pork. I left about half of the beans. I got two beers with the meal, but found that I probably could have gotten by with only one. I was full and completely satiated.
As I cleaned up my tray and took it over to the trash, I took a quick mental inventory of my experience at Sugarfire Smokehouse. The meat, although flavorful on its own, was not very smoky, nor was it very warm. The sauces were good - the mixture of the sweet and hot were the best - and the coffee barbecue sauce was very interesting. The beans were all right, but better when I added both sweet and hot barbecue sauce.
Compared to other St. Louis-area barbecue places like Pappy's, Bogart's Smokehouse (click here to see my entry on Bogart's), and 17th Street Barbecue in O'Fallon, IL (click here to see my entry on 17th Street BBQ) (Update - 17th Street Barbecue closed their doors in O'Fallon at the end of November, but their two other locations in Murphysboro, IL and Marion, IL are still open), I thought Sugarfire made a gallant effort, but came up short. Another thing - eating dormitory-style in a place like this as a single person made me feel somewhat hurried to finish my meal and get up to allow other parties with more people use my space. I didn't care for that at all. If I get back to Sugarfire - and I'm actually planning on doing so - I'm going to try one of their burgers. But I'll think twice about getting the barbecue during peak times. (Picture courtesy Trip Advisor)
In February of 2011, a new barbecue joint opened in the Soulard neighborhood south of downtown St. Louis - Bogart's Smokehouse. It is basically an off-shoot of one of my all-time favorite barbecue houses - Pappy's Smokehouse (click here to see my entry on Pappy's). When we were in St. Louis to see some Cardinals games this past summer, we were down in Soulard on a Saturday and noticed a line of people out the door and around the building at Bogart's - and it wasn't even noon yet! I put Bogart's on my "Restaurants to Try" list and I finally had a chance to go there for lunch earlier this fall.
The main force behind Bogart's is barbecue legend Skip Steele. Steele was the driving force behind Super Smokers, one of the leading barbecue places in St. Louis for years. Steele sold his share in Super Smokers in 2007 and moved to Las Vegas to work in a short lived barbecue joint in the Rio hotel and casino. When Mike Emerson, Brian Scoggins and John Matthews opened Pappy's Smokehouse just west of downtown St. Louis in 2009, they were able to coax Steele back home to become their chef and pitmaster.
In late 2010, Steele and Scoggins, along with Pappy's catering manager Niki Puto and Michael Macchi - a restaurant veteran who got his "second wind" in the business working at Pappy's - left there and began to develop their own barbecue place in Soulard. From the first day they opened, business has been off the chart.
Like Pappy's, Bogart's is open Tuesday thru Saturday at 10:30 a.m. and they close at 4 p.m. Tuesday thru Thursday, or 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday night. Unless they run out of food, like Pappy's has been known to do, then they close.
Bogart's Smoke House is located at the corner of Lafayette and 9th Street in Soulard, just across from the Soulard Market Park and down the street from the back end of the Soulard Farmer's Market. (see map) I was able to find a parking spot across the street from the restaurant. It was a nice, yet cool, fall day and a few people were seated outside on the picnic tables on the south side of the building.
It was after the lunch rush when I got into Bogart's and found the menu board above the cash register. The line was moving fast with a number of people getting orders to go. The decor on the walls of Bogart's was a funky mesh of historic photos, signs and even a deer head. It's nothing fancy, but good barbecue shouldn't be fancy. Tex-Mex music provided by Alejandro Escovedowas playing in the background. I immediately liked the vibe of the place.
There's no combination dinners to order at Bogart's, save for either a half slab or a full slab of ribs with 1/4 pound of meat. I wouldn't really call that a combination dinner, per se. And the main plates - with your choice of either turkey, brisket, pulled pork, burnt ends, and even pastrami - come with two sides. (Update - I didn't see this on the menu on the board, but I see on the menu on Bogart's web site that I could have picked two different meats. I'll have to check on that the next time I go.)
When I got up to the counter, I was greeted by an outgoing young guy who asked if my order was to-go or to eat there. I told him it was to eat there and I wanted the brisket plate. He said, "You get two sides, baked beans?"
His voice trailed off and I said, "Yeah, baked beans."
Then he said, "Potato salad?" He was definitely pushing me in some direction, but I soon figured that the baked beans and the deviled egg potato salad were probably the most popular choices for sides considering the other choices were applesauce, cole slaw, barbecued pork skins and chips. The deviled egg potato salad was interesting enough to me. Just like Pappy's, Bogart's doesn't sell beer - which I really enjoy with barbecue - but it wasn't a deal buster. I just got a cup of water.
I found a table along the wall and it was about five minutes later when a guy came out from the kitchen area behind the counter and called out my name. I was served a paper-filled basket filled with a mound of shaved beef brisket, the juices flowing from the meat. Small four ounce styrofoam cups were filled with the baked beans and the potato salad. And if someone wanted to make a sandwich out of the abundance of brisket in the basket, a bun was added.
Cutting off some of the brisket to give it a try, the first bite was wonderful. The meat had a nice pink smoke ring around the edge, there was a bit of a crunch with the bark on the outside.
I'm a sauce guy, but the meat was so good that I was tempted to not use any of the sauces they had in squeeze bottles on the table. They had a sweet and smoky Kansas City-style sauce that was tabbed "Sweet Maegan Ann" sauce. The hot sauce was called "Voodoo" sauce. There was also a Carolina vinegar sauce and a barbecue sauce made with pineapple juice on the table. I poured a bit of the sweet and smoky sauce on the paper in the basket and dipped part of the bun into it. It was an interesting taste - sweet and smoky, definitely. The "Voodoo" sauce was next. It wasn't as hot as you'd expect. For someone like me, who likes spicy food, it had a bite, but it wasn't overly spicy to me. Mixed together, the two were excellent.
The Carolina vinegar sauce was a little bland to me. It could have had a little more of a peppery taste to it, but it probably would have been good to someone who likes a vinegar sauce. I don't particularly care for a vinegar sauce. And, quite frankly, I didn't even try the pineapple sauce. The combination of the sweet and smoky sauce along with the "Voodoo" sauce was good enough for me.
Like the meat, the baked beans were very good on their own. When I added equal amounts of the sweet and smoky and the "Voodoo" sauce to them, they became excellent.
And a quick word about the potato salad at Bogart's. It, too, was very good. I don't usually care for deviled eggs all that much, but the taste combination with the potatoes was spot on. It was some of the best potato salad I've ever had.
Overall, it was superb brisket. And there was a lot of it for $12.99. It was almost too much for lunch and two people could have easily shared the meal with the two sides. I just had appetizers that night because I was still full from lunch.
Since my initial visit to Pappy's, I've been back a couple of times. I thought it was the best in St. Louis and it may well be. But I was mightily impressed with what I had at Bogart's Smokehouse. I'll have to go back to Bogart's a couple times to make up my mind which is better. And it probably isn't something that I will be able to gauge, no matter how many trips I make back and forth. While Pappy's is a "can't miss" when it comes to barbecue in St. Louis, Bogart's is right there with 'em.
Four years ago, a friend of mine invited Cindy and I to watch an Iowa Hawkeyes football game from a suite in the skybox at Kinnick Stadium that was leased by his wife's grandparents. Jumping at the chance, I immediately said, "You bet!" In addition to the unlimited beer and the comfy accommodations, they also had food catered in from a local barbecue place called Jimmy Jack's Rib Shack on the eastside of Iowa City. The barbecue, I thought, was fabulous. I've been meaning to stop in to Jimmy Jack's to try their barbecue in house and on a recent trip where I was driving by Iowa City, I decided to stop in for some barbecue.
The owners of Jimmy Jack's are, of course, named "Jimmy" (James Adrian) and Jack (Piper). James and Jack were lifelong friends who grew up in Burlington, IA with similar backgrounds. Going to school at the University of Iowa they worked in restaurants and found themselves working in restaurants after getting out of school. Adrian worked in New Orleans at the prestigious Commander's Palace. Piper ended up working at the Stein Erikson Lodge in Park City, Utah. Both Piper and Adrian ended up in Boulder, CO working at a restaurant before they decided to come back to Iowa City and open the Atlas World Grill (now simply known as "Atlas"), an eclectic restaurant featuring different recipes that both learned along the way.
Adrian and Piper would subsequently travel to other citys to try other restaurants - preferably barbecue restaurants. Their favorite destination was Kansas City and the plethora of barbecue joints in that city. Both became judges associated with the Kansas City Barbecue Society and they decided to open their own barbecue joint in the barbecue barren Iowa City area. They found an (I believe) old Long John Silver's location on Lower Muscatine Road across from Sycamore Mall on Iowa City's southeast side. (see map). They opened Jimmy Jack's Rib Shack in the summer of 2005 and it immediately became the place for area barbecue aficionados. (In 2011, along with partner Brady McDonald, Adrian and Piper opened Basta Pizzeria and Ristorante in downtown Iowa City.)
It was after the lunch rush when I rolled into Jimmy Jack's. The smell of hickory smoke was emanating from the building into the summer air. You order at the counter and they'll bring the food out to you. The menu is located on the back wall behind the order counter. I was greeted by a younger girl who asked me if I knew what I wanted. Since I hadn't been there before, I needed a couple minutes trying to figure out what I wanted.
At barbecue joints that I'm not familiar with, I like to get a sampler plate of two or three meats. The only problem is that Jimmy Jack's doesn't have anything like that. They have sandwiches - barbecue brisket, pork or turkey, along with a smoked sausage sandwich, and a smoked portobello mushroom sandwich for the vegetarians who somehow may fall into the place. Their main entrees of pork ribs and smoked chicken is, well, that's it. There's not much to choose from on the menu.
I decided to get the half-rack rib dinner that came with two sides. I got baked beans and fries to go along with it. I also got a couple bottles of beer. I found a table along the window in the dining room and waited for my ribs to show up.
The dining room at Jimmy Jack's had a number of tables with individual bench seats. There were bench seats attached to a tin wainscoting along one of the walls. There was a condiment area along one wall along with a pop machine.
The walls in the dining room at Jimmy Jack's were adorned with a number of antique woodworking tools. I found out later on that Jack Piper's father was a lifelong woodworker and they used a number of his tools that he used over the years decorate the place. Actually, it was kind of interesting to see some of the woodworking tools on display.
About 10 minutes after I ordered at the counter, the young counter girl came out with my ribs and sides. I went over to the condiment bar and saw that they had four different types of barbecue sauce - their original sauce that was similar to a Kansas City-style sauce, a Cowboy sauce that was a little more sweet than their original, a Carolina mustard sauce that tasted like honey mustard out of a jar, and a 4 alarm sauce that intrigued me. It turned out that it was - possibly - a 2 alarm sauce. At least to me, it wasn't all that hot. Mixed with either the Cowboy sauce or Jimmy Jack's original sauce, it helped zip up the taste of both of those.
The ribs were meaty and tender. They had a great smoke ring with a tasty bark on the outside of the meat. With the combination of either the Cowboy or original sauce mixed with the 4 alarm sauce, it gave the meat a little pizazz. The ribs were very good.
The fries were sort of a steak-style cut potato and were also very good when dipped in the barbecue sauce. The beans featured two or three different types of beans with chunks of meat. I added some of the 4 alarm sauce to the beans to kick up the taste a bit, but they weren't all that spectacular even that way. And the dried out honey corn muffin was a throw away for me.
It was a lot of food and I was rapidly getting full from the ribs. There were eight meaty ribs that were served to me and I was very satiated when I finished the last rib. I was also all I could do to finish my second beer, I was so full.
While I can't say that Jimmy Jack's is the best barbecue I've had, it's continually awarded the best barbecue in Iowa City by voters over the past few years. I was very impressed with the ribs. The sauces were all right, but nothing that were extremely good. And it was a somewhat fun place to have some food. I just wish they would have a few more things on the menu including sampler plates to try ribs, brisket and/or pulled pork at the same time. While I won't crawl back to Jimmy Jack's, if I were in the area and hankering for some barbecue I'd go back.
In Indianapolis recently, I was staying at a hotel on the north side of town. I was looking at a couple different places to try - one was an Italian place that sounded interesting, the other a barbecue place. I was literally in between the two restaurants and both of them sounded good to me. So what did I do? I flipped a coin - heads Italian; tails barbecue. The coin came up tails and I took off toward Squealers Barbecue on the northwest side of Indianapolis.
Like most barbecue places that have popped up over the past 10 years or so, Squealers got their start on the competition trail. In the late 80's and early 90's, Ron Yater used to make ribs and sauce for neighbors and friends in the backyard of his Fort Wayne, IN home. He was talked into entering some competitions and he got help from his son, Jeff, who was home for the summer while studying criminal justice at Indiana University. When the World Pork Expo was in Indianapolis in 1994, the Yaters garnered a ninth place finish out of 60 entrants in a rib competition. They decided to head out and do a series of state and regional competitions.
After graduating from college, Jeff Yater knew that his love for barbecue was stronger than looking for entry level jobs in the criminal justice field. He decided to start up his own competition team, and after securing a $25,000 loan the Squealers Q Competition team was formed. Dubbed "a professional barbecue team", Yater and his team traveled around the region with a 30-foot customized trailer that had refrigeration, ovens, prep areas and a large smoker that could handle up to 500 lbs. of meat. They went to nearly 25 different competitions one year, garnering first place awards for both their ribs and sauce.
After two years on the road, Yater decided that he needed to be home more since his wife had just given birth to their first daughter. He had worked in restaurants off and on since he was 17 and all through the time he was going to school at Indiana, so he thought owning his own barbecue joint was the ticket for him. He found a steakhouse in the suburb of Mooresville, located about 20 miles southwest of downtown Indianapolis, that the owner was willing to sell. He was able to procure a $100,000 loan in order to buy out the owner of the steakhouse and to purchase a $12,500 smoker for the place. Squealers Barbecue in Mooresville opened in 2001.
Yater worked over 100 hours a week in the business, working well past closing time to do the books, ordering food and prepping for the next day. He'd get home, get about six hours of sleep and get up to go back into work at 7:30 a.m. six days a week. Yater got some help when he hired brothers Matt and Kevin Hein, who eventually took over the day-to-day operations at the Mooresville location. Most of the profit that Yater made the first couple of years went directly back into upgrading his restaurant with new signage and interior build-outs. He eventually bought all the land surrounding his restaurant in Mooresville with plans to develop the land into retail store space.
After a couple three years in business Yater was looking to expand, but he knew he'd have to get some more help in doing so. He enlisted a life-long friend - Jim Coldren - and they set their sights on a building on W. 86th St. in Indianapolis. After buying the building and a three month renovation, they opened the second Squealers in mid-2004.
Yater and Coldren have looked at franchising the Squealers concept. They've gotten inquiries from people in Alabama and Tennessee, but Yater is looking for a more local base for his first franchises. They've hired a consulting firm to help them with the logistics of franchising and are waiting for their first franchisee to come forward.
Barbecue competitions were still in Jeff Yater's bones, and a couple years ago he bought a stretch RV with a matching trailer and began to travel around the Midwest entering rib contests. He won a couple competitions and was eventually invited to the Super Bowl of rib competitions - the American Royal barbecue competition in Kansas City. In his first American Royal, Squealers scored in the top 10 percent of the open competition. They've since been invited back to the American Royal and also to the Jack Daniels World Championship Invitational in Lynchburg, TN.
I found the Squealers Barbecue location just east of the intersection of Zionsville Road and W. 86th St., just down the street from the Trader's Point shopping center. (see map) As I walked in, I was greeted by a large display of trophys, ribbons and other awards that Squealers had garnered from their competitions in the past. They were certainly proud of their awards and I hoped their barbecue would back them up.
I got to the hostess stand and there was no one in sight. I took a look into the bar area to the right - there were some people eating in the booths, but the bartender was nowhere in sight. The lights to a room off the side of the bar - probably a party room - were off. I went back to the hostess area and looked around the dining room. There were some people eating in the booths, but no servers were around. I thought, "Uh oh. This is not a good sign."
A few moments later, a couple young ladies came out of the kitchen and down the hall toward the hostess stand. One of them asked if they could help me and I asked, "Are you guys still open for dinner?"
She said, "Yes sir, until 9 p.m. Would you like a table or a booth?" She took me over to a booth along the far wall and left off a menu for me to go through. Not long after that, a very outgoing server by the name of Jessica came by to greet me. She welcomed me to Squealers and asked me if I wanted anything to drink. I ordered an Upland Brewery (a microbrewery out of Bloomington, IN) pale ale.
I took a look through the menu and I immediately looked for the sampler platters. They had baby back ribs or St. Louis style ribs on the menu. They also had rib tips, Texas-style brisket, pulled pork and smoked half chickens. They also had a number of barbecued meat sandwiches on the menu, as well as a number of specialty sandwichesincluding burgers, pork tenderloins, and a ground pork burger.
By the time Jessica brought back my beer, I figured out that I wanted to do the three meat sampler - brisket, pulled pork and baby back ribs. (It was a $2.95 upcharge above the regular $18.95 sampler plate for the ribs.) She asked me what kind of sauce I wanted with the barbecue, "Mild, hot or a mixture?" I told her a mixture would be fine. Then she asked what kind of sides that I wanted with the barbecue. They had over a dozen different sides to choose from including mac and cheese, Amish-style potato salad, steak fries, a sweet potato, and home style green beans. I saw the barbecued beans and took those, but was sort of stumped as to what I wanted for my other side. I asked Jessica what she recommended and she said, "I really like the cole slaw. It's a creamy Amish-style cole slaw." I signed up for that.
By the time I finished my first beer, Jessica brought my barbecue platter out to me. There was a lot of food on the plate. The baby back ribs had to be almost or right at half a rack. There was a lot of pulled pork and sliced brisket, as well as good sized sides of the barbecue baked beans and cole slaw. A couple biscuits were on the plate as well. (More on the biscuits later.)
The meat was slathered with a mixture of Squealers sweet and smoky sauce and their hot barbecue sauce. It had a little bit of spiciness to the taste, but it wasn't over the top. I also found a hint of honey and what I thought were apples in the taste of the sauce. I found out later on that they use concentrated apple juice in their sweet and smoky sauce. I'm usually not big on the taste of apple, but it was still all right. I almost asked for a couple sides of just the hot sauce, but decided to trudge on with what I had.
The meat on the baby back ribs pulled away easily from the bone. The taste of the meat was very good with a lot of moisture and tenderness in each bite. The bark on the outer part of the rib meat had a great flavor to it, as well.
The brisket flaked apart when I went to cut it with my fork. It, too, was very tender and juicy with a lot of great flavor to it. It was one of the better smoked briskets I've had at a barbecue joint. It also reminded me that I needed to smoke a brisket at home sometime in the near future.
And the pulled pork was wonderful, as well. Chunky and stringy, the pulled pork was very tender and tasted great. It was probably number three on my list of what I Iiked of the meats I ordered, but it would have been very difficult to rate them 1, 2 or 3. It was more like 1A, 1B and 1C.
The sides were not as good as the meat, but that's usually the case at most barbecue places I've been to. The barbecue baked beans were all right, but the did taste a little better when I added some of the sweat and smoky, and hot barbecue sauce to them. But Jessica steered me wrong on the cole slaw - it was pretty bland in taste. I only had a couple bites and said, "Eh!"
But the most surprising aspect of the meal were the biscuits, actually they were more like rolls. I don't care for bisquits all that much, but something caught my attention with these. First of all, there was a small container of some sort of a sauce sitting between the two biscuits. I dabbed my fork into the sauce to taste it and found that it was an apple sauce that tasted like it had some brown sugar in it. (I found out later it was Squealers homemade apple butter.) Something made me pull apart one of the biscuits and I dipped it in the sauce. Oh, man! Was it good! There was something on the outer skin of the roll that was sweet, like they had brushed it with a sugar/butter concoction before they were baked. Only they weren't baked - they were deep fried. It gave the outer shell a crunchy texture with a light and fluffy inside. The biscuits were just outstanding.
As I was finishing up, Jessica was talking with a couple guys sitting at a table waiting for a couple more people to show up. She was asking them if they wanted to start out with any appetizers such as their fried ribs. I couldn't help myself. I turned to her talking to the guys and said, "Excuse me. Did you say fried ribs?"
One of the guys said, "Yeah, I want to hear about these, too!"
She explained that they take their ribs, batter them up and then deep fry them for a minute. She said, "They're really good!" Well, she also told me that the cole slaw was really good, so I had to take that with a grain of salt, as well. So did the guys. They passed on the fried ribs.
I was stuffed when I finished my meal at Squealers Barbecue. The food was excellent for a barbecue joint. I wasn't overly enamored with the sauces and I should have ordered the hot sauce on everything. Jessica had a wonderful personality and made me feel welcome and comfortable during my visit. She was on top of every request I had and she got a nice tip in return. Squealers were more than worthy of the awards they've garnered for their barbecue. And this barbecue aficionado gives two enthusiastic "thumbs up" for the barbecue at Squealers.
The annual River Roots Live music and rib festival is coming up next Friday and Saturday at LeClaire Park in Davenport. I've worked as the stage manager/announcer for bands at the rib fest every year with the exception of its first year in 1998. And when River Roots Live began eight years ago, I've worked every event with the exception of the second year. When the two combined six years ago, it was marriage of two popular and successful summertime events in the Quad Cities. And this year - with The Wallflowers and Shooter Jennings headlining the event (with a special appearance by The BoDeans) - promises to be another great festival.
With that said, I was interested to hear that the Fargo Rib Fest - also known as Happy Harry's Rib Fest (named after chief sponsor Happy Harry's Bottle Shops with two locations in Fargo and one in Grand Forks) - would be going on when I was up in Fargo earlier this summer. After driving from western North Dakota thru Fargo on my way to Minneapolis, I decided to stop back in Fargo to check out their rib fest.
The first Fargo Rib Fest was held in 1996, two years before the first rib festival was held in Davenport. Just like the one in Davenport, it features a number of national and regional traveling rib vendors and live music that includes slowly dying rock bands, and up and coming country acts. Whereas River Roots Live is probably a music festival first and a rib festival second, it fully appears that the emphasis is on the food at Fargo and the music is a nighttime afterthought. We start the music at 5 p.m. on Friday evening and at noon at Saturday. In Fargo, they have an opening act and then the headliner comes on sometime after 9 p.m. This year's headliners including Sugar Ray, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Blue Oyster Cult (a band that has played at River Roots Live in the past) and some country band that I wasn't familiar with, Gloriana. But, then again, I don't keep up with country music all that much.
The rib festival in Fargo is four days - Wednesday thru Saturday - compared to only two days for the River Roots Live rib fest in Davenport. (Back when the Davenport Rib Fest was a stand-alone event, we did four days on a couple of occasions, but it was mainly three days.) Happy Harry's has been the title sponsor in Fargo for three years now. But the Fargo Rib Fest has over 20 national, regional and local sponsors for the event including big names like Miller Lite, Ford, and Bud Light. As my Fargo audio dealer told me when he was describing the rib festival to me, "The community really gets behind the rib fest up here."
On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. the Fargo Rib Fest waives their admission fee (I believe it's normally 5 bucks to get in) and they work with the rib vendors to provide lunch time specials. I pulled into Fargo just after noon and made my way up toward the Fargodome where the event is held in the northeast side parking lot of the enclosed stadium. (see map) When I pulled onto University Dr. N. from 19th Ave. N., I encountered a minor traffic jam of dozens of cars trying to get into the parking lot. Now, when we do lunch on the Friday of River Roots Live, we get a pretty good crowd of downtown workers. But with the expansive parking lots on the east and south sides of the Fargodome, they get HUGE crowds for lunch. (My dealer told me later on, that on the day I attended the rib fest it was the first nice day they'd had in the Fargo area in weeks. "People here have cabin fever," he explained. "They've just been waiting for a nice day to come and it's obvious they came out in droves.")
After parking the car toward the south side of the Fargodome, I made my way onto the grounds of the rib fest. Given the amount of cars in the lot, I knew that the lines would be long. But I didn't anticipate them being THIS long! There were seven rib vendors there including perennial Davenport rib fest vendor Desperado's BBQ, and a couple other rib vendors who have participated in the Davenport fest in the past - Aussom Aussie and Rasta Joe's BBQ. I had hoped to look for Donna Rice, the owner of Desperado's (her husband, Lee, died of complications of a stroke last year), but they were so busy that I wasn't going to interrupt their lunch time rush.
Fully knowing that I wasn't going to be able to get any ribs for lunch (they did have other non-rib vendors on the grounds), I sauntered over to the Summit Brewery tent that was manned - well, that's not the right term because it was being run by members of the Minnesota State University-Moorhead women's basketball team. I saw that they had a Summit Summer Ale on tap and I ordered up a 16-ounce glass for $6.00 bucks (ouch!). After grabbing my beer, I took off for a look around the grounds to see what they did differently from our festival in Davenport.
As I said, the rib vendors all had long lines of people waiting to get ribs and two free sides as part of the lunch special that goes on during the week at the rib fest. After getting my beer, I just happened upon a young guy who had just picked up a some ribs at Just North of Memphis, a rib vendor from north central Minnesota. I asked him how long he waited to get ribs and he said, "About 30 minutes. That's not as bad as last year. I waited over 45 minutes in line to get ribs one day last year." I began to wonder if there's any good rib joints in the Fargo-Moorhead area given the throng of people lined up in front of all seven vendors.
The stage was somewhat similar to what we do for River Roots Live. Our is a combination of the ornate Le Claire Park bandshell (which is only used as a backdrop) and a constructed covered stage. Interestingly, they have rib vendors close to the stage area, something that could cause some pretty bad congestion for those trying to get barbecue when a band it playing and there's a load of people in front of the stage. We keep the rib vendors back toward the east side of LeClaire Park, well away from the people near the stage area for River Roots Live.
It was also interesting to see how and where people were eating their food. The rib festival in Fargo used a number of large wooden cable spools as table tops interspersed around the parking lot at the Fargodome. I thought, "Geez, what a great idea!" However, procuring the large wooden spools and getting them to the event would be two separate issues. There's also a handful of metal picnic tables scattered throughout the grounds of the rib festival. And people were even sitting on some of the small metal bleachers toward the back of the stage area to try and eat their lunch.
And like we have at River Roots Live, there's an dining tent. Only the one they use in Fargo is about three times the size we use and they really do "sardine" the people in there. The one thing I noticed is that they use heavy duty metal folding chairs in Fargo compared to the flimsy plastic seat and back folding chairs we have in Davenport. They aren't too stable, especially when you're sitting on grass instead of asphalt.
For the families, there were a number of areas for the kids. Ford Motor Company had a traveling exhibit that showed new cars and offered interactive video games for kids. There was a huge bounce area for kids as well as a small stage for family-centric entertainment. Having that large of a parking lot allowed a lot of spreading out of the festival as a whole.
Even though I couldn't get any barbecue - no, wait - I didn't want to WAIT to get any barbecue at the Fargo/Happy Harry's Rib Fest, I still came away impressed with the whole operation. I guess-timated there were easily over 3,000 people who were either eating, waiting in line, or still coming in when I left just before 1 p.m. I can easily see why people in Fargo get behind the rib festival. I learned some things that I took back to Davenport with me to try and make our event even better in the years to come.
Years ago while working for a previous company, we had a series of trainings over a period of time at a hotel near the Kansas City International Airport. For a lunch break during the trainings, my old boss and a couple three colleagues would venture over to a barbecue restaurant that wasn't far away - Smoke Box BBQ Cafe. I remembered the food to be pretty good. On a trip down Interstate 29 from Omaha to Kansas City last year, I happened to glance over to my left just past the airport and saw the sign for Smoke Box BBQ on the side of a building in a strip mall. I made a mental note to make some time to stop in for lunch when I had a chance. Well, that chance just came available recently when I stopped in for a quick lunch.
Frank Occhipinto opened the doors to the Smoke Box back in 1994. He had a second location over in north suburban Liberty, MO for a number of years, but they closed it down a number of years ago. The original Smoke Box, located in the Executive Hills North office complex in suburban Tiffany Springs, is still going strong.
Taking the Tiffany Springs Road exit off of I-29, going under the Interstate and then taking a left on Ambassador Dr. then another left into the parking lot of the strip mall, I found myself in front of Smoke Box BBQ once more. (see map) It was a beautiful day in Kansas City with clear skies and temperatures in the upper 60's. A number of motorcyclists were out and a handful of them had stopped in for lunch at Smoke Box. The door to the restaurant was open, allowing for the fresh spring air to come inside.
I have to admit, I don't remember much about the Smoke Box since it had been, quite possibly, 12 years since I'd been into the place. But the place was still in nice shape for being open about 19 years. The front counter is where you order your food, then they give you a number and you take a seat in the dining room. There are a number of tables and booths to choose from in the dining area that seats around 50.
Taking a look at the menu, Smoke Box BBQ has just about every kind of barbecued meat covered. In additions to ribs, they have smoked brisket, pulled pork, chicken, turkey, sausage, and burnt ends - a Kansas City delicacy that I have yet to warm up to. Interestingly, Smoke Box also has some Italian entrees including fettuccine alfredo and chicken parmesan, as well as a meatball sandwich and an Italian steak sandwich topped with a homemade marinara sauce and provolone cheese. I suppose with the name Occhipinto, they probably do some pretty good Italian at Smoke Box.
As always, I was looking for a sampler to try two or three meats. The guy behind the counter pointed out their lunch special - your choice of two meats with a couple sides for $7.25. Ribs were not one of the meats and before I could figure out that I could have ordered a dinner platter for $13.99 that came with ribs and a choice of meat, I found myself order up the lunch special with pulled pork and brisket. For my two sides, I had a choice between baked beans, cole slaw, cheesy corn, potato salad or French fries. About the only thing that sounded appealing to me were the baked beans. I got a double order of those. I also got a beer and sat myself down at one of the booths along the wall.
Being back in the Smoke Box, it reminded me of a funny story during my last visit to the place. We were having lunch and one of my colleagues at the time, a bright young guy by the name of Andy, was hitting on the rather cute waitress who was taking care of us that day. Andy was putting the hammer down trying to impress the girl with his charm. When she walked back into the kitchen, Andy made some sexist remark of what he'd like to do with the girl if he got his chance. An older guy seated at the table next to us turned around and said, "Uh, son. You may want to watch what you wish for. I'm her daddy."
Sure enough, the parents of the girl Andy was putting the make on were seated next to us. We all got a big laugh out of it - including her parents. Andy was pretty contrite after that. "I apologize, sir," he meekly said. Then he said, "Sir, I hope you don't have a shot gun out in your car. And if you do, I sincerely apologize for my behavior." Maybe you had to be there, but it was a pretty hilarious situation where even the parents took it in stride. They'd probably heard it before because their daughter was pretty damn good lookin'.
Not long after I sat down, my barbecue was brought out to me. The presentation wasn't fancy in the least - the brisket and pulled pork were sort of put together on a banquet-style paper plate with two pockets of baked beans on the side. Traditional white bread and pickles came with the meal. It wasn't a lot of meat for $7.25, I thought. But that was fine - I was going to take a dealer out for dinner that evening and I didn't need a lot of food at lunch.
The pulled pork was fine - it featured thin strings of tender pork that had a nice smoky flavor to the meat. The brisket was also fine - thin slices of smoked beef that was topped with some of Smoke Box's Kansas City-style barbecue sauce.
The beans were, well... I don't know. There was something sort of weird about the beans. They had somewhat of a petroleum taste to them, at least that's what my taster was telling me. I didn't know if I cared much for the beans. Even when I hit them up with some of Smoke Box's barbecue sauce that they had on the table, I couldn't get that lingering taste out of my mouth or my mind.
Baked beans aside, the barbecue at Smoke Box BBQ Cafe was fine. Since my last visit to Smoke Box, the Zona Rosa shopping and entertainment district has opened nearby and it features a number of restaurants - including the Smokehouse BBQ - to choose from. (Click here to see my entry on Smokehouse BBQ.) The barbecue at Smoke Box has to be good enough to keep them in business all these years, especially with growing competition in the area. I thought my barbecue was good, not my favorite in Kansas City, but not bad, either. Smoke Box is one of those small family operations that I like to find and patronize from time to time. I suspect they'll be able to hold their own against the competition.
I recently put on a new dealer in Fort Wayne, IN and I was in town to do some training for the staff. I always like to treat the sales guys to dinner after having to listen to me for a couple hours. When we finished up, I asked where they wanted to go. One of the guys brought up J.K. O'Donnell's, the fine Irish pub in downtown Fort Wayne. (Click here to see my entry on J.K. O'Donnell's.) But it was about a 20 to 25 minute drive from the dealer's location to J.K. O'Donnell's. Someone asked if I liked barbecue, because there was a very good barbecue place about a quarter mile away. I asked back, "Do they have beer at this barbecue place?" One of the guys explained that they did, but it wasn't as an eclectic mix of beers that are featured at J.K. O'Donnell's. Always up for something new in my travels, I suggested we go to the barbecue place. About five cars got in a mini caravan and pulled up to Ziffle's Rib Bar in a strip mall at the corner of State Street and Maplecrest Rd. in northeast Fort Wayne. (see map)
Ziffle's Rib Bar celebrated their 25th year in business in 2012. I'm guessing Owners Todd and Marcia Dennis have a good sense of humor as they probably named their rib joint after the pig, Arnold Ziffel, on one my favorite television shows growing up (well, and still to this day), Green Acres. The name on their restaurant juxtaposed the "e" and the "l", but I think I caught what the Dennis' are trying to do. And because of the pig theme to their restaurant, all the barbecue items on their menu are pork based - no beef or chicken barbecue items (although they do have oven baked chicken with barbecue sauce on the menu).
Ziffle's Rib Bar also has pizza on the menu, along with a number of sandwiches, salads, and appetizers. But one of their biggest sellers are their Ziffle-style fries. They season their French fries in a combination of 10 herbs and spices and they're a big hit. Ziffle's goes through a ton of cut potatoes for their fries in a week.
It was just passed 8:30 when we walked into the place. They quit serving at 9, but they have a bar area in the back that stays open later for drinks. The person who greeted us said we had our choice of sitting in the dining area (below left) or in the bar area (below right) (Pictures courtesy Yelp.com)
Since we figured we'd have a few beers with our meal, we ended up taking a table in the back corner of the bar. The tables in the bar and in the dining room were similar - heavy wood and comfortable seating. After getting a menu and ordering up some beers, I took a gander at what I wanted to order that evening.
For a barbecue place, Ziffle's is pretty lean on offerings. They had ribs, rib tips and pulled pork sandwiches. You could get a whole slab of ribs, a half slab of ribs or a quarter slab of ribs. I like to have a little variety of barbecue when I try a place and they didn't have any type of a sampler platter because, well, it was just ribs. I asked the waitress if they had pulled pork without the sandwich and she said, "No, not really." Then she said that I could get the rib snack - a quarter slab of ribs - to go along with the pulled pork sandwich. "A lot of people do it that way," she explained. OK, I'll do that, too. She asked me what kind of sauce I wanted and I asked if I could get the medium sauce with hot on the side (they also have a mild sauce available).
With the sandwich I got a side of the Ziffle-style fries, but before we even ordered one of the guys ordered up a basket of the Ziffle's Fire Fries - basically French fries with a hearty dose of cajun seasonings and cayenne pepper. They came out to the table after we had ordered they definitely had some zing on them, for sure. They certainly got my attention when I had a few.
All of us ordered barbecue with the exception of one of the guys who ordered a dozen and a half of the Ziffle's deep fried chicken wings smothered in hot barbecue sauce. He told me, "My dad thinks these are the best wings in the world. I don't know if I've found wings at any other place that are as good as these."
My pulled pork sandwich and my rib basket were placed in front of me. The pulled pork was served open faced on a hoagie bun with the potato chips underneath. The pork was slathered in some of their medium sauce. (No extra sauce was available on the table.)
The ribs consisted of four meaty bones, also bathing in some of the medium sauce. The medium sauce was a little sweet, but not too hot. I had a small tub of the hot barbecue sauce on the side and while it did have a hotter, more peppery taste, it wouldn't be classified as a "burn-your-face-off" sauce.
The pulled pork was very good - I ate it plain without the bread. The pulled pork was tender and flavorful, but the barbecue sauce really hid the true taste of the pork. I should have asked for the sauce on the side for both the pulled pork and ribs. But it was still very good.
The meat on the ribs was a tad tough to chew, but had a nice smoky flavor. The meat pulled off the bone rather easily and some parts of the ribs were a little more tender. Quite honestly, I couldn't find much to complain about with either the ribs or the pulled pork - other than maybe offering a sampler with both.
One of the guys offered me some of the Ziffle-style French fries. I can see why they're so popular. The seasoning on the fries had a nice zesty taste and the fries had that nice crunchy outer shell with a moist potato filling. I dipped some in the hot barbecue sauce and I lamented that I should have gone that route for a side.
We finished up our meals and sat around and had a couple more beers talking business until around 10 p.m. Like I said, I couldn't find much to complain about my meal at Ziffle's Rib Bar. The service was good (we had the server running back and forth quite a bit between the kitchen and the bar for us - she got a nice tip), the restaurant was clean and welcoming, and the food was very good. It may not be the best barbecue I've ever had, but for Fort Wayne, IN, I'm sure it's one of the best around. While J.K. O'Donnell's would have given us a wider variety of food and beers to choose from, I was very happy with my barbecue at Ziffle's Rib Bar. (Photo at right courtesy Yelp.com)
A barbecue joint that has been on my radar for the past couple years is a place near the Quad City International Airport by the name of Bare Bones Barbecue. I've heard from a handful of people that their food is good with large portions. The only thing that sort of gave me pause in visiting the place was that they also make pizzas at the place. I sort of cringe when I find a barbecue place that takes a left turn and offers something completely different than basic barbecue. Prodded by my wife who also had been wanting to try the place out, we went there on one of our recent Monday night "date nights".
Bare Bones Barbecue has been open since 2010 and is run by Brian Canfield, son of the owner of Bud's Skyline Inn, located just around the corner and down the road from Bare Bones. (Click here to see the recent update on Bud's Skyline Inn.) Both Bud and Brian Canfield have a stake in the barbecue place. Prior to becoming Bare Bones, the building housed a breakfast place called the Omelet Shoppe, then it later became the Runway Cafe for a short time.
It was around 7 p.m. when we pulled into the parking lot at Bare Bones Barbecue located right across the street from the Quad City Airport Hampton Inn (see map). From the outside, the place isn't much to look at. They probably haven't spruced up the outside of the place since it was still the Omelet Shoppe. In fact, a big sign that says, "Cafe" still stands near Airport Road. However, on the inside, it looks fine with a number of large wooden booths and red and white-checkered cloth cover tables in the main dining area.
There's also a bar at Bare Bones featuring a full selection of liquor, wine and beer. A man who was staying at the hotel across the street was waiting at the bar for his pizza to take back to his room.
In addition to barbecue and pizza, the menufeatures a handful of sandwiches and, interestingly enough, a selection of omelets that are available throughout the day. They also have a small salad bar area that is available with each barbecue entree. That's something you don't see at a barbecue place very often, but as one of the servers explained to us that since they're connected to Bud's Skyline Inn - which has a very good salad bar - that's why they have one at Bare Bones, as well.
At most barbecue places I haven't tried before, I always look for a sampler platter. They had one at Bare Bones that had brisket, pulled pork and a 1/3 slab of ribs, so I ordered that. A side and the salad bar came with the meal and I ordered up baked beans.
Cindy was torn between a couple things, but ended up ordering a 1/3 slab of ribs along with their sweet creamy cole slaw. We both went through the salad bar and I was careful not to load up as I had a lot of food coming. Cindy was somewhat disappointed that they didn't have the pickled beets at the salad bar at Bare Bones like they do at Bud's.
After finishing up our salads, our barbecue platters came out. I had a middle part of the slab while Cindy got the end part. She was having problems with cutting into her ribs because they were so boney, so I traded her slabs. The barbecue platter came with some sauce that was sort of tangy and sweet, and a homemade piece of cornbread.
While there were a lot of bones in the 1/3 rack that I traded with Cindy, there was a lot of meat on the bones. It was a little difficult getting the meat from the bones on my slab, but Cindy was having no trouble getting meat off the bone from the slabe I traded her. The meat was a little chewy, but the sweet and spicy dry rub was flavorful and not too overpowering.
The brisket was basically a big slab of beef, juicy and tender. The brisket easily pulled apart and it was more like a fine piece of roast beef than what I would actually call brisket. Still, it was very good and paired with the barbecue sauce, it was a great taste sensation.
The pulled pork was also decent enough. It featured chunks and shredded pork that was also moist and juicy. I couldn't even begin to finish all that I had, so I gave Cindy portions of the shredded pork and brisket. There was more than enough for us to eat, considering the salad bar we had at the start of the meal.
While Cindy continued to eat, I had to run back to the men's room to clean the sugar and spices off my hands that had accumulated while eating the ribs. While the main dining room at Bare Bones is nice, the men's bathroom needed some attention. While it wasn't the cleanest bathroom I've been in, it was a little disappointing that the men's room would be that scuzzy in what was otherwise a clean restaurant.
The men's room and the outside appearance aside, Bare Bones Barbecue was fine enough to dine at. The barbecue was all right, not the best I've had in the Quad Cities, but there's not too many good places for barbecue in the area. I'm still a little leery of places that do pizza and barbecue together, but the pizza they brought out for the man at the bar smelled pretty good. Still, the barbecue was good and we're glad we gave them a chance. And we'll probably head back at some point.
I was down in Bowling Green, Kentucky recently seeing a dealer who has bought some stuff from us off and on over the years. On my way in town to see him, I passed by a barbecue place that had both and interesting name - Smokey Pig Bar-B-Q - and a sort of interesting location. After I saw my dealer later that day, I decided to have some barbecue at Smokey Pig.
Smokey Pig has been around for a number of years, dating back into the early 70's. The original owner, Ned "Smokey" Nickerson, sold the business to Kaye Huffer in 1999. Actually, it was Kaye's husband, Phil, who was instrumental in the family taking over Smokey Pig. Phil grew up in Monroe County, Kentucky, about 50 miles away from Bowling Green. In Monroe County, they have a style of barbecue that is called, well, "Monroe County-style barbecue". Basically, it's a pork-centric barbecue where they smoke the meat with no spices added - the hickory wood smoke gives the meat its signature taste - and before they serve it, they put a little bit of a vinegar-based barbecue sauce on the meat. It's an acquired taste, for sure, but one that a lot of people in Southern Kentucky seem to like. Phil Huffer liked it so much that he would make the 100 mile round trip to Monroe County for barbecue a couple times a week before the family bought Smokey Pig Bar-B-Q.
It wasn't all that busy when I got into Smokey Pig just off Louisville Road on a little side road named after the barbecue joint - Smokey Pig Road. (see map) It was around 5:30 p.m. - they close promptly at 7 p.m. Tuesday thru Saturday (closed Sunday and Monday). I went inside the building and took a look around. The brightly lit dining room as you walk in features the kitchen/ordering window to the left. There's a number of tables and chairs in the dining room and a porch-like dining room back behind some windows of the main dining room. There were some guys out there dining when I came in and a solitary man eating near the television that was turned on to CNN in the corner.
The menu at Smokey Pig is located on the wall next to the window where you order your food. They feature barbecue plates with your choice of a couple sides, but they didn't seem to have any type of a sampler where I could try more than just one thing. Kaye Huffer and her son, Scott, were working the window that evening. Scott Huffer asked me what he could get me. I said, "You really don't have anything like a sampler where I can get maybe some pulled pork and some ribs, do you?"
Scott Huffer said in a Southern drawl, "Oh, I can make up just about anything you want. You want like a pulled pork sandwich and some ribs?"
I said, "Well, I'd like to maybe get the pulled pork plate and maybe a couple three ribs, if I could."
"Sure," Scott replied. "I can do that."
He asked me what I wanted for my sides and I told him baked beans, for sure, but I wasn't certain what I wanted for the other side. I had my choice between either mayo or vinegar cole slaw, mac & cheese, and the cute-named 'tater' salad, and red skin mashed 'taters'. I was really in the down-home South.
I asked him what he recommended and he didn't even hesitate. "Vinegar slaw is my favorite," he replied. I took his lead and got that.
He then asked me if I wanted the pulled pork "dipped". Not knowing the vernacular of Monroe County-style barbecue, I asked him what he meant by dipped. He explained to me that they have a barbecue sauce that they dip the meat into to give it a spicy coating. "Or, if you don't want all that heat," he explained, "we've got a less spicy barbecue powder that we can sprinkle on the meat for ya. Or you can just get it plain."
I said, "No, no. I'll do it dipped."
He asked me if I was sure. "It can be pretty hot for some people," he warned. He pointed to a sign on the wall in the kitchen that outlined the different levels of hot you can have your meat. Double-dipped was REALLY hot. Yeah, I was sure the one dip would be suitable for me. But for good measure, I ordered a couple bottles of beer, just to be sure.
For $15.40, I got two ribs, a healthy amount of pulled pork, two good-sized sides and a couple beers. I certainly couldn't complain about the prices. Scott Huffer handed me two containers - one carrying the ribs and the sides, the other with the pulled pork, freshly dipped, and a dill pickle spear. I also got a couple pieces of white bread - a true barbecue joint, I thought.
I tried the ribs first. They had a little bit of a tomato-based sauce on them. Unfortunately, the ribs were a little tough. Oh, they were meaty, for sure. But they didn't pull off the bone very easily. The flavor was good and I added a little bit of a sweet and smokey barbecue sauce that had a nice mild taste to it. I was hoping the pulled pork would be better.
It was, but it still didn't knock my socks off. The pulled pork was tender and juicy, but the vinegar sauce didn't seem all that hot to me. It did have a nice little kick, but my mouth was no where on fire. When I mixed in some of the mild sauce, it was a pleasant combination of sweet, smokey and spicy.
I tried some of the baked beans on their own and while they were good, mixing in some of the sweet/smokey barbecue sauce made 'em a little better. The vinegar cole slaw was a little bland to my taste - a little more sugar probably would have helped it out.
Overall, I liked my experience at Smokey Pig. The Huffers were friendly and accommodating; the ribs were a little tough, but still pretty meaty; the pulled pork was tender and had a nice little kick when dipped in the Monroe County-style vinegar sauce. I did like their sweet and smokey barbecue sauce and it was a nice addition to the interesting taste of the meats. I got a lot of food for a little price and that's the one thing that I'll always remember about Smokey Pig Bar-B-Q. It's a very good value with pretty good barbecue. (Picture at right courtesy Lexeat.com)
For a while now, I've said that Des Moines has a number of very good barbecue places and one that has been on my radar for quite some time is a small restaurant near Drake University called Woody's Smoke Shack. I was in Des Moines recently one evening and sought out the little barbecue joint on Cottage Grove. (see map)
Woody's Smoke Shack opened in the latter part of 2008 in what was the former location of Sammie Jack's Barbecue which had gone out of business. However, I remember the building from back in the 70's when it was the locally famous Blind Munchies, a funky little sandwich shop run by an old hippie. There was a weekly underground newspaper around Des Moines in which the Blind Munchies used to advertise. Their 4" by 4" ad simply said, "2511 Cottage Cheese" - a take off on their address which was 2511 Cottage Grove. An in-lay that says "2511 Cottage Cheese" is still on the floor of Woody's Smoke Shack.
In 1981, the owner of the Blind Munchies suffered a stroke and became incapacitated. His house, directly across the street from the small restaurant, had a big picture window up front. He had his bed next to the window so he could look across the street to make sure the business was still going. Unfortunately, he died in 1982 and the building stood vacant for about 15 years.
That's when Sammie Jack's Barbecue came in to take over the location. A former competitor on the barbecue contest circuit, the owner of the place had another job that didn't allow him to work the barbecue place full time. Most of the time he was open only from 11 a.m to 2 p.m. and slightly longer hours on the weekend. Some days, if he didn't have the help or didn't have the time, he just wouldn't open. As time went on and people grew tired of the sporadic hours, he ended up closing the business around 2005.
Steve "Woody" Wasson had gotten his start in the barbecue business on the barbecue competition circuit, much like the former owner of Sammie Jack's and many others who have opened barbecue joints. He was in the building trade as his day job, but loved to barbecue in his back yard over the weekend. After getting into barbecue competitions - and winning many awards - he and his wife, Cheryl, began a catering business in 2002, Woody's BBQ.
When the construction business went to hell with the recession in late 2008, the Wasson's decided to open their own barbecue place - Woody's Smoke Shack - in the old Sammie Jack's location. They spruced up the small building and put in a couple smokers out back. It was an immediate hit with barbecue aficionados in the area. I understand the lines at lunch can stretch out the door in the warmer months.
Woody's is only open until 8 p.m. on the weekdays and it was around 7:30 when I pulled up in front of the place. A few people were inside the small dining area, a couple waiting on to-go orders and a couple more finishing up dinners. The interior of the place is sort of cozy with busy walls featuring a number a number of signs and knick-knacks. The tables and chairs are high, but not very big. You *may* be able to fit 30 people in the place. In the summertime, Woody's features outdoor dining on a patio. In the wintertime, they close it up, heat it and use it for overflow seating.
The menu is on a chalk board on the wall behind the front counter. Like most barbecue places that I'm trying for the first time, I wanted to get a little bit of everything. Woody's Special allows you to pick three different types of meat from ribs, chicken, brisket, pulled pork or ham and get a couple sides to go along with it. I ended up ordering a Woody's Special with ribs, brisket and pulled pork. For my sides I ordered baked beans, but I was sort of lost as to what to order for the second side. I asked the young guy who was taking my order what other side I should get and he immediately said, "Oh, get the cheesy potatoes. They're awesome."
Woody's is also a "B.Y.O.B" place. I was sort of disheartened that I couldn't get a beer with my barbecue, but that was fine for that first trip. So, if you want a couple frosty beers with your barbecue at Woody's, they encourage you to bring in your own. I ended up just getting some water with my meal that evening.
The meal came out to me in less than 10 minutes. Interestingly, the meats were all served on aluminum foil on a platter. The sides were in small styrofoam cups. From the temperature of the meats - which was lukewarm, at best - I'm guessing that they just heat up the meat in a microwave when ordered. It was a little disappointing to have it be not all that warm, but it wasn't a deal breaker.
The ribs were the first thing I tried. They had a nice light sauce glaze over the top of the meat on the bones and the pork meat easily pulled apart when I took a couple ribs apart. The rub/glaze has a nice flavor and there was a good smoky flavor with the meat. The ribs were the highlight of the meal.
I got into the pulled pork next. It was moist and tender and also had a nice smoky taste. I added some of Woody's sweet and tangy barbecue sauce and it was a very good combination. I made short work of the pulled pork. It was almost as good as the ribs, but I liked the taste of the ribs better.
The brisket, unfortunately, was the weak link that evening. It was dried out and tepid in temperature. It still had a nice beef taste to it, but it was far from the best brisket I'd had. Still, I was able to eat it all, even though I was getting full from the generous portions Woody's provided.
The baked beans, on their own, were good. With some barbecue sauce added, they were even better. And the cheesy potatoes were as good as advertised. I couldn't finish either the beans or the potatoes as I was getting stuffed.
All the while I was eating, I got to talking to Woody Wasson who was seated at a table near me, taking a load off his feet as he was finishing up another day. He told me that in the summertime he usually has both smokers going out back. "When the weather cools down, so does business. So I just run one smoker during the winter months. Sometimes we run out of some meat, but it beats having a bunch leftover."
I asked Woody how he got started in the business and he said that he used to smoke ribs and pork butt in his backyard for fun over 15 years ago. He said he always made too much food and would give some away to friends and neighbors. Someone told him that he ought to get into a barbecue contest somewhere. "I found one coming up in Waterloo, IA," he told me. "So, my son and I went up there for our first contest."
Woody related to me that the contest was for ribs only. They had 12 rib racks that they had to cook in six hours and the Brinkmann smoker they brought along could only hold 4 racks of ribs at a time. "It normally takes me six hours to cook my ribs," Woody told me. "We were able to pull it off, but we realized, 'Hey! We need a bigger smoker!' "
He told me he found one for sale up in Perry, IA. But when he went to see it, it turned out to be too small. Woody said the guy told him, "Heck, I can build you one. Any size you want."
Woody said it took the guy two weeks to build his first big smoker. "We took possession of it and took it home to burn off all the oil inside the smoker", he told me. "Then we took it to Kansas City for a contest. Our first big contest."
That contest didn't turn out well for the Wasson's. "We overcooked everything," Woody said as he shook his head. "We didn't know how to regulate the heat or keep it at a constant temperature. We were in a little over our heads."
He said that he had to bring the smoker back home and learn how to smoke on it. After getting used to the smoker, Woody entered other competitions, but still wasn't doing well. He was wondering what he was doing wrong and wondered if he really was biting off more than he could chew.
That was until a fellow competitor came to Woody one time after that at another competition and said, "Hey, if you watch my fire overnight, I'll show you the tricks of the trade." So, while the guy "drank and drank and drank some more" with other people at the competition ("Boy, that guy could drink," Woody told me with a laugh), Woody watched his fire on his smoker. The guy went back to the hotel, telling Woody he'd be back at 5 a.m. 5 a.m. came and went, and the guy was nowhere in sight. 6 a.m. came and Woody got to be concerned. He told me, "I called my wife and I said, 'I don't know where he is. He could still be dead drunk somewhere.' "
Woody said that he finally called the guy at the hotel sometime before 7 a.m. and asked him if he remembered he had a competition that day. "He told me, 'Yeah, yeah! I'm on my way," Woody related. True to his word, the guy showed Woody some of the ins and outs of competitive barbecue and that got him going. Woody said, "And today, that guy is my best friend in the business."
Woody said he doesn't do much competing any longer. "We do a lot of catering, especially in the summer months when a lot of those competitions are going on," Woody said. "Besides, there's a lot of other good barbecue places in Des Moines, so I'm competing every day."
Before I left, I had to use the restroom and I have to say that Woody's restroom is one of the nicest and cleanest I've ever been in at a restaurant. It looked like it was a half-bath in someones country home.
With all that said, I found Woody's Barbecue to be good, but not great. I loved the ribs and the pulled pork - even though they were served somewhat lukewarm - and was disappointed in the brisket. I like good brisket and I'm guessing the combination of a cool temperature and possibly sitting in the fridge for more than a couple days may have had something to do with that. I enjoyed talking with Woody and learning about his business. He was a personable and likable kind of guy. I'm going to give Woody's another try at some point and hopefully I'll get meat that is a little more warm the next time. If not, I'm sure that I can ask them to nuke it a little longer to make it better.
While on vacation in the Lake Okoboji region, my buddy, Craig Evert, told me about a place that he really likes called Smokin' Jakes in Arnold Park. (see map) "They have great brisket, man," he gushed over drinks one night when we were at their house. "It's the best barbecue in the lakes region." Heck, we found out Smokin' Jakes may be the ONLY barbecue in the area. One afternoon for lunch, we decided to give Smokin' Jakes a try.
Smokin' Jakes is owned by Linda Geske, who also owns the Table 316 steakhouse and cabaret in Arnolds Park (one of the few restaurants in the area we didn't try on our vacation). It opens at 11 a.m. and stays open until - sometimes - 4 a.m. for the late night bar crowd looking for an early breakfast - and they're kind of famous for their early, early morning breakfasts.
Smokin' Jakes isn't much more than a glorified corner tavern with a bar, tables and booths. It's not fine dining, but you wouldn't expect that from a place that serves barbecue and late night/early morning breakfast. Actually, I didn't see much evidence that there was any smoking apparatus on site. I figured they must smoke the meat elsewhere and bring it in to the restaurant. Antique pots or jugs were on shelves above the booths on the west wall of the place. I never did figure out the significance of those while we were there.
We took a seat at a table along the short wall in the middle. Our server that day, Julie, was also the bartender. I got a beer and Cindy got iced tea. Looking through the lunch menu, I was sort of disappointed to find out that they didn't offer any type of a sampler platter, or even a choice of a barbecue platter - it was basically sandwiches only for any barbecue. (The dinner menu does offer a variety of barbecue plates including ribs, smoked pork chops, brisket, chicken and turkey.) I was a little disheartened when I realized that I couldn't try a couple of different barbecued items. They did have what they called "rib morsels" on the menu, basically rib appetizers, but I didn't feel like getting any of those.
In addition to the sandwiches at lunch, Smokin' Jakes also has a number of soups, salads and appetizers including their "chicken drummies" - small chicken legs with your choice of 10 different types of sauces. Their sandwiches included grilled chicken, a smoked club that featured smoked ham and turkey (that really did sound interesting to me), and a BLT with smoked bacon. Oooo.... That almost had me.
I finally decided upon the brisket sandwich - I figured that I could just east the brisket on its own with out the bun. I got an order of fries with it. Cindy ordered the Philly Chicken sandwich - a smoked chicken breast with sauteed onions and green peppers and topped with Swiss cheese. (You can also get the Philly Beef sandwich with brisket.) She got a side of cole slaw.
Our sandwiches came out less than 15 minutes after we ordered. My sandwich featured three layers of somewhat thick cut brisket lying inside a hoagie bun with a small container of barbecue sauce in between. The fries were thick cut steak fries, so that was a plus. But the presentation wasn't much.
Cindy's Philly Chicken sandwich was almost as boring looking as my brisket sandwich. The cole slaw was in a small bowl off to the side of the smallish sandwich.
The taste of my brisket was good - nothing special. The meat was tender and juicy, but it tasted more like an oven roasted beef than a good smoked brisket, somewhat confirming my fears that they may not have a smoker at all. The thick barbecue sauce had a sweet and smoky flavor to it. It was good, but I wouldn't call it outstanding. The toasted hoagie bun was used more to tear off pieces and dip it in the barbecue sauce. I asked Julie for more sauce as I also used it on the steak fries, which had the perfect crunchy outside and soft inside.
Cindy said her Philly Chicken was "good". She said the breast did have a smoked flavor to it, sort of like how I do chicken breasts on the grill at home with indirect heat and a little bit of mesquite or cherry wood smoke. The cole slaw, which I believe was homemade, was "eh!" in Cindy's book. "I've had better, but it's not bad," she said.
Although I was disappointed that I couldn't try something other than a sandwich for my barbecue choice for lunch, Smokin' Jakes was all right. If it's the only barbecue in the lakes region, then its fine for what it is. But any type of competition that would come in with good barbecue would give Smokin' Jakes a run for their money. Compared to other places I've tried in larger cities, it's average, at best. But for Arnolds Park and Lake Okoboji, it's fine. Just don't expect world class barbecue when you go in.
During a trip to St. Louis earlier this summer, I spent the night in west suburban Chesterfield. With a plethora of dining options in the immediate area, I didn't really know what I wanted to get that evening. Using Urbanspoon, I took a look at all the available cuisines in the immediate area. Barbecue sounded good that evening and I decided to head over to a place called PM Barbecue to see what it was like.
Like many barbecue places, PM BBQ got its start when two friends, Paul Lamers and Mark Ruck, began to enter local barbecue competitions a few years ago. They consistently won a number of competitions and began to sell their barbecue at the Wildwood Farmers Market in nearby Wildwood, MO. As their following grew, they decided to open their own restaurant. They did so in March of 2010 in the Chesterfield Towne Center in the Chesterfield valley. (see map)
In fact, PM BBQ is located right next to El Maguey (see my entry on El Maguey here). I remember the barbecue place from before as it was past 8 p.m. when I got to El Maguey on my last visit there and PM Barbecue was closed for the evening. And because the popular upscale Wild Horse Grill is next door on the other side of PM BBQ, the parking area in front of the three restaurants was pretty packed when I pulled in around 6:30 p.m.
PM BBQ isn't all that big, but is sort of quaint and homey with antique signs and knick-knacks on the wall. They have metal bucket light fixtures hanging from the ceiling. Older style wooden chairs and tables were throughout the dining area.
The menu for the restaurant is pretty basic. They have a handful of sandwiches that include brisket, pulled pork, pulled chicken and smoked turkey. They feature smoked baby back ribs and smoked chicken as an entree. Curiously, they don't offer either pulled pork or brisket as part of a dinner (although both can be bought in 1 pound packs when available). And because of that, there is no sampler that would allow one to try two or three of the smoked meats PM BBQ offers.
PM Barbecue cooks their meats in the Memphis style of barbecue - a homemade dry spice and herb rub is put on the meat and it's smoked low and slow for tenderness and taste. They offer four different styles of barbecue sauce on the table - more on that in a little bit.
The menu board for the restaurant is located on the wall behind the front counter. You place your order and pay for your food there, give them your name and they'll call it out if they're busy. If they're not, like the night I was in there, they'll bring the food out to you. Since they didn't offer any type of a sampler plate, I had to make up my mind between the brisket or pulled pork sandwich, or the baby back ribs. I decided upon the brisket and I had my choice of two sides. They offered baked beans, green beans, cole slaw, potato salad, fries, and homemade applesauce. I got the baked beans and fries. I almost got the green beans, but decided to get the fries to dip in the different sauces they have to offer.
It was about 10 minutes after I ordered when the young man who took my order brought out my sandwich platter. The brisket was piled on a wonderful soft bun and had a nice little pink smoke ring on the outside. The French fries were pretty basic - thin and average. But the baked beans were actually very good. They were thick and had nice chunks of brisket ends added in. I usually have to add some sauce to most baked beans I have at some barbecue restaurants, but the beans at PM BBQ were very good on their own. I did experiment by adding sauces to it and they were even better.
Ah, yes! The sauces! As I said, PM BBQ offers four different types of sauces - a sweet sauce that was rich and flavorful; a spicy sauce that had a great kick to the taste; a mustard sauce that was, well, 'eh!' (but I'm not big on mustard sauces); and a vinegar, red pepper and black pepper Carolina style sauce that was just fabulous. It had a great peppery taste with a little spicy kick. The combination of the vinegar and the peppers was a great taste sensation.
I ate the brisket slices, adding the different barbecue sauces with each bite. The brisket was tender, juicy and very flavorful even without the sauce. The faint taste of the rub was prevalent in each bite. The brisket was very, very good. I used the bun to sop up additional barbecue sauce, primarily the Carolina vinegar/pepper sauce.
Now, here's a little side story that helps illustrate why I hate to eat alone at times. On the front door of PM Barbecue, they have a large cowbell that clangs when people go in and out. It's just another rustic item that helps with the overall ambience of the place. I was seated near the front door and a portly middle-aged lady came in the door, cowbell clanging. She was sort of startled by it and she walked right up to me sitting there eating my dinner. She loudly said to me, "Wow! They have a cowbell on the door!" (Like I really cared.) Then she said, "Well, I hope they didn't take that off the cow they killed for the beef they serve here!" Ugh! Just leave me alone! But I soon found out that she was one of those type of people who bothered everyone around her. Thank God, she got her order to go and I was finished before she had a chance to bother me again on the way out.
PM BBQ was a pleasant surprise for me. The brisket was very, very good, but the sweet, spicy and Carolina sauces were the highlight of the meal. The only thing I was disappointed with was the lack of a sampler platter. I would have loved to have tried a quarter rack of ribs and some pulled pork in addition to the brisket. Although the fries were average, the baked beans were some of the best I've had at a barbecue joint. Overall, PM BBQ was a pretty good value with very good barbecue.
When a Dickey's Barbecue restaurant opened in Davenport toward the end of 2008, my long-distance, yet local friend Burt Gearhart predicted it would close within a year. Burt lived for a long time in Texas and frequented the original Dickey's Barbecue places in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He told me after visiting the one in Davenport, "It's nowhere near the quality of the original Dickey's. And I even told them that when I was in there."
Burt's premonition about Dickey's not lasting long grew some teeth when locations in Cedar Rapids and a location in Coralville (Iowa City) all closed within a couple years of opening. The Coralville location was only open months before it was forced to close. I held off going to Dickey's on Utica Ridge in Davenport (see map) for well over three years, figuring that it was probably going to close at any moment. However, business keeps going on at that location and the local franchisee opened a second Dickey's location in Moline in 2011. So it appears that the Quad City Dickey's locations aren't going away any time soon. One day earlier this spring, I had to go out to a tree farm on Utica Ridge and decided to stop in to Dickey's for lunch.
The original Dickey's Barbecue started in Dallas in 1941. Founder Travis Dickey, Sr. had a single goal when he opened his doors: "Serve the best tastin' barbecue imaginable, just the way people like it. And don't make 'em wait too long to get it." The original Dickey's started out as a one room operation and served beef brisket, ribs, and pulled pork. In later years during Thanksgiving and Christmas, Dickey began to smoke hams and turkeys, as well. Dickey's also made their own barbecue beans, cole slaw and potato salad.
Dickey's two sons, T.D. and Roland, took over the operation in 1967. Two years later they opened two more small locations around the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. By 1972, Dickey's was the largest barbecue chain in Texas. In 1994, the brothers decided to start franchising the Dickey Barbecue concept and began to sell franchise rights. Today, there are over 170 Dickey's locations in 39 states. The company bills itself as the largest "fast-casual" restaurant in the nation. "Fast-casual" means that you order at the counter, they give you a number, you go sit down and they bring the food to you.
Local owners Bruce and Judy Norden opened the Utica Ridge location in November of 2008, then with partners (and General Manager) Bill Jensen and Chris Banks, they opened the Moline location in May of 2011. A kitchen fire at the Moline location toward the end of December closed that location until March of this year. But it's back up and running with full bore barbecue.
It was around 1:30 when I got into the Dickey's on Utica Ridge. There are a number of tables and booths throughout the place. The colors on the walls were subtle earth tones and the large windows on the east and south side of the building gave it a bright and appealing atmosphere. A couple was seated at one table and a group of construction workers were seated at another table - all of whom were drinking from one of Dickey's "Big Yellow Cups", a large 32 oz. fully recyclable and reusable fountain drink cup that has become somewhat of a signature item for Dickey's over the past few years.
I went up to the counter, not fully knowing what was going on and took a look at the menu that was sitting on the counter in front of me. One of the guys in the back said he'd be with me in a minute. That gave me time to go through the menu to figure out what I wanted.
I usually get a sampler plate when I try a barbecue place that I'm not familiar with and Dickey's only had a two meat plate on their menu - and you couldn't order ribs as one of the two meats. You had your choice of chopped or sliced beef brisket, pulled pork, ham, sliced turkey breast, marinated smoked chicken, Polish sausage or something called spicy cheddar sausage, which is sort of a Dickey's signature item. You could order ribs, but they were only available on their own platter.
When the guy came out to take my order, I ordered a two meat plate of sliced brisket and the pulled pork. He said, "You get a couple of sides along with that." The sides included barbecue beans, waffle fries, okra, jalapeno beans, mac and cheese, and green beans with bacon just to name only a few of what they offered. I went with the barbecue beans and the mac and cheese.
He asked what I wanted to drink and I sort of looked around for a beer cooler. When I didn't see one, I just said, "Oh, I'll just have water."
The guy must have read my mind and he said, "We have beer, too."
Well, I LOVE beer with my barbecue. I got a couple beers to go along with the meal. After I paid, he gave me a number and said, "We'll bring it out to you when it's finished!"
I found a seat in a booth in the center of the restaurant. It wasn't more than five minutes when one of the other guys brought out my plate of food. There were ample portions of pulled pork and sliced beef brisket on the plate, covered with a generous amounts of Dickey's Original barbecue sauce. The mac and cheese and the barbecue beans were in small containers. And, quite curiously, along with sliced pickles, there was a raw onion ring on the platter. A biscuit-style roll came with the meal.
Once again, not knowing the drill at Dickey's, I found that I didn't have any silverware. I went over by the front counter and found the silverware - along with small vats of Dickey's regular, spicy and sweet barbecue sauces. I grabbed one little tub each of the barbecue sauce, grabbed a fork and a knife and headed back to the table.
From my first bite of the beef brisket, it was fully apparent that I didn't need the knife. The thick sliced brisket fell apart when I put a fork to it. It was very tender and I immediately liked the original Dickey's sauce, although it was a little too runny for my liking. I tried some of the sweet sauce next with the brisket, but I couldn't really tell a big difference between the original and the sweet sauces. But when I tried the spicy Dickey's sauce, that got my attention. It had a nice kick to the taste, lingering on the tongue for a moment with a subtle hot spice flavor. Once again, other than it being a little too runny for me, it was good. I liked it a lot.
The pulled pork was equally as moist and tender as the beef brisket. I ended up going back to get more of the spicy and sweet sauces and I poured the spicy tub container over the pulled pork. It was pretty damn good.
The barbecue beans were just OK, even after I popped more of both the sweet and hot barbecue sauces in with the beans. They were very runny - something that I don't care for in barbecue or baked beans. But they were OK, nonetheless. The surprise of the meal, though, was the mac and cheese. I don't know why I get mac and cheese at places like this because it's usually not very good. But I have to say the mac and cheese was well above average. It was thick and cheesy, and had a very good taste quality to it. I couldn't eat it all, but I was pleasantly surprised with the mac and cheese at Dickey's.
The roll was actually pretty good, too. I found myself dipping it into the barbecue beans and sopping up some of the extra sauce on my platter. The roll was sort of light, but chewy. Quite honestly, I couldn't find anything to bitch about with my meal. I was pleasantly surprised with my barbecue platter at Dickey's.
Another tradition at Dickey's is free soft-serve ice cream. I don't know how I could have enjoyed any ice cream after the lunch I had. I did finish the meats on my platter and made a serious dent into both the barbecue beans and the mac and cheese. The roll was very good dipped in the barbecue sauce. After all that food and a couple beers, I was stuffed.
I have to say that I was very impressed with my first visit to a Dickey's Barbecue. Look, I'm sure the family run locations around Texas are probably better, and I'm sure that's what my friend Burt is basing his opinion of the Davenport Dickey's upon. But I've eaten at a lot of barbecue places (as you can see by the number of barbecue places I've visited around the Midwest) and I think I know what is good and what isn't. Even for a chain, I was impressed with Dickey's Barbecue. As you know, I'm pretty much down on chain restaurants, but I understand that even though there is a standard menu for all Dickey's franchises, each local franchise owner gets to put their own little stamp on the food. The meat was tender and flavorful, and I did dig the mac and cheese at Dickey's. I think I'd go back to Dickey's before I'd go back to a place like Famous Dave's, which, too, isn't bad barbecue for a chain.
(Update - Due to "underperforming" sales, this Dickey's Barbecue closed in the summer of 2014. There is still a Dickey's on Avenue of the Cities in Moline, but I've never been to it.)
Years ago, I used to call on a stereo shop in the Campustown (aka Dog Town to some of the locals) area of Ames, right next to Iowa State University. There was a small barbecue place not far from the store ran by an old man by the name of George Battle - Battle's Barbecue. It was more of a hole-in-the-wall place but George had great barbecue. I remember Battle's Barbecue was always compared to another barbecue place in Ames calledHickory Park. I really liked Battle's Barbecue, but had never tried Hickory Park before. Since my blog has taken off with the number of readers I get on a daily basis, a number of people in Central Iowa have told me about Hickory Park in Ames. My wife even ate there when she was in Ames for meetings last year. I've heard both ways - some loved the place, others didn't think much of it. I was driving between the Twin Cities and Des Moines recently and decided to stop in and get some lunch at Hickory Park just to see what others were talking about.
I'd known about Hickory Park for a number of years, considering they've been in business since 1970. It was in a small building on East Lincoln Way that Dave Wheelock opened his first barbecue place. Winning over the locals with his St. Louis/Kansas City-style barbecue, it became apparent that he needed a larger space.
At the start of 1982, Hickory Park moved to a larger location on SE 16th St. in Ames. Wheelock was able to more than triple the number of patrons he was able to seat at one time to nearly 200 people. 15 years later, Hickory Park moved to its present day location on S. Duff, one of the main drags in Ames (see map). It's large building with equally large parking lot is easy to find for anyone coming north off of Highway 30.
Hickory Park cooks their meats in a special grill oven that combines an open flame with convection heat, then they pot braise their meats, glazing the meat with barbecue sauce, then putting it on the grill again to finish it off. That is certainly an interesting way of barbecuing their meat and one that some barbecue snobs turn up their nose at. But it if tastes good, like some people think it does, why not do it that way? I had to find out for myself.
I got into the restaurant around 1:30 and there were a number of people standing around. I went to the hostess stand and told her it was just me. She said, "I can seat you right away."
As we walked back into the large dining area, I asked the hostess, "Weren't those people back there ahead of me?"
She said, "Yeah, but they're two large parties and they're waiting for a large table to open up. I can get you to a small table no problem."
She sat me down along the west wall of the restaurant with the windows looking out toward S. Duff Ave. The dining area was huge, segmented into smaller dining rooms that seemed to have a different motif in each area. There was an area that had an old 1890's type of decor, while the dining area I was seated in was sort of rustic with a number of old signs and antique lights hanging from the ceiling. Even at 1:30 in the afternoon, I would say the place was well over half full.
She gave me a menu to look over and the first thing I noticed was that it wasn't just barbecue they did at Hickory Park, but they had nearly a dozen burgers to choose from, as well as a like number of specialty sandwiches, salads, deli sandwiches and entrees including a number of smoked meat platters. I get a little worried when a restaurant offers so many things to eat. Most of the times they do all of them good, but it's generally not outstanding.
But I was there for the barbecue and I wanted to try a little bit of two or three of their meats. They had a combination dinner that featured sliced beef brisket, sliced pork and sliced turkey for $7.25. Two sides came with that and I got their cole slaw and their baked beans. I got a beer to go along with the barbecue.
My waitress brought out my meal less than 10 minutes after I ordered it (no wonder the place is so busy at lunch time). There were three large slices of both pork and beef and a large slice of smoked turkey. I used some of the barbecue sauce that was sweet, a little tangy and had a little smoky taste to it. The sauce was OK, not the best I've had, but just OK.
The three meats were all thickly sliced for barbecue. They weren't as tender as I would have liked it to be, but they were sort of flavorful. The beef brisket had a nice smoke ring around the outer edge and out of the three it was the most tender.
The pork was good, but not outstanding. I couldn't tell if they used a rub on the outer layer of the pork, but it had a slightly smoky flavor.
I usually don't get smoked turkey (or chicken, or that matter) when I go to a barbecue place, but this was not bad. Turkey is usually dry and while this was far from moist, it wasn't overly dried out and overcooked like I've found at other places.
The beans were pedestrian, but livened up a bit when I added some more barbecue sauce. And the cole slaw was rather bland. I just had a couple small bites and gave up.
The waitress came back around to see how I was doing and I told her that I was full. She said, "No room for any ice cream?" Nope, not this time. It turns out that another big draw for Hickory Park is their old fashioned ice cream parlor that features an extensive menuof malts and shakes, splits and parfaits, and sodas and floats. They have over a dozen different types of ice cream to choose from at Hickory Park and it appeared that a number of adults and youngsters at the place were enjoying their desserts.
But the meat portions that I got on my plate were a great value for $7.25. I was certainly stuffed by the time I finished off the brisket, then the pork, then made a dent in the large slab of turkey. While I can't say that Hickory Park was the best barbecue I've ever had, it's not bad at all. The beans were just all right, the cole slaw was "eh!", and the sauce was serviceable and did it's part in help with the overall taste of the meat. But even though the food was a great value at Hickory Park, I couldn't help but wonder if Battle's Barbecue is still in business.
I had finished my morning meetings in Champaign on a recent visit there and I had contemplated stopping at The Burger Barge outside of Peoria for a burger on the way home. The only problem is that by the time I would have gotten there it would have been close to 3 p.m., too late to enjoy a great burger if I was planning on eating with my wife later that evening. I decided to go find a barbecue restaurant that I'd driven past on my way into Champaign the previous evening - Boneyard Barbecue. I pulled in there around 1:30 and had missed the lunch rush.
Boneyard Barbecue is located at 25 E. Springfield St. in what was the old Fireside restaurant. (See map) After a place called Rocks closed up in the summer of 2009, Anthony Donato teamed up with Eddie Geovanti's - owner of Geovanti's in Champaign - to open the Fireside, a contemporary bar and grill known for their wings, burgers and - for Springfield, IL natives - their own variation of the horseshoe sandwich.
Donato eventually bought Eddie Geovanti out of both the Fireside and Geovanti's, but found that running both businesses was troublesome, considering he also ran a property and business management company on the side. Enter George Dries.
Dries was the owner of BoBo's BBQ, which was basically a mobile food service that parked in lots around Champaign selling his Southern-style barbecue out of his food truck since 2008. Bobo's was a popular destination for people in and around Champaign and he soon found that he needed a permanent place to sell his barbecue. Donato was looking for a partner for the Fireside location and the two got together to change the bar and grill into Boneyard Barbecue in the fall of 2011.
Dries and Donato updated the inside of the restaurant to make it more of a sports bar atmosphere that also sold burgers and sandwiches along with BoBo's barbecue specialties. There is an outdoor patio (albeit along busy Springfield Ave.) and a large party room for private events. The owners are also huge University of Illinois sports fans and the outside of the building is painted in the school colors of navy blue and orange. Large "I's" for Illinois adorn the outside of the building. For an Iowa Hawkeyes fan like me, it was a little galling to walk into the place.
I took a seat along the north side of the rectangular bar with the windows looking out onto the patio behind me. I was greeted by a bartender, Hannah, who was outgoing and chatty. Rather chatty. Actually, I noticed that with all the help at Boneyard Barbecue were chatty with their customers. Not that there were a lot of customers in the place at that time of the day, but Hannah sure liked to talk.
She gave me a menu to look through and, as always, when I go to a barbecue place that I'm not familiar with I like to go for a combination platter just to try a little bit of everything. They had a handful of combinations - brisket and pulled pork, ribs and brisket, ribs and chicken, ribs and pulled pork. Actually, what I really wanted was ribs, pulled pork and brisket. I just decided to go with the brisket and pulled pork. What was sort of interesting and rather peculiar was that you had to order your choice of barbecue sauce to go on the meat. They didn't have sauce bottles or containers anywhere in the restaurant. You had your choice of mild or hot, or a combination of the two. I got mine with the combination.
Two sides came with the barbecue platter - I got baked beans and mac & cheese. I had to pick between those two and fries, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet corn, cole slaw, sweet potato fries, cottage cheese or green beans.
After about 10 minutes, Hannah came out with my barbecue combination. The mac & cheese, I could tell, was going to be pedestrian, at best. And it was. And the baked beans weren't much better. I should have asked her for some sauce on the side to help zip up the beans because they were pretty weak on taste. And that was another minor quibble on my part - there was no extra sauce available in bottles or containers.
The brisket was more of a pulled beef variety rather than sliced. However, it was moist, tender and tasted good with the smoky and very sweet barbecue sauce that Boneyard Barbecue had to offer. I forked some of the excess sauce on the plate in with a bite of the baked beans and it helped the taste tremendously.
The ribs featured four bones slathered in the barbecue sauce. I really wish I would have gotten the sauce on the side when I got to the ribs because I could tell that they had a unique rub on the outside. The ribs were very meaty, also moist and tender. The sauce was a little overpowering for the taste of the rib meat. It was also so sweet it was sticky. One thing that Boneyard Barbecue needs to offer is wet naps or at least a warm wet towel to use while eating the ribs. I had to go into the restroom and "squeegee" my face and hands off after I finished the meal.
Hannah came over to me and asked, "How was it?" I told her the truth - it was good. I can't say it was outstanding barbecue, but it was good. I've gotten spoiled on good barbecue in Kansas City and in Des Moines, two places that, I feel, has the best barbecue in the Midwest. But Boneyard Barbecue acquitted themselves very well and would have stacked up against many barbecue places I've eaten at in the past. If I do get a chance to go back I'll try the ribs dry or with sauce on the side. I want to taste the meat on the ribs without the interference of the sauce. Not that there is anything wrong with the sauce, but it did overpower the taste of the meat. And I've found that if barbecue joints do that with their meat, they're trying to hide something.
(Update - In a growing eclectic barbecue market in Champaign/Urbana, it appeared that Boneyard Barbecue couldn't keep up. They are now closed.)
The third location under the Jethro's Barbecue umbrella opened late in 2011 out in West Des Moines - Jethro's Barbecue and Jambalaya - taking the best of Jethro's barbecue from their original restaurant on Forest Avenue in Des Moines near Drake University and adding a number of Cajun specialties. I visited the Jethro's Barbecue in Des Moines last year (click here to read that entry) and came away sort of impressed with their barbecue. Their second location in eastern suburban Altoona, IA - Jethro and Jake's Smokehouse Steaks - takes the Jethro's Barbecue and pairs it with a steakhouse theme. When I found out that the third Jethro's had a Cajun twist to their food, I immediately put it on my list of restaurants to visit. During a trip to Des Moines a few weeks ago, I decided to stop in for lunch.
Des Moines developer/restaurateur Bruce Gerleman designed his third Jethro's location similar to the original one in Des Moines - exposed wood rafters, open floor plan, corrugated metal walls in the bathrooms giving the decor kind of a "shack" feel. (I haven't been to the one in Altoona, but I'm guessing it's similar to the other two.) The West Des Moines location is located on University Ave. just west of 92nd St. in West Des Moines and Boone Drive in Waukee (see map). It's kind of confusing as West Des Moines is on the south side of University and Waukee is across the street to the north. My GPS was equally confused after I put in the address and it tried to get me to turn into the Des Moines Golf and Country Club. But there was no entrance. I continued down the road a bit and saw Jethro's on the corner of a small strip mall just past 92nd St.
It was just after 1 p.m. when I got into Jethro's in West Des Moines and the lunch rush was in full swing. This Jethro's location is about double the size of the one near Drake University and also has a party room toward the back that can be used for overflow when it's not in use for private functions. The bar is similar to the original Jethro's with three sides surrounding tin corrugated culvert tubes stretching from the middle part of the inner bar to the ceiling holding the spigots of draft beer.
And like the Drake location, there is a "Wall of Fame" and a "Wall of Shame" for those who have tried the Adam Emmenecker sandwich challenge - a behemoth sandwich named after a former Drake University men's basketball star that features Jethro's huge pork tenderloin, then add an Angus steak burger, they they top that with mounds of Texas brisket, applewood bacon and then fried cheese. They finish the toppings with buffalo chicken tenders and smother the mountain of beef and pork with melted cheddar and white cheddar sauce.
This is Matt Meszaros, a young man from the Des Moines area who - if you believe the Adam Emmenecker web site devoted to the sandwich - has the record of consuming at least 25 of the sandwiches. Meszaros is the man behind the Des Moines Egotist website that follows Central Iowa advertising and marketing. One thing I have to tell Matt - I used to be your size at one time. While I probably couldn't have eaten one Adam Emmenecker sandwich, let alone at least 25, I probably would have made a serious dent in one when I was your age. But I have to tell you - age catches up with you and most people's metabolism slows down pretty quickly after the age of 40. And it's a lot tougher to drop 50 pounds after the age of 40. Believe me.
While the dining area was pretty full and there were tables available, I decided to sit at the bar which was about 2/3rd's full. A perky young girl by the name of Alicia greeted me with a menu and asked if I wanted anything to drink. I took a quick look at what they had to offer on their beer menu and I noticed they had an unnamed Samuel Adams seasonal. I asked Alicia what it was and she said it was called Alpine Spring. "It's light like a lager, but has sort of a hoppy taste," she explained. She offered me a small glass to taste it and I thought it was fine. I ordered a 16 oz. glass of that.
While Jethro's Barbecue and Jambalaya did have a number of barbecue items on their menu, I was interested primarily on the Cajun specialties listed under "Jasper's Cajun Favorites". There weren't a lot of entrees to choose from - jambalaya, chicken and sausage gumbo, crawfish etouffee, and red beans and "nice" rice - but you could combine them with ribs and other barbecue combinations. I really wanted to try a cup of gumbo along with the jambalaya, but it appeared that the gumbo was only available as an entree. When Alicia asked me if I had any questions, I asked her if the gumbo was available in anything smaller than the entree. She opened up my menu and pointed to a cup of gumbo that was toward the front of the menu. I said, "Perfect! I'll take a cup of gumbo and the jambalaya!"
She brought the gumbo out first. It had a dab of rice on top, topped with chopped green onions. It was a nice presentation. It had a lot of shredded chicken and long slices of smoked andouille sausage. In fact, the slices were cut long-ways and almost needed to be cut in half to get them on the soup spoon. I prefer smaller chunks of sausage in my gumbo, but I could live with it.
The gumbo (below left) was, well, different. While it was thick and rich, I can't really say the taste was bad, but it wasn't great, either. It had a little spicy zip to the taste, but the roux was sort of "eh!". I added copious amounts of Tabasco sauce throughout the eating process to help with the taste. I can't say that it was bland, but it had a different taste than any gumbo I'd ever had. I'm not certain I cared for it. No, actually, I didn't care for it all.
After finishing the gumbo, Alicia brought out a huge bowl of the jambalaya (above right). The gumbo was very filling and I knew that I wouldn't be able to finish the jambalaya. I could only hope to make a dent in it. While the jambalaya looked scrumptious with large chunks of sliced andouille sausage and small shrimp in a very thick rich tomato-base broth with rice, the smell was something else. Even though they put what seemed to be a bushel of fresh chopped green onions on top of the jambalaya, I could easily smell the fishy-ness from the shrimp. The first bite of one of the shrimp on top of the jambalaya was very fishy in taste. The shrimp they used had to be old and I was sort of contemplating sending it back. I had another shrimp that wasn't as fishy in taste - probably because it couldn't get any worse than the first shrimp I had - and decided to keep eating. I joked to a friend later on that they probably got the shrimp out of the nearby Raccoon River.
When Alicia came back to check on me and asked me how the jambalaya was, I said, "All right." I lied. Big time. The bottom line - the jambalaya wasn't very good. I wasn't overly enamored with the gumbo, but the jambalaya was worse. But Alicia was so nice and helpful that I didn't want to say anything to her. So that's why I have a blog.
I was overly disappointed in their Cajun food at Jethro's Barbecue and Jambalaya. My overall sentiment is that they need to stick to barbecue, which Jethro's does all right, and forget about the Cajun food. This won't stop me from going to one of the Jethro's locations in the future for barbecue. But I think I know Cajun food pretty well and this was not good.
Once again, I'm sorry that I don't have the name of the person who sent me an e-mail last summer telling me that I had to go to Woodyard Barbeque on the Kansas side of Kansas City. I do remember that I was told that it wasn't much to look at as far as atmosphere is concerned, but to overlook all that because the food was pretty good. On one trip to Kansas City just before the end of the year, I had dinner at Woodyard Barbeque on Merriam Lane in Kansas City, KS. (see map) Merriam Lane runs parallel to Interstate 35, just before it meets up with Interstate 635 that takes people from Johnson County in Kansas up to Kansas City International Airport. I used to make that run years and years ago when I worked for a company in southwest suburban Olathe for about five years back in the 80's when I first started to travel for work. I know I had passed Woodyard Barbeque hundreds of times over the years on trips to Kansas City, but it turns out that it has only been open as a full time barbeque house for about 10 years.
It was a cold night when I drove down Merriam Lane past warehouses, industrial businesses and other non-descript commercial buildings. Set back from a street a bit is the old farm house that serves as the nerve center for Woodyard Barbeque. I drove past the place and then doubled back and pulled into the parking lot in front of the place. There was a faint smell of smoky wood in the air and it was coming from the large brick smoker located in front of the house. It was the smoke remnants of the meat that was cooked earlier in the day.
There is an outside patio - actually a couple of them that I saw. There's one that attached to the front of the house and another one across the lane from the house to the west. The patios feature picnic tables and antique-looking metal tables and chairs. It was very rustic in its appearance. Since it was cold, of course, no one was seated outside. But I was told that in the summertime, especially on the weekends, the patios can get packed.
The inside of the main building for Woodyard Barbeque featured a small dining room next to the counter where you order your food. A couple guys were in there enjoying their barbeque at the old farm-style wooden tables. A large picture of Guy Fieri, host of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Network. I went up to the counter and a guy greeted me. I said, "Guy's been here?"
He said, "Oh, yeah. He did a piece on us a couple years ago." I found the video for Woodyard Barbeque from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on You Tube:
Even though there was a big board with all the food they do at Woodyard Barbeque, the guy at the counter asked if I needed a menu. I did and he pointed out some basic printed menus in a bin on the wall next to the counter. He asked, "First time here?"
I told him it was and that I had been told about this place by someone. I said, "This place looks pretty interesting and it smells pretty good, so far."
He told me that Woodyard Barbeque had been at this location for over 60 years, and they'd been doing barbeque for about 30 years. And just within the past 10 years that they started to sell barbeque full time.
The genesis of Woodyard Barbeque began back in 1913 when Frank Schloegel (pronounced SCHLAY-gul) opened the Southside Coal Company near the Westport area of Kansas City where he and his son, Frank, Jr., sold heating coal to customers around Kansas City. Once fuel oil took over for coal heating, Frank, Jr. moved the business to the current location in the 50's and changed the name to Southside Patio and Wood. He sold wood for customers that still needed wood for heat, but he also sold patio bricks, lawn ornaments, sand and other things that people would ask for.
With the advent of the barbeque craze in Kansas City, Frank, Jr. began to provide other barbecue joints in the area the apple, pecan, cherry, hickory or oak wood they used to cook their barbeque. During the weekends, Frank, Jr. would fire up his grill and cook free food for his customers over the wood that he supplied to other barbeque vendors.
His son, Frank III, took over the business and continued the practice of smoking meats on the weekend. But he took it a step farther as he began to smoke meats for charity fundraisers and church groups. Because his smoked meat was so good, Frank III was pressured into opening a restaurant that served barbeque. Initially, it was only opened on weekends, but about 10 years ago, Frank Schloegel IV - yep, the fourth generation son, decided to open through the week (they're closed on Sundays).
It became a family thing for the Schloegels - Frank IV's sisters helped lay bricks in the patio out front. His cousin helped with the design of the large brick smoker and his brother-in-law helped him build it. Today, Frank IV's cousin Mark O'Bryan is the pitmaster, smoking the meats on a nearly daily basis. And former manager Joe Daly is now a co-owner of the place along with Frank Schloegel IV.
I'm not certain, but it may have very well been Joe Daly at the counter that particular visit. He was showing me pictures of Frank Schloegel III who still comes in from time to time to talk barbeque with the steady customers they get in the summertime. "Wintertime, we're a little more slow at night," he told me. "But we still have a pretty good lunch crowd. And we do a bunch of Christmas-time catering. We can do groups as small as 10 or as large as 10,000."
I looked through the menu, trying to find some sort of a sampler platter. They had the usual ribs, brisket, pulled pork, chicken, turkey, ham, and sausage on the menu. They had a combo that had two ribs, a chicken leg, sausage and brisket. I'm not big on smoked chicken and I would have rather had pulled pork than sausage. Just under that, they had a four meat combo platter. I took the pulled pork, ham and double brisket. "You don't want any burnt ends," he asked me.
"Naw," I replied. "I know a lot of people think of burnt ends as a delicacy, but I've never warmed up to 'em."
He said, "We have a burnt end chili that is to die for." I told him that I thought I had enough food for that particular visit. But at the last moment, I asked if I could get a couple baby-back rib samples - they sold them for $1.75 each. He asked me what side I wanted and I took their baked beans over cheesy corn, potato salad or cole slaw. I grabbed a couple beers to take to my table while I waited for the food to show up.
The guy brought out the meet platter and the ribs about five minutes after I ordered them. Man, this was a lot of food for $13.50! He told me that the barbecue sauce was over by the door. They had two different types of homemade sauces - an original that was a sweet Kansas City style, and a hot that had a sweet and peppery taste. The guy seated at the table near the sauce dispensers said to me, "The hot isn't all that hot." He was right - it had a little spiciness to it, but it wasn't overpowering in heat.
I dug in and grabbed a rib first. Big and thick with succulent pork, the ribs are dry rubbed with a homemade concoction that includes garlic, cayenne, sea salt, lemon pepper and three spices that you don't normally associate with barbeque - ground cloves, ground cardamom and ground tumeric, three spices you'd usually find in Indian food. The meat was moist, tender and pulled effortlessly off the bone.One thing they don't do at Woodyard Barbeque is pull the skin off the back of the ribs like other places will. It helps keep the moisture in and it's easy to peel off during the eating process. (I'm gonna have to try that the next time I do ribs. I have a good friend who taught me to take the skin off. It's a pain in the ass to do, but he says that's the way to do it. I may beg to differ after having the ribs at Woodyard Barbeque.) The combination of the faint smoke taste and the rub concoction gave the baby back rib a wonderful taste sensation. It was very good even without any sauce added to it. I made quick work of the two ribs I had.
I dug into the pulled pork next. It may have been some of the best pulled pork that I'd ever had. It was moist, flavorful and had a hint of smoke. With a little bit of the homemade hot sauce, it was fabulous. I immediately wished I would have gotten a double portion of the pulled pork instead of the brisket.
The brisket was, eh! Actually, it was a little cold as it wasn't heated up enough (I'm sure they smoke a lot of their meat and refrigerate it as a number of barbecue houses do these days). It was OK, but it was far from the best brisket I ever had. I was disappointed in the brisket, to say the least.
The ham was very good, but not anywhere as good as the pulled pork. The ham was thinly sliced, had a great cured smoke flavor to it. I was sort of craving ham that particular day and I'm glad I got it.
The baked beans were good, not outstanding, but good enough. They were good without adding any additional barbeque sauce, as I like to do. But they weren't anything special, even with the sauce.
I got back up to get some more barbecue sauce and by this time another gentleman had joined the guy at the table next to the sauce dispensers. I heard him say, "Man, I love this chili!" I looked over and he had a bowl of Woodyard Barbeque's famous burnt end chili and it did look very good. It had large chunks of pork burnt ends, and was thick and rich. I thought about taking some to go with me and heating it up in the morning in the microwave. But after I finished what I could of my meal, I decided that I'd come back and get pulled pork and a bowl of chili the next time.
So, my scorecard for Woodyard BBQ - Baby back ribs = Excellent. Pulled pork = May have been the best pulled pork I've ever had. Ham = Above average. Brisket = Below average. Sauces = Average. Baked Beans = Average. Ambiance = Interesting. History = Overly interesting.
Woodyard Barbeque is not a fancy place, even for a regular Kansas City-style barbeque joint. If you can get past the fact that it's a little rugged and rustic, the food at Woodyard Barbeque was - overall - very good. I even left with a smoky wood smell on my clothes. The ribs and pulled pork more than made up for the short fall in the quality of the brisket. Next time, I'm going for more pulled pork and a bowl of chili.
Late last year, I put on a new Focal dealer in a small town near Springfield, IL. I was at the store doing training one evening and was going to take the group out for dinner afterward. However, the owner went home sick and the rest of the staff either had family obligations, other plans or, in one guy's case, had to go work at a second job. I went back to Springfield and settled into my hotel, sort of cold and hungry. I decided to go out and scope what was in the general area for food establishments and I happened upon a Smokey Bones barbecue place just down the road on Dirksen Parkway from where I was staying. (See map).
Smokey Bones is a somewhat regional chain of nearly 70 restaurants located in 17 states - primarily in the Southeast. Based out of Orlando, the original Smokey Bones restaurant was opened in 1999 by the Darden Restaurant Group, the same corporation that owns Red Lobster and Olive Garden (two restaurants that I'll never go in), but they also own the upscale Capital Grille steakhouse chains and the very good and not so upscale LongHorn Steakhouse restaurants (both of which I'll happily eat at). The original concept of a Smokey Bones restaurant was to have barbecue served in a somewhat Northwoods lodge appearing structure, complete with pine paneling and high ceilings, with stone-hearth fire places. It was somewhat out of character for a place like that to get its start in Orlando, but with Darden's money behind the restaurant they began to grow and branch out with franchises across Florida and the Southeast.
In 2007, Darden sold their interest in Smokey Bones to Barbecue Integrated, an off-shoot of the huge Sun Capital Partners investment company based out of Boca Raton, FL. Many of the Smokey Bones locations have been upgraded in their look and feel, getting away from the rustic, mountain lodge theme and going to a more contemporary decor.
The one in Springfield still had the mountain lodge motif going for it. The main dining room featured booths with wood backs with similar wood paneling on the walls. It as well lit and it seemed comfortable enough.
I took a seat at the bar and waited for the bartender to acknowledge me. She was the only one behind the bar and most of the people eating at Smokey Bones that evening (after 8 p.m.) were seated at the bar. There were two ladies to my right - a mother who worked as a waitress at Smokey Bones, and her 20-something daughter who was there to pick her up, but was also getting something to eat. How did I know all this? They were loud in their conversation and their banter back and forth was so rapid fire that I thought I'd walked into a Gilmore Girls episode.
The bartender stood there and conversed with the lady and her daughter for about a couple three minutes, completely overlooking the fact that I was seated two spots away with neither a menu or a beer - two things I wanted and wanted right friggin' now! When she finally came over, she was all nonchalant and folksy, like I'd just sat down seconds before instead of about five minutes prior. I did get a menu and I did get a beer.
The menu at Smokey Bones is nothing overly special - it was typical of a chain with a number of appetizers, sandwiches and burgers, chicken entrees, pasta and seafood, and, of course, barbecue with steaks and chops. Places like this with large and varied menus scare me because they do so much that they can't do everything really well. They can only usually get the food "good enough".
I was in the mood to try their barbecue that evening and in most cases at barbecue places I've not been to before, I like to do the combination platter. Smokey Bones had a combination where you could choose three meats from a list of brisket, pulled pork, smoked sausage, chicken and turkey that are slow smoked. But you could also choose from chicken fingers, smoked chicken wings, deep fried chicken wings or a grilled chicken breast. I'd never seen those items on a barbecue combination menu before.
I looked briefly at getting one of the rib combos - a 1/3 rack of Smokey Bones baby back or St. Louis-style ribs with your choice of pulled pork, brisket or sliced smoked turkey. I would have rather liked to buy the ribs individually by the bone as some barbecue joints will do. But not at Smokey Bones.
The bartender, busy as she was, came back long before I was ready to order. I found that was a mistake as when I was ready to order, she was too busy to come to me now. I left my empty beer glass toward the bar side of the top and waited for her to show back up. She was getting a number of "to-go" orders for people who had called ahead and were waiting at the bar for the pick-up. When she finally did get back to me, I ordered the three meat combo, but I only wanted brisket and pulled pork. So I did double brisket for two of my meat choices and the pulled pork for the third. She said I got a couple sides to go along with the barbecue, so I took baked beans (always have to try the baked beans) and the cole slaw.
When my meal made it out to me, I was ready to eat. It had been a long day of travel, meetings and trainings. Smokey Bones has four different types of barbecue sauce available - a sweet sauce, a hot sauce that is a little more subdued in sweetness and more tangy than hot, then there was a sauce that was a vinegar and tomato based, and a Carolina mustard sauce. I'm not big on the mustard sauces for barbecue, so I didn't try it. I did try the vinegar sauce and it was just too runny and vinegary for me. I ended up combining the hot sauce and the sweet sauce to try on my barbecue.
The brisket was lean and tasty, but nothing all that special. Actually, it tasted more like a roast beef than a smoked brisket. It was edible, but not the best brisket I've ever had. The pulled pork was similar - nice chunks of pulled pork that had a good flavor to it. I probably should have ordered a double shot of the pulled pork because it was a little bit better than the brisket.
The beans were all right - a little bit of the hot sauce helped zip them up - and the cole slaw was sweet and creamy, actually it wasn't all that bad. For a meal that was close to the hotel, it did all right for me.
Smokey Bones is one of those types of places that you can count on if you're hungry, it's close to your hotel and you don't want to do a lot of research on some of the better local places to try. The food was acceptable to me, but as I said, they try to do so much that they can only do everything just so well. Still, Smokey Bones shouldn't be dismissed as another chain that tries to cater to the masses. The barbecue I had was good in the pinch. At least you hope that the other locations are as consistent as the one in Springfield.
Thanks to one of my dealers in the Kansas City area who mentioned Johnny's Hickory House Bar-B-Que in passing during a conversation we had about barbecue caterers in the area, I had the pleasure of trying the place out on a recent visit to the arguable barbecue capital of the world. It's always great to find new barbecue places in and around Kansas City and I was eager to give Johnny's a try, considering I'd never heard of the place before.
The origins of Johnny's Bar-B-Que begins in 1977 in the southwest Kansas City suburb of Olathe when a young Johnny White opened his first restaurant. He ran it for five years before selling it. He decided to open a new location in a building on Broadmoor Ave. in Shawnee Mission (see map). That location is still going strong today. Johnny's Bar-B-Que also has a location back out in Olathe (see map).
It also turns out that Johnny's Bar-B-Que was featured on the Food Network program, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and host Guy Fieri visited the restaurant in early 2010 as part of his show on Kansas City barbecue restaurants. Here's the segment on Johnny's from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives -
Quite honestly, I didn't know that Fieri was there until I started doing research on Johnny's for Road Tips. Evidently, there is a big signed poster of Fieri and a "wall tag" that Fieri painted on the wall at Johnny's. I completely missed both on my visit there. But, then again, my wife says that I'm not a very observant person.
I programmed in my GPS to take me north to Shawnee Mission - which, in itself, it completely confusing to me as I hear people in K.C. refer to Shawnee, Mission or Shawnee Mission. But there is no reference to Shawnee Mission on my GPS which then made me have it search for Johnny's Bar-B-Que, which it immediately found. It turns out that Shawnee Mission is an area of towns on the Kansas side of the border mainly between Kansas City, KS and Overland Park. Mission is the name of the town that Johnny's is in. Johnny's is a little tough to find in that it's nestled back off Johnson Drive at Metcalf. I have driven by Johnny's Bar-B-Que for years without knowing it was even there. (Once again, back to what my wife says about being observant.)
The parking lot of Johnny's is behind the building off of Broadmoor. It was just past 7 p.m. when I got there and there weren't a lot of cars in the lot. Good, it wasn't packed, so getting a table would be easy. I went into the building and came upon the front counter area where hundreds of bottles of barbecue sauce from around the nation were on display along with some articles on Johnny's from over the years. The lady who was waiting tables told me I could sit anywhere I like and I took a seat in a booth in the corner just inside the dining room.
The dining area is brightly lit with a handful of televisions around the room. A large number of antique barn stars were on the walls. Booths bordered the dining room at Johnny's Bar-B-Que with a handful of four and six seater tables in the middle. The waitress gave me a menu and took my order for a beer.
The menu at Johnny's Bar-B-Que is not unlike many others around the Kansas City area. They feature burnt ends - when they're available. I'm not a big fan of burnt ends, but some people consider them a delicacy. Of course, they have have ribs, barbecued chicken, beef brisket, ham and pulled pork, all smoked in Johnny White's huge self-designed and homemade in-house smoke room. The sides at Johnny's include baked beans, mac and cheese wedges (whatever that is), cole slaw, onion rings and french fries - or you can get "frings" which is a half order of fries and a half order of onion rings.
I always like to get the combinations when I go to a barbecue joint, especially a new one for me. Johnny's offered a two-meat dinner where you had your choice between brisket, pulled pork, ham, sausage, turkey or chicken. But it didn't offer anything like a half or quarter slab of ribs in the combo. I really wanted to try some of the brisket and some of the ribs. Then I looked over and saw that you could "add a rib" to your meal for $2.99. I figured that I'd get the pulled pork and brisket, then get three pork ribs to go along with the meat. I ordered up a side of baked beans and a side of cole slaw.
When the waitress brought the food to the table, I knew I'd made a mistake in regard to the ribs. The pork ribs were huge! Plus the fact that the portions of the brisket and the pulled pork were generous, as well. Then, the sides were in pretty good sized serving cups, plus there were fries AND white bread slices served with the meal. The picture of the pork rib (above right) is after I'd taken a couple bites off the end of it. They were big, meaty, slathered with sauce and very good.
The brisket was lean, sliced thin and also very good. The pulled pork was OK - above average - but not as good as the ribs or brisket. The cole slaw, huh uh. I had a bite and it was pretty bland. Same with the fries. Nothing special there. The baked beans were very good, however. And even though they didn't really need it, I still added some barbecue sauce to them. I guess Johnny's has a couple three barbecue sauces, but only one was made available to me at the table. But that's OK - I was more than stuffed by the time I figured I could have asked for different sauces.
Overall, I'd have to say Johnny's Bar-B-Que was very good - a pleasant surprise to say the least. That was a lot of food for about $21 bucks plus a couple three beers. Next time I'll know not to order three ribs, but maybe only one. Still, there are dozens of barbecue places in the Kansas City area and I know I've only scraped the surface of the ones that are around. I found a couple others that were featured in the "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" show that I'll have to try on future visits. Hopefully, they will all be as good as Johnny's Bar-B-Que is.
Right off the bat, I have to put a disclaimer on this post. The owner of Creekside Bar and Grill - Randy Adams - is a nearly lifelong friend. We've known each other for almost 40 years. And I've already written about the Creekside Bar and Grill here and here. It is one of the biggest good food secrets in the Quad Cities. They have great burgers, an outrageously great 10 oz. foot long hot dog and great chili. And now they are doing pork ribs. Good ribs. No, great ribs. I'm almost afraid to let the secret out because I'm afraid that they'll be overrun with people wanting their pork ribs.
But let me tell you the story anyway...
Randy Adams and Randy Brekke met while in an apprenticeship program at the Rock Island Arsenal nearly 20 years ago. They stayed close friends as Randy B. moved to Florida for about 10 years and then came back about four years ago to go back to work at the Arsenal. In the meantime, Randy A. had opened Creekside Bar and Grill and eventually took it over from his ex-wife a couple years after their divorce. Enter Lorrie Brekke, Randy B's oldest child. She and Randy hooked up after Randy B. moved back and they eventually got married last year. So for the sake of painting the picture, Randy B. is Randy A's father-in-law.
Randy B. is also what I would call an accomplished barbecue enthusiast. I've learned a few things from Randy B. over the years and have incorporated it into my barbecue world. A little over a year ago, Randy B. got to thinking that he could take an old conventional kitchen oven and turn it into a smoker. He could put the rack of ribs in the oven like you would with any other food, but use the bottom drawer that usually is used to store pans and such as the smoking chamber. He put it up on cinder blocks in his back yard and it worked great. He could get about 8 to 10 racks of ribs in the oven, the smoke would permeate the oven through the internal vents, and he could get a nice even temperature around the ribs. He'd cook the ribs for 4 hours, then take them inside to his real oven in the kitchen and cook them for another 4 hours. It worked slick and the ribs were delicious. He called it his "Redneck Smoker".
Randy B. began to provide Creekside Bar and Grill with his ribs and the initial reaction among the few who tried them was overly positive. He also made a wonderful homemade barbecue sauce that I have to say is one of the best homemade barbecue sauces I've ever had. It has a sweet and smoky flavor to it with just a small bite of spicy flavor at the end. I like it on French fries when I have them as a side at Creekside.
Randy also has his own homemade rub that he uses on the ribs. He cooks his ribs dry - something that I like to do with my barbecue, rather than slather the meat in sauce which will burn and detract from the taste of the meat. I've been trying to get him to give me the recipe for both his rub and the barbecue sauce, but that's a closely guarded secret.
As demand grew for Randy B's pork ribs, he had to figure out how to make a bigger smoker, one that he could use behind Creekside or take to other places if they asked for Creekside barbecue catering. A lady who frequents Creekside told Randy that she had a line on an old fuel oil storage tank - something that Randy B. was looking for when he started to draw out his design for a smoker. With the help of a welder in Bettendorf, Randy B. transformed this fuel tank into a portable smoker, complete with a trailer and hitch. They were able to fashion some racks attached to a rod that went to an electric motor that acted like a Ferris wheel inside, turning the racks of ribs to even out the heat and smoke while cooking. He also got an old top from a gas grill to act as the smoke box that he put off to the side and used a fan to push the smoke into the cooking chamber.
On paper, it was rather ingenious on Randy B's part. But in real life, he had some problems from the start. The fan melted because it got too hot near the wood box. The motor to run the racks was too small. The rod they used to attach the racks turned out that it was also too small and needed to be larger in diameter. There was heating problems and a handful of other things that he had to sort out before he could really get into smoking ribs and other meat in his smoker. Being a resourceful guy, Randy B. got things sorted out and the smoker is up and running on a regular basis just off the beer garden at Creekside. In addition to ribs, Randy B. can take out the racks and use a spit for doing a pig in the smoker. He's done that a couple times. He can also put a wire rack on top and be able to smoke pork butts or brisket if he wants.
Randy B. (pictured above right) cooks the ribs for about 4 hours at 350 degrees, then transfers them to a table top steam cooker in the kitchen at Creekside for another 4 hours. After the ribs are cooked, they put them in the refrigerator and then re-heat them when ordered. More and more rib joints are doing this - Cactus Bob's in Des Moines is one - and I'm beginning to believe this is a great way to do barbecue because the taste of the rub and the smoke flavor gets all through the meat and it's just wonderful. Some barbecue purists say that's cheating, but after having some good barbecue at both Creekside and at Cactus Bob's, I'm starting to think that it may be the way to go.
I went into Creekside a while back just to try some of the ribs from the new smoker. You can order the ribs either in 1/4 slab, 1/2 slab (Randy B. cooks 'em half slab as shown above) and full slabs. Hand-cut French fries come with the ribs. Oh, and Randy B's homemade barbecue sauce. I can't forget about that great stuff.
I ordered a 1/4 slab of ribs. I asked for some extra Randy B's barbecue sauce so I can dip my fries in it, as well. After a bit, Stephen brought me out a platter of ribs and hand-cut fries. I'm sure that he threw a couple extra bones on there for good measure just because I eat there a lot. The ribs were meaty, juicy and literally falling off the bone. There was a nice smoke ring deep into the meat and the overall taste was just wonderful.
In order to get fall off the bone ribs, you can do it two ways - the correct way of cooking the meat low and slow, or the wrong way of parboiling the meat before you stick it on a grill. There are two rather well-known places in the Quad Cities who are famous for their ribs who will parboil the meat before they cook it on a grill, then they slather the meat with a sweet sauce to try and bring back the taste of the meat that they cook out in the boiling process. Randy B's ribs were the former - he cooks his at a little higher temperature than I would cook the ribs, but these were far from dried out or overdone. They were damn fine ribs.
Randy and Lorrie Adams are always looking for ways to improve on the food at Creekside Bar and Grill. Between the great burgers and now the great barbecue, Creekside Bar continues to be one of the best kept secret for food in the Quad Cities. The ribs are just fantastic and for a homemade barbecue sauce, I've not had one that is finer. But please don't tell anyone because I don't want the place to be overrun with people who will buy all the ribs up before I can get more. Let's just keep it our little secret.
(Update - Creekside Bar and Grill was sold to a group in February of 2015 and they are planning on turning it into a sports bar. They are planning on changing the menu and revamping the building to be more of a sports bar/restaurant. Meanwhile, Randy Brekke has informed me that he is looking for another location - or possibly his own spot - in which to do barbecue.)
A couple people had contacted me about a place called Cactus Bob's BBQ Corral in the Des Moines suburb of Johnston. It's located just a mile north of Interstate 80 on Merle Hay Road (see map) in a strip mall on the east side of the street. When I was in Des Moines recently, I met one of my dealers for lunch there.
There actually is a "Cactus Bob" - Robert Prince is a former sheet metal worker and a self-trained gourmet cook. Over 15 years ago he became friends with Craig DeDecker, a certified chef with over 20 years of experience in food service. The two had a love for homemade foods and especially barbecue. They began to make their own homemade beef jerky and hot pickles, and for a time they sold them at the Des Moines Farmers Market.
In 2002, Prince and DeDecker entered - and won - their very first barbecue championship. Entering more barbecue contests over the next couple of years, the two worked on different rub concoctions, fine tuned their barbecue sauces and came up with a variety of sides to go along with their meats. After winning first place for smoked pork butt and brisket, and a second place in ribs in a barbecue cook-off in 2004, Prince and DeDecker decided to open their own barbecue place the next year. I had heard about Cactus Bob's, but had never really taken them seriously until I began to look for barbecue places in the very underrated barbecue community in greater Des Moines.
Now, allow me to digress to tell you a story to set up my next story about Cactus Bob's...
Years ago, there used to be a barbecue place in Des Moines called Big Daddy's Barbecue. Located on the east side near East High School, Big Daddy's became notorious for the different levels of hot barbecue sauces they had to offer. When I first had Big Daddy's, they had a mild, a mild/hot and a hot. Then they started to name them. This was back in the late 80's and they named them after movies or movie quotes. They had a sauce called "Make My Day" after the Clint Eastwood "Dirty Harry" movies, they also had "Death Wish I" and "Death Wish II" after the old Charles Bronson movies. The hottest of what I believe were six levels was simply named, "Oh My God!" The names of the sauces changed over the years, but these were the ones I remember as they were named.
Big Daddy's had a challenge where a person had to finish a sandwich of either pulled pork or brisket with the hottest level of sauce on the sandwich in either 10 or 15 minutes, I can't remember. It's not an urban legend to say that more than one person went to the Emergency Room after trying to down one of Big Daddy's hot sandwiches. One guy reportedly threw up in the parking lot after taking - and winning - the challenge. Unfortunately, it was right in front of a lady picking up ribs to go at the drive thru window. She quickly canceled her order.
Big Daddy's went out of business a couple three years ago for good after going through some tough times over the previous few years. I had their mild/hot sauce one time and it was pretty zippy. I had a friend who is a longtime rep in the audio business who had the hot sauce on a sandwich one time and he said he regretted it later that evening as he was sitting on the toilet. He said, "I can handle hot food, but that was almost too much for me. I can't even imagine how hot some of those named sauces could be!"
It turns out that Cactus Bob's has similar levels of hot sauce to choose from, if you want. They feature seven different sauces with the hottest - Black Bart's Desert Death - made from an Asian pepper that is said to be 400 times more hot than a habanero pepper and a 1000 times hotter than a jalapeno. In fact, Cactus Bob's also has a similar challenge to those who think they can handle the hot sauce - the Cactus Bob's Showdown Challenge. For a six dollar entry fee and a signed waiverclearing Cactus Bob's from any legal ramifications or medical bills that may result in the person taking the challenge, a person has 10 minutes to down either a pork or brisket sandwich while not taking a drink of any liquid. I like to eat, but I don't like to hurt myself either during or after I eat, though.
There appears to be many winners of the challenge in the past. The picture above right shows a wall covered with former winners of what was called the "Old Rule" challenge. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing Cactus Bob's "Showdown" sauce is probably hotter than the former sauce they used for the challenge.
It was a hot summer afternoon just after one when I met up with my dealer at Cactus Bob's. I had just driven in from Minneapolis and was hungry and could use a beer. The menu at Cactus Bob's is up on the wall above the counter in the very well lit main dining area. Not knowing what to get on my first visit, I was thinking of getting a sampler platter of brisket and pork. But they don't offer that at Cactus Bob's. The closest thing they have on the menu is a pork rib tips and your choice of smoked pork butt or brisket with two sides.
They feature two different styles of pork ribs at Cactus Bob's - baby backs and St. Louis-style (which, I've been told, are basically baby back ribs with less of the fat cut off the rack). They also have smoked chicken, turkey and link sausage. In fact, Cactus Bob's will smoke whole turkeys, prime ribs and whole bone-in hams for you for a fee. That's done through their Smokehouse menu. Cactus Bob's also features a full catering menu for parties, corporate events and other gatherings.
I finally decided to try one of Cactus Bob's sandwiches - the Chuckwagon - as it had the smoked pork, brisket and turkey on it. It was served on a toasted bun and I had a choice of two sides. I took the baked beans and a small bowl of Cactus Bob's Texas chili, complete with large chunks of beef brisket chunks. My dealer got a sandwich of well, I believe it was the Longhorn, which was the beef brisket sandwich. Cactus Bob's also threw in a couple of their hot "prickly pickle" spears to go along with the meal.
Cactus Bob's dry smokes their meat with their own rub spice recipe. They've adopted the "cook earlier, refrigerate, reheat upon ordering" technique that is becoming the norm for many barbecue places. This is common practice for a number of barbecue joints who can smoke the meat in advance and then reheat it after a few hours in the fridge. A few barbecue snobs think this is cheating (sort of like how I think parboiling ribs to make them "fall off the bone" tender robs the taste of the meat and you have to rely upon the sauce), but I'm of the school of thought that it actually helps enhance the taste of the smoke and rub spices with the meat when they're put in a cold environment for a few hours.
We got our sandwiches and sides and found a place to sit in the long narrow dining area just off the main dining room. Before I bit into the sandwich took little bites of both the brisket and the sliced pork on their own. The brisket was a tad overcooked, but still flavorful. The pork was juicy and flavorful and had a great taste to it. And even though I'm not big on turkey, it tasted very well with the pork and brisket.
In addition to the seven hot barbecue sauces that Cactus Bob's has, they feature three on the table - their original "sweet and spicy" sauce that I have to say is very, very good; the "sweet and smoky" sauce that is similar to the original Cactus Bob's sauce, only with a little more smoke flavoring to it; and their "Revenge" sauce that kicks the original up a bit with some hot peppers added to the mix. I tried the "Revenge" sauce and it was hot, but not anything that I couldn't handle. Actually, I liked to mix a little of the "Revenge" sauce the original Cactus Bob's sauce to give it even more of a zippy taste on the sandwich.
The two sides were just outstanding. The chili was top-notch with a great seasoned blend of spices, beans and large chunks of brisket. And the beans weren't too far behind. I probably didn't have to add any of the Cactus Bob's original and "Revenge" sauce to the beans as they were excellent on their own, but I did anyhow and they were even better.
I was very impressed with the barbecue at Cactus Bob's, so much so that I really need to come back and try a half rack of baby back ribs at some point. The meats were good (although the pork seemed to be better than the brisket), I really liked the table sauces and was too much of a wimp to even try the first level of hot sauce, and the beans and chili were some of the best I've ever had at a barbecue joint. Des Moines has a number of very good barbecue joints and Cactus Bob's has to be near or at the top. I can't wait to get back for some ribs at some point.
When I found out that I was going to Nashville for the 2011 Summer NAMM show, my colleague Ian told me, "The first meal we have to go to is Neely's for barbecue." Well, that was certainly fine with me. Ian picked me up at the airport and we immediately went to Neely's, just north of the downtown Nashville area just off of Rosa Parks Blvd. (see map).
Neely's is a Memphis-based family-owned barbecue restaurant. After their father died, the five Neely brothers and their sister learned the art of slow-cooking barbecue from their uncle, Jim Neely, who ran his own barbecue joint in Memphis - Interstate Barbecue. After getting a $20,000 loan from their grandmother, four of the Neely brothers - Gaelin, Tony, Mark and Pat (below left) -opened their first restaurant in downtown Memphis in 1988. It was a small place with folding chairs and tables and only one barbecue pit. Through hard work and mostly word of mouth advertising, their business grew by leaps and bounds. In 1992, they opened a second location on the east side of Memphis that helped grow their business even more. In 2001, the Neely's expanded to the Nashville location and immediately became a favorite with the locals in Music City.
In the early 90's, Pat's fiancee, Gina, joined the brothers in the business. Pat and Gina (above right) were sweethearts in high school, but both married other people after they got out of school. However, both divorced their original spouses and hooked up again after running into each other at their 10 year high school reunion. Pat and Gina were married in the 1994 and are now the stars of the highly popular Food Network program, "Down Home with the Neely's." Earlier this year, Pat and Gina Neely partnered with New York City restaurateur Abraham Merchant - whose company, Merchant's Hospitality, oversees nine New York area restaurants - to open Neely's Barbecue Parlor on the upper east side of Manhattan. Compared to the other Neely restaurants, the New York City location is much more upscale and teeters on the edge of fine dining.
I was expecting to find something of a rib joint shack when Ian drove us to Neely's in Nashville. But I was sort of surprised to find a somewhat modern looking building in the midst of an office park called Waterfront Plaza. It's sort of tucked in a bit and you have to turn off of Rosa Parks Blvd. into a spacious parking lot and it's located right on the water of North Rhodes lake. There's a deck off the back of the restaurant that has a great view of the little lake. Part of the deck is covered for outdoor dining, but it was pretty hot and humid that evening so no one was seated outside. Inside, it looks like any typical barbecue place - heavy on the wood floors and paneling, many lighted beer signs, checkered plastic tablecloths. There were pictures of Pat and Gina Neely with nearly every other Food Network show host who has visited their restaurants.
The menu at Neely's in Nashville is on the wall behind the cash register. You order first, get a number, then sit down at one of the tables. The waitresses will bring your food out to you. Being that it was my first visit to Neely's, I really didn't know what I wanted. They had barbecue sandwiches, Memphis-style ribs, rib tips, smoked turkey, Texas-chunk style brisket and pulled pork. They even have Barbecued Spaghetti - a combination of a marinara and barbecue sauce on top of spaghetti pasta and pulled pork. Ian immediately signed up for his favorite - beef ribs. He got a side of cole slaw and fries with his dinner.
I was sort of stuck between the pulled pork and the brisket, then I saw the sampler platter - brisket, smoked turkey, pulled pork, or pork ribs with two sides and bread. I ordered the sampler, along with a side of baked beans and macaroni and cheese. The lady behind the cash register said, "I hope you're hungry. That's a lot of food. Usually, two people will get that and split it." I figured that I could probably put a good sized dent into it, but wouldn't be able to eat it all.
The cooking line at Neely's is right out in the open. One of the cooks hollered at me, "This your first time at Neely's?" I told him it was for me, but my colleague had been there a few times before. "Get ready to get a taste delight," he hollered back.
We sat at a table in the middle of the dining area, but near the front counter. Being that we're both in the audio/video industry, Ian and I immediately noticed that the televisions Neely's were using were old tube style TV's with one rather large rear projection television up on a high shelf. The picture quality on all the televisions was pretty bad. Ian said, "I don't think people come here to watch television."
It was at that point in time that my wife called from back home to inform me that our air conditioner had gone out. We knew we were riding on borrowed time with both our furnace (over 25 years old) and A/C (over 20 years old) and the blower motor died on the furnace. It was 82 degrees in the house and rising. The A/C at our house had been working almost non-stop for quite sometime trying to keep up with a stretch of hot weather, including three days in a row where the overnight temperature didn't get any cooler than 78 degrees with humidity percentages in the upper 80's to lower 90's at night. I told her to shut the A/C off as it was beginning to frost up outside the house and see if she could get hold of any repair people to come over to take a look at the blower. She was stressing and I was feeling overly guilty that I was getting ready to have barbecue in Nashville while she was simmering in 100 degree heat back home.
It seemed to take an inordinate amount of time before our food finally made it to the table. Maybe I was focused on worrying about what was happening back in Iowa, but it was about 20 minutes from the time we ordered until the food showed up. And the girl behind the counter was right - my combination dinner WAS a lot of food (below left.) It was a generous helping of beef brisket, pulled pork, pork ribs and the pulled smoked turkey. All but the ribs had a sauce on the top, the ribs were cooked with Neely's own Memphis-style rub on them. They didn't bring any extra sauce so I went up and got a couple small 2 oz. tubs - one mild and the other hot. Quite honestly, they didn't add much to the taste of the meat and were a little weak.
The ribs, to me, were a little dry. Oh, they pulled off the bone fine and dandy, but I found them to be a little chewy. I concentrated on the pulled pork and brisket more, though. The pulled pork was juicy and tender, and had a very good flavor to it. The brisket wasn't the best I'd ever had, and I wasn't sure I liked it served in chunks rather than cut into slices like I normally have. The outside of the brisket chunks were tough to chew, but inside the meat was more tender. It tasted good, but not great. And the smoked turkey, I think I had one bite of that and it was OK. I'm not big on turkey or chicken that is smoked, then pulled apart.
The two sides were also plentiful (above right). The mac and cheese had a little bit of paprika mixed in with it and it helped zip up the taste a bit. But the baked beans were worth the price of admission. Many times, I have to add barbecue sauce to baked beans I have at other barbecue places, but Neely's baked beans were just great as they were. They featured large chunks of beef in with the beans and it had a thick and deep smoky taste to each bite I had. The beans at Neely's were simply outstanding.
Ian's beef ribs were meaty, juicy and plentiful (pictured left). He, too, knew that there would be no way he would be able to finish his whole meal, but he made a gallant effort in doing so. His cole slaw, he said, we pretty good. But the French fries were just basic fries and nothing that was extraordinary.
I think I left a little bit of everything on my plate before I finally decided that I'd had enough. Dents were made in each of the meats, save the turkey. I'm not a big fan of dry ribs and even with the mediocre sauce that Neely's provide, it didn't help the dryness of the meat. But the brisket was above average and the pulled pork was the best of all the meats I tried. The mac and cheese was good, but the beans were, well, like I said, outstanding. They were some of the best baked beans I've ever had in a barbecue restaurant.
Overall, I'd have to say that Neely's was good, but not worth the hype I've heard about the place. It was a little expensive - $45 bucks for our two dinners and three beers. My sampler platter alone was $22.95 and I was able to eat a little more than half of the food I was served. I was completely stuffed as we went out on the deck to watch the school of catfish swim around the turtles treading water just under the deck railing. Ian said that he'd had better meals at Neely's in the past, so it may have been an off night. One of these days, I want to go back to Memphis for a long weekend and check out the Neely's there. Maybe I'll get a better impression of the place.
(UPDATE - I've been informed that the Neely's have shut down this location as well as their Memphis locations.)
As I noted in my earlier post on Smokey D's in Des Moines, the capital city of Iowa is quickly garnering a lot of attention from barbecue enthusiasts for the quality of barbecue places that have sprung up in the area over the past few years. While I can't quite put Des Moines in the same category as Kansas City, St. Louis or Memphis in regard to renown barbecue joints, my quest to find good barbecue places the city continued with a visit to Jethro's Barbecue, just west of Drake University on Forest Ave. (see map).
Jethro's is the brain child of Des Moines real estate developer Bruce Gerleman. Gerleman bought the old Pizza Hut building along Forest Ave. in 2007, and in the Spring of 2008 he opened the doors to Jethro's, named after the dim-bulb character, Jethro Bodine, in Gerleman's favorite television show, The Beverly Hillbillies. On Jethro's web site, Gerleman even came up with a story that took up after the Beverly Hillbillies were canceled in the early 70's. In that story, Jethro had grown tired of Beverly Hills and moved back east. He ended up in Des Moines, bought a 750 lb. smoker and opened his little barbecue place near Drake. Some of the original sandwiches he had to offer on the menu were named after other characters of the television program such as the Elly May, the Jed and the Mr. Drysdale.
Of course, it wasn't much more than six months after Gerleman opened Jethro's that he got a "cease and desist" letter from CBS Television, who still owned rights to the Beverly Hillbillies shows. To appease the CBS lawyers, he dropped the character names from the sandwiches, but kept the Jethro's name, complete with the strapping character in a plaid shirt, jeans with a rope belt, suspenders and boots. That didn't satisfy CBS enough, who continued to go after Gerleman by saying that using the hillbilly character in his logo was still infringing on their intellectual property.
Gerleman maintained that hillbilly character in the logo was a composite of 20 different characters conjured up by an artist he hired. While I couldn't find anywhere that the conflict had been resolved, the character in the logo now has a solid red shirt, but sans the rope belt that helped hold up the tattered jeans along with a pair of suspenders. Jethro's is still going strong, so I'm guessing CBS thought they were wasting a lot of time and money chasing after a restaurant that was somehow ripping off the Beverly Hillbillies nearly 40 years after the last show was aired on CBS - and before it went into perpetual reruns around the world, garnering CBS untold riches from a cheap form of entertainment.
Last fall, Gerleman, who also owns Splash Seafood restaurant in downtown Des Moines, opened a second Jethro's location - this one called Jethro 'n Jake's Smokehouse Steaks - in suburban Altoona near Prairie Meadows and Adventureland. According the "back story" on Jethro's web site, the Jake in the name is Jethro's bulldog (the mascot for Drake University is a bulldog). While Jethro 'n Jake's has the same barbecue menu as Jethro's original location, they also feature steaks and prime rib.
The Des Moines location for Jethro's is a laid back, quasi-sports bar that features a number of flat screen televisions throughout the restaurant. Lighted signs and memorabilia hang above the exposed wooden rafters, while many of the walls are adorned with Drake athletic pictures and posters paying homage to former stand out athletes and teams over the years.
Jethro's features a nice little outside patio eating area out behind the place which also had a couple flat screens to allow patrons to watch television while they eat or enjoy a cold drink. Both Jethro's locations feature 12 DirecTV satellite receivers so if there's a sporting event on, at least one television will be turned to it. Jethro's is a destination for fans who want to catch their favorite National Football League team.
It was mid-afternoon when I made it into Jethro's on my way to Omaha. I took a seat at the bar and looked over a menu. A television crew was just packing up when I was there and it turned out they were interviewing the manager about an ESPN contest Jethro's was participating in regarding their signature sandwich, the Adam Emmenecker. They throw a little bit of everything on the Adam Emmenecker, named after the former Drake basketball player who led the Bulldogs to the Missouri Valley championship three years ago. The sandwich, which weighs 5 pounds, features an Angus steak burger, a giant pork tenderloin, and Jethro's Texas-style brisket. And that's just the start. They then add spicy chicken tenders, fried cheese, bacon, MORE cheese and top it off with a toasted bun and a pickle spear. People voted on ESPN's web site for the best "Fanwich", a sandwich named after an athlete. (The Emmenecker got second, beaten out by a sandwich that was named after San Francisco Giants pitcher Matt Cain at Ike's Place in San Francisco.)
Jethro's has a challenge for those who can eat a whole Adam Emmenecker sandwich in an allotted time. For a $25 dollar price, a number of people have tried to finish the Adam Emmenecker in less than 15 minutes, including The Travel Channel's"Man Vs. Food's"Adam Richman who visited Jethro's last year for the challenge. Here's a You Tube video of Richman trying to tackle the Adam Emmenecker -
Quite honestly, I didn't even know there was a "Man Vs. Food" episode on Jethro's, let alone one that featured the greater Des Moines area, until I visited Jethro's that particular day. While Richman wasn't able to finish the behemoth sandwich in under 15 minutes, a handful of people have. Just inside the front door of Jethro's is the "Hall of Fame" - pictures of the seven people (that was the total up to my visit) who have finished the Adam Emmenecker sandwich during the 15 minute time limit. (At the time of the taping of Richman's segment at Jethro's, only two people had been able to finish the sandwich. Nearly a year later, five more people had triumphed.)
Not to take anything away from those who failed to finish the Adam Emmenecker, Jethro's pays homage to those who tried with a "Hall of Shame" featuring hundreds of pictures of those who weren't up for the challenge.
Me? I wouldn't even begin to try it. Oh, maybe 30 years ago when I was younger and more stupid than I am today. It just doesn't sound appealing to me to eat a burger, some brisket, a 10 oz. deep-fried pork tenderloin, chicken tenders and all that cheese on a sandwich.
The bar at Jethro's continues the "shack" theme with what appears go be a tin culvert drainage tile that goes from floor to ceiling which also serves as the spigot holder for a number of Jethro's fine selection of draft beers. Flat screen televisions covered three sides of the culvert tile fixture.
It wasn't busy in the least when I was in Jethro's that afternoon. Knowing that this would probably be lunch and dinner for me, I decided to get a two meat combination dinner that came with two sides of my choosing. I had my choice between brisket, sliced smoked turkey, pulled chicken, smoked ham, pulled pork and smoked sausage. Brisket and pulled pork are my favorites, so I went with that combination.
For my sides, I had to get baked beans, but I was sort of torn between Jethro's hot coleslaw (I really wanted to try that, but chickened out), jalapeno creamed corn (also was going to pull the trigger on that, but didn't at the last minute), and the mac and cheese. I wussed out and got the mac and cheese.
Not long after I ordered and just in time for me to order a second beer, my barbecue platter showed up in front of me. The pulled pork was moist and had a nice smokey flavor on its own. The brisket was cut thick and was also very juicy and favorable. The baked beans - it looked like they used three or four different types of beans in the concoction - was pedestrian at best, even when I tried to kick it up a notch with one Jethro's barbecue sauces. And the mac and cheese was overly disappointing. One bite told me that it was bland and boring. In hindsight, I really wish I would have gotten the hot coleslaw.
Jethro's features five different types of barbecue sauces - their "secret" sauce that is thick and sweet, a Carolina sauce that is thin and vinegary, a Georgia mustard-based sauce that I didn't care for, and a hot barbecue sauce that featured seven different types of peppers in the mix. It was zippy, but not overpowering. (The fifth sauce - an Alabama white cream sauce - didn't look appealing to me.) Mixing some of the Jethro's Secret sauce with the hot sauce made for a nice combination to go along with the meat and the beans.
Overall, the barbecue at Jethro's was good, above average good. The meats were tasty and moist, but the sides were a little less than desirable. The combination of the two sweet and hot sauces was a great compliment to the meat giving it a nice "zippy" taste quality. Jethro's has become a favorite of many people around Des Moines and in their first year of business they garnered the "Best Barbecue in Des Moines" by the Cityview, the local free weekly newspaper. I can see why. It's a pretty cool place, even if you weren't there for the barbecue. While I wouldn't put it on par with some great barbecue joints I've eaten at in St. Louis or Kansas City, it's still very good.
My quest continues for good barbecue in Des Moines. If you have any ideas, send 'em my way!
A thank you to Road Tips reader Peter Lawrence who suggested that I try the third of the three Clean Plate Club restaurants, Merle's #1 Barbecue in downtown Evanston (see map). The other two restaurants under the Clean Plate Club umbrella - Davis Street Fishmarket and Pete Millers - I've already visited and have written entries about them. You can find the entry on Davis Street Fishmarket here and the one on Pete Miller's here. Both those restaurants were very good, so I went to Merle's with great anticipation.
Merle's #1 Barbecue has been in business for nearly 20 years, first opening their doors in 1992 near the Northwestern University campus. Merle's prides themselves on cooking their barbecue "low and slow", just as barbecue was meant to be. Merle's menu features a number of appetizers, burgers, barbecue sandwiches, and wings that feature four different types of sauces - traditional Buffalo, barbecue, a combo of both or the "Light My Fire" ultra-hot wing sauce. But their barbecue entrees are what people have been coming to Merle's for for years. They feature Texas-style brisket, North Carolina pork, St. Louis-style ribs (either with barbecue sauce or dry rubbed), and barbecued chicken entrees. Merle's features two different kinds of sauce - a vinegar-based Texas-style sauce that had a smoky taste with a bit of a bite of jalapenos, and a sweet and mildly spicy Chicago-style.
It was a short walk from my hotel to Merle's on a cool evening with the wind coming in off of Lake Michigan. I sat at the bar as there was a wait to get into the sort of rustic looking dining area. The night I was there, Merle's #1 Barbecue offers "all-you-can-eat" wings for $4.50 from 8 to 10 p.m. They also feature an on-going special of Schlitz in 16 oz. cans for $2 bucks. A large number of Northwestern students were there enjoying the wings special. That's all right, I was probably going to just sit at the bar anyway. (Photo courtesy of Planet99.com)
I looked through the menu after I got a beer and I wanted to give the ribs and the brisket a try. They had a ribs and meat combo for $18.95. I got the dry-rubbed St. Louis-style ribs. She asked if I wanted them to "fall off the bone". No! I saw on the menu that they had "fall off the bone" ribs and that more than likely means they parboiled them before they put them in the smoker or on the grill. That's cheating in my book, and it kills the taste of the meat.
Two sides came with the combo entree - I got their baked beans (a must for any barbecue place) and I thought about their cole slaw, but went with the mac-n-cheese instead. I asked the bartender if I could get extra barbecue sauce on the side and she reached down below the bar and pulled out two Corona beer bottles - one with the Texas-style sauce and the other with the Chicago-style sauce with dispenser spouts on them and put them on the bar in front of me. I looked at them and said, "Huh! Now, this is rather ingenious! What a great way to store barbecue sauce!"
But I found out later on how they were able to use beer bottles with dispenser caps on the top.
When the bartender brought my barbecue entree out to me, I was sort of taken back by the sizes of the sides and how small of a portion of brisket that I got. While the sides were served in two pretty good sized bowls - neither of which I'd be able to finish - there was only three slices of brisket and about six ribs, primarily from the end of the row of ribs.
The brisket came with the spicy Texas-style sauce - well, it was supposed to be spicy. I didn't think it was. I took the beer bottle full of the Texas sauce and poured some more on the brisket. It was thin and runny - no wonder they could serve it in a beer bottle. The Chicago sauce - billed to be "sticky sweet" - was almost as runny and not too sweet. Both were completely lifeless in taste. I added both to the very mediocre baked beans and the sauces alone couldn't save the beans. Sometimes you can do that with some barbecue sauces and baked beans. Merle's sauces were bland and just not very good. Their beans were some of the worst I've encountered in a barbecue restaurant.
The St. Louis-style ribs were charred and not much on the meaty side. I don't know what kind of rub they had on them, but it didn't add much to the taste of the meat. The meat was a little tough to gnaw off the bone. The brisket was just OK, as well. The meat was tender and had an average flavor that could have been helped out if the sauces were better.
Last and probably least, the mac-n-cheese was just plain ol' mac-n-cheese. It had no pizazz, no flavor, nothing. It was about as neutral of a taste as you can get for mac-n-cheese. I'm sure kids probably liked it, but they didn't even add anything to the cheese sauce other than the macaroni noodles. Two bites of that and I'd had enough. I sort of wish I would have gotten the cole slaw instead.
All in all, I was overly disappointed in Merle's #1 Barbecue. It's, by far, the weakest of the triumvirate of Clean Plate Club restaurants. It was also one of the most disappointing barbecue experiences I've had in quite sometime. The ribs were below average and you had to work hard just to get the little amount of meat they had on them. The brisket was OK - the best part of the meal - but the sauces were runny, flavorless and not very good. The baked beans were worse than the sauce and the mac-n-cheese was pedestrian, at best. I'm sure Merle's has a number of loyal customers, or they wouldn't have been in business for nearly 20 years. But I think I can find better barbecue in and around the North Shore area the next time I'm looking for barbecue when I'm there.
(Update - It appears that others felt the same as I did about Merle's. They closed the doors on the place just after the first of January of 2012. It was said they lost their lease, but if what I read from others that were saying negative things about the place I'm sure it won't be missed.)
Barbecue has gained a strong presence in the Des Moines area. It's not a place that you'd first think "barbecue" when describing the city, like you would Memphis or Kansas City. But over the years, there have been many good barbecue places in and around the area. There seems to be a number of them popping up over the past 3 to 5 years. I've been told that I have to go to Jethro's BBQ, Flying Mango, and Woody's Smoke Shackto try the barbecue at those places. But, once again, my good friend Jeff "Burph" Versteegh suggested I try a place that he's all too familiar with, Smokey D's with three locationsin Des Moines.
Smokey D's is named after Darren Warth who had headed his own competitive barbecue team for a number of years. Warth has won a number of awards for barbecue at prestigious competitions such as the American Royal in Kansas City and the Jack Daniels World Barbecue Invitational in Tennessee. Like many of these competitors who have won loads of awards working the competitive barbecue circuit, they eventually open their own place to let the public try some of their winning barbecue recipes. In 2007, Warth - along with partner and pit boss Shad Kirton - opened their first barbecue joint on NW 54th St. They soon opened up two other downtown locations - one in the skywalk near the Ruan Center, and the other at 12th and Locust in the Allied/Nationwide building. My buddy works at Nationwide, so he eats at the Smokey D's at least once a week.
Business boomed at the smallish Smokey D's on NW 54th St. and it became apparent they needed more room. Last September, Warth and Kirton took over a building just north of Interstate 80/35 on 2nd Ave. in what was, I believe, an old Western wear and tack store next to the Big Barn Harley Davidson, a Des Moines landmark for travelers rolling along the interstate. They gutted the place and turned it into a restaurant, complete with a main dining room and a bar area that also serves as a dining area. It was at the 2nd Ave. location that I had my first encounter with Smokey D's (see map).
I got to Smokey D's at a time that I thought would be advantageous to get in before the noon rush - right at about 11:30 a.m.. However, a long line had already formed snaking around the main dining room and back into the bar area. It looked to be a 15 to 20 minute wait to get up to the counter to place my order. If there were this many people in line by 11:30, I figured this must be some pretty good barbecue. And it seemed like they were really moving the line and people were already done and leaving tables open. I always figured that I could just eat at the bar if it was too packed by the time I was looking for a seat.
As the line moved along and came around the corner into the home stretch for ordering at the counter, this is where I got a close up look at many of the trophies and plaques that Smokey D's had won over the years at various barbecue competitions. Kirton won a big award last year being named the winning Pitmaster on the BBQ Pitmasters program on The Learning Channel. He won $100,000 and the Kingsford Cup. Not to be outdone, Warth won the Best Pork invitational category at the American Royal this past year. Smokey D's tomato-based mild barbecue sauce was also judged to be the 6th best at the American Royal and their hotter barbecue sauce got 13th place. Between the two, Kirton and Warth have combined to win about 30 Grand Championship awards on the competitive barbecue circuit.
The menu at Smokey D's is on a sign board directly above the counter where you place your orders. Now, be forewarned - you can't order beer at this counter, you have to go into the bar and order directly from the bartender. That was a little confusing to me at first, but it was actually pretty painless to do it that way. This allowed the people at the front counter to deal with food orders.
Smokey D's had the regular things you'd find at most barbecue places - beef brisket, chopped pork, pulled chicken and burnt ends. They also had sliced smoked turkey, something I don't run into all that often at other barbecue places. Of course, there were the normal sandwiches featuring the meat they make, as well as a number of mouthwater side dishes that you could order to go along with your meal.
As I like to do at most barbecue places that I'm visiting for the first time, I wanted to try the brisket and the chopped pork. The dinner platter allows you to choose two different meats (the lunch platter is one meat only) as well as your choice of two sides. I always have to get baked beans for one of my sides and Burph told me that Smokey D's mac and cheese was "pretty good." So that's what I ordered - brisket and chopped pork, baked beans and mac and cheese. A piece of garlic bread comes with the platter. The lady at the cash register gave me a little table card with a number on it to place near me so they'll know where I'm at when they bring my order out.
I made my way to the bar to get a beer and decided to just sit there. I got a Bud Light from the bartender and waited for my meal. When it came out I was surprised at how much food $9.95 got you. The baked beans and mac & cheese were served in little styrofoam cups with the chopped pork and brisket off to the sides. I tried both a piece of the pork and the brisket without putting any barbecue sauce on them and they were both very, very good. The pork was tender with a little smokey taste to it, the brisket was also flavorful, but not quite as tender as the pork.
I tried a little bit of the Smokey D's mild sauce and I have to say it was, "Eh!" It definitely didn't trip my trigger at all. The spicy barbecue sauce had a little bit more zip to the taste, but it still wasn't what I would call a world class barbecue sauce.
I added some of the spicy sauce to the beans to help zip them up a bit, but I've had baked beans that were much better at other barbecue places. However, my friend undersold the mac & cheese - it was outstanding. It was creamy with chunks of ham and some jalapeno peppers in it. I was sitting there eating it and thinking, "Geez, there are so many ways to do mac and cheese." Smokey D's mac and cheese was a hit.
Now, I don't know if it was because I had an early morning breakfast meeting or what, but my taste buds just weren't dazzled with my overall meal. I got full quickly and had trouble putting more than a dent in my food. I'm sorry to say that I think Smokey D's sauce was pedestrian, at best. I've got a fridge full of barbecue sauces that I've picked up around the Midwest that blow Smokey D's sauces out of the water. The beans were also average, but I will say the brisket and the chopped pork on their own were outstanding. Tasty, succulent, nice flavor without too much smoke in the meat. Maybe it was best to enjoy the meat without the sauce.
This is not to say that Smokey D's is not a good place to eat. Other than the sauce and the baked beans, their brisket and especially their pork was very, very good. And the mac & cheese was some of the best I've ever had and that includes mac & cheese made with gourmet cheeses and added with lobster meat at some fine restaurants I've eaten at over the years. The awards Darren Warth and Shad Kirton have garnered over the years are very deserving. It's no wonder it was a 20 minute wait before noon to get food at Smokey D's.
I was in St. Louis recently doing some training sessions for dealers in the area. I found myself out in O'Fallon, IL one evening completely wondering where I was going to have dinner that night. I wasn't overly familiar with the area and have only spent a couple nights on the Illinois side of the river when I've come to St. Louis. I've been told by a couple of people that there was a good steak house/supper club in O'Fallon and a place that had pretty good gyros not far from my hotel. I finally a place that I've heard about many times in my travels, but had not been to - the 17th St. Bar and Grill. The original 17th St. Bar and Grill is in Murphysboro in southern Illinois. But I don't have any dealers that far south in Illinois that would allow me to get down there to try the place. I was surprised to find a 17th St. Bar and Grill in O'Fallon not far from my hotel.
The 17th St. Bar and Grill is run by Mike Mills who is rather famous in barbecue circles. Mills is the only three time Grand World Champion of the prestigious Memphis in Maycontest - the Super Bowl of barbecue. He won his awards in 1990, 1992 and 1994. And he was only .02 points short of winning his fourth championship one year. That alone should cement Mills' place among the the all-time greats of barbecue. But Mills has also won four World Championships in barbecue (Mills' bio doesn't list where these events took place, but I'm guessing it was also at Memphis in May), and has won numerous local, state, regional, national and international contests for both his barbecue and his homemade barbecue sauce.
Mills got his barbecue genes from his father, Leon, who used to host neighborhood cook-outs in his hometown of Cape Girardeau, MO. The elder Mills' would dig a hole in the ground, put fire wood in the hole and placed a metal grate over the hole for a true barbecue pit. This was long before any above ground barbecue cookers were available. Leon Mills gained a reputation for not only his great barbecue, but his great barbecue sauce - a mustard/vinegar based sauce that was tangy and flavorful.
Unfortunately, Leon Mills died at the age of 42 so it was up to his family to carry on his legacy. Mills' wife, Faye, continued to make the homemade barbecue sauce. It got to a point where enough people convinced her to bottle the sauce and sell it. She was making the sauce at home for the original 17th St. Bar and Grill restaurant until it became too much for her to keep up with the demand. I believe I read somewhere that 17th St. Bar and Grill goes through 500 gallons of sauce a week.
The 17th St. Bar and Grill was the culmination of a dream that Mills' father had before he died - he wanted to open his own restaurant to serve his style of barbecue. Mike Mills opened his first barbecue restaurant in Murphysboro in 1985. In 1988, along with some friends, Mills formed the Apple City Barbecue Team, a competitive barbecue team that would enter their first competition that year. Their first effort garnered them 3rd place in the "best ribs" category at a contest in Murphysboro, but they soon found their way and began to win more competitions leading to their first Memphis in May championship in 1990.
Mike Mills has been featured in a number of print article and has appeared on television numerous times. In addition to the four 17th St. Bar and Grill locations, Mills also owns three Las Vegas area barbecue restaurants - Memphis Championship Barbecue- and also has been an adviser to owner of the the award winning Blue Smoke barbecue restaurant in New York City. Mills has also co-authored a book - Peace, Love and Barbecue- that chronicles the passion he and other pitmasters have for their profession. It features a number of recipes from the Mills family and other famous barbecue masters, as well as a number of stories about barbecuing.
With a pedigree like that, you'd almost think that any barbecue aficionado would have to make a pilgrimage to one of Mills' restaurants. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that his O'Fallon location was less than three miles from the hotel I was staying in that evening (see map). I pulled into the place around 7:30 p.m. and was met by a girl at the hostess counter. There was a large dining area, but a pretty large bar area, as well. They had some post-season baseball on the television and I asked if it was OK to sit in the bar. She said, "Sure!" She guided me into the bar area and placed a menu on the bar for me to look through.
The bartender that evening, Cassie, asked me what I wanted and I ordered up a Bud Light. Unfortunately, the draft Bud Light wasn't all that cold. First strike against any barbecue restaurant that serves beer - it has to be cold. This was more like about 50 degrees. Ehhh...
The menu at 17th St. Bar and Grill is wide and diverse with a large selection of appetizers, sandwiches and entrees featuring barbecued chicken, beef and pork. In addition to Mills' award winning barbecued ribs, the 17th St. Bar and Grill also features steaks, pork chops and grilled seafood. But I was there for the barbecue.
After hunting around the rather large menu, I was able to find the combination section of the menu. I always like to try a couple three things at a barbecue joint that is new to me. And 17th St. Bar and Grill had the perfect combination for me - the Blue Ribbon Selection combo meal. I was able to choose three different types of meat along with two of the restaurants numerous sides. I ordered a combo of beef brisket, pulled pork shoulder and baby back ribs. I was torn what to get for my sides as there were just too many to choose from. They had french fries, hush-puppies, collard greens, red beans and rice, sauerkraut, steamed veggies, mac and cheese - the list went on and on. I was completely confused because I really wanted to try about four or five sides. Cassie told me the cole slaw was very good. I took her on her word. I also ordered up some of the 17th St. Bar and Grill baked beans.
Not long after I ordered, my food was brought out by a waitress. The plate was large, but full of generous portions of the meat. The cole slaw and baked beans were in their own serving dishes. To my chagrin, Mills' original barbecue sauce was poured across the top of the meats. I'd rather have my barbecue served dry and allow me to add whatever sauce that I wanted. But I guess the Mills' sauce is their signature and they've been serving it that way for years. (Mike Mills says the sauce is made from a recipe that's over 100 years old.)
I tried the ribs first. 17th St. Bar and Grill also features a homemade rub called "Mike's Magic Dust" made from 18 different spices and herbs that Mills conjured up years ago. They sprinkle the "magic dust" on the ribs before they cook them and the first thing I noticed is there's a lot of salt in it, because that's exactly how they tasted to me - too salty.
The original Mills family sauce was good, but I'm not big on mustard/vinegar sauces. (Mills uses white rice vinegar in his sauce - it doesn't have the acidic taste other vinegars have.) Fortunately, they also had some of their "spicy" sauce that was sweeter, but it wasn't all that spicy. You got a little kick in the taste buds, but not enough that it was overpowering.
The ribs were very good - the meat was flavorful and tender. But the saltiness of the "magic dust" was almost a little too much for me. I'm a guy that hardly puts salt on anything and the salt flavor on the ribs was tremendously heightened on my taste buds. Any meat rub concoction with a medium amount of salt tastes too salty to me.
The pulled pork was also a little bit salty to my taste, but it was still very good. The sweet and spicy sauce helped cover the taste of the salt and was a good complement to the pulled pork.
The brisket, however, was outstanding. The thin cuts of beef had a nice little smoke ring at the top and the "magic dust" taste was minimal. Coupled with the spicy sweet sauce, the taste sensation was the best of the three meats.
The baked beans were good, especially when I added some of the sweet and spicy sauce to them. But I was not impressed with the cole slaw. It was rather bland and, well... I just didn't care for it. I'm sure some people - like Cassie - like it, but I wish I would have gotten something else.
As I finished up my meal, it turned out that one of the managers of the 17th St. Bar and Grill was seated at the end of the bar talking to employees before she went home for the evening. We struck up a conversation about this particular location and she told me that the building originally housed one of the Super Smokers barbecue restaurants - one of my all-time favorite barbecue joints in the St. Louis area that went out of business a few years back. (Super Smokers has since re-opened out in St. Peters, MO not far from the old company that I used to work for years ago.)
She told me that a couple of the former owners of Super Smokers helped Mike Mills procure the place and they opened the 17th St. Bar and Grill in O'Fallon in February of 2007. She said that she used to work at the old Super Smokers location and that the pit master, Cassie the bartender, and one other person are still left from the old days.
The Food Network's Food Feuds program pitted (sorry for the pun) 17th St. Bar and Grill up against Pappy's Smokehouse earlier this fall. (See my entry on Pappy's here.) The episode just aired this past week and five judges from the St. Louis Barbecue Society along with host Michael Symon (a former Iron Chef Americawinner in 2007) named 17th St. Bar and Grill as having the best baby back ribs in St. Louis. Symon thought that smoking method Mike Mills uses (about 210 degrees for six hours over fruit wood) made the meat on 17th Street's ribs more tender and flavorful. He also liked the Magic Dust rub over Pappy's herb-based rub.
I have mixed feelings about the 17th St. Bar and Grill. I thought the baby back ribs were a bit too salty and I didn't care much for the Mills' family sauce - which is probably akin to saying their child is ugly. But the pulled pork was very good and the brisket was just excellent. And I did like the sweet and spicy sauce, as well. I tried to buy some at the little shop they had in the lobby, but for some reason they were out of it.
I would have to say that while I prefer Pappy's over 17th St. Bar and Grill, I can see why some people would say the opposite - they're both very good at what they do. And that's not to say that I'll not go back to 17th St. Bar and Grill at some point - I definitely will. But I'll probably stick with the brisket and not get the cole slaw on my next visit.
(November 2013 Update - Citing that the restaurant was "not doing what it needed to do", Mike Mills announced that he would be closing his O'Fallon location at the end of November. Mills also cited the Affordable Care Act as a reason he would be closing the restaurant. The original Murphysboro location and the Marion, IL location will stay open.)
While in Kansas City recently, I had just gotten back from a long trip out toward West Central Kansas and decided to try and find the newer of the two locations of Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue - the location on Strang Road in Olathe, KS (see map). Oklahoma Joe's has suddenly risen to the top of my "favorites" list of a long line of great barbecue places in the Kansas City area. (You can read my original post on Oklahoma Joe's here.)
The original Oklahoma Joe's is located in what is basically an old gas station in Kansas City, KS (below left). It is one of the more unique places I've been to for any type of restaurant. The barbecue I had on my first visit was absolutely fabulous - the brisket was out of this world and the ribs were very, very good. Each time I get back to K.C., I have to have at least one meal at Oklahoma Joe's.
I was staying out at my usual place in Overland Park, KS - the Hilton Garden Inn - and the Olathe Oklahoma Joe's is much closer to my hotel than the original one in Kansas City. The Oklahoma Joe's in Olathe (above right - picture courtesy of Kansas Travel.org) is located in a newer strip mall and has ample parking around the building. Even coming up on 8 p.m., I was having trouble finding a place to park because it was packed with people at that time. The one in Kansas City, Kansas (or KCK, as the locals refer to it) serves its last meal at 8:30 p.m through the week. The Olathe location closes at 9 p.m. for the late eating suburbanite crowd. (The KCK location is open until 9:30 on weekends and the Olathe location closes at 10:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Both locations are closed on Sunday.)
The inside of Oklahoma Joe's in Olathe (picture right courtesy of Kansas Travel.org) is vastly larger than the original location, but it doesn't have any of the rib joint ambiance that the KCK Oklahoma Joe's possesses. The menu in Olathe is nearly identical to the KCK location and the line to order at the counter was nearly 12 people deep when I walked in. It allowed me ample time to peruse the large blackboard menu on the wall to see what I really wanted to eat that evening.
Without getting into the detail that I did with my original post, I'll just say that I went with the Two Meat Dinner - pulled pork and brisket with a side of baked beans and Texas toast, with a couple bottles of Bud Light to help wash the dust out of my mouth from a long day of driving and to help cut into the zippy chipotle pepper taste of Oklahoma Joe's "Night of the Living Sauce" barbecue sauce.
While the surroundings at the Olathe location was more of a corporate chain restaurant, the food was probably as good as the original Oklahoma Joe's in KCK. The brisket was devastatingly delicious, tender and lean with a hint of a smoke taste. The pulled pork was equally tender, but sort of lacked a good smoky base to the meat. But putting a combination of the Oklahoma Joe's regular "Cowtown" sauce and the more spicy sauce together, the taste sensation with the pulled pork was not lost. And adding some of the "Night of the Living Sauce" to the baked beans helped flare up an already wonderful side dish.
Next door to the Oklahoma Joe's restaurant in Olathe is a barbecue store that sells smokers and grilles, sauces, rubs, wood chips and barbecue accessories. It's similar to the stuff you'd find at Smoke 'n' Fire in Overland Park, but much smaller in size and in selection than what Smoke 'n' Fire offers.
I've heard that the decor and ambiance of a restaurant can make the food taste better. I sort of like the old rib joint feel to the original Oklahoma Joe's in KCK compared to the slick, contemporary interior of their Olathe location. While it is comfortable with larger tables and a larger dining area than the original place, I think the KCK Oklahoma Joe's is just a notch better than the one in Olathe. That's not to say that I didn't like my meal at the Olathe Oklahoma Joe's, it was very, very good - still one of the best, if not THE best barbecue in Kansas City. But even though it's a little more of a haul from where I stay when I'm in the Kansas City location, I'd go back to the Oklahoma Joe's in KCK before I'd go to the one in Olathe.
Since Pappy's Smokehouse opened in 2008, it has climbed to the top of nearly every "Best of" poll for barbecue in the St. Louis area. This Midtown barbecue place - in the shadows of Harris-Stowe State University and a short walk from St. Louis University (see map) - features Memphis-style barbecue cooked in smokers up to 14 hours. And when they run out of food for the day, they shut down. Then they start the whole cycle again for the next day. It's a great concept for barbecue - no reheating of one or two day old barbecue to serve to customers.
The man behind this concept is Mike "Smokey" Emerson, (pictured at right - courtesy Riverfront Times) a restaurant industry veteran who started out busing tables at the age of 13 working his way up the ladder at various restaurants until he helped open the high-end Del Pietro's Italian restaurant in the mid-70's. Emerson then got a commercial sales gig, but got back into the restaurant business when he interviewed to be the General Manager of Super Smokers out in suburban Eureka. (There used to be a Super Smokers right near the office of the old company I used to work at years ago out in St. Peters. It was just fabulous, but that location closed long ago and I haven't been to the original Eureka restaurant.)
It was at Super Smokers that he got hooked up with barbecue expert Skip Steele, the co-owner and pit master at Super Smokers. Steele was a world barbecue champion award winner and he took top spot for whole pig at the Memphis in May barbecue contest in 2000. Emerson and Steele became very close as they shared a love for not only fine barbecue, but for hunting and fishing, as well. Emerson used to barbecue with his older brother, Pappy, in his brother's back yard. Pappy, who died in 2001, and Mike used to make tons of barbecue for whoever showed up. Pappy's Smokehouse is named in honor of Mike Emerson's older brother.
Steele sold his share of Super Smokers in 2007 and moved to Las Vegas to be the head chef/pit master at R.U.B. BBQ at the Riocasino and hotel. But soon after Emerson - along with partners Brian Scoggins and John Matthews, as well as investor Mike Wegmann - opened Pappy's Smokehouse, Skip Steele was lured back to St. Louis to be the chef/pit master of the place. Given how great Super Smokers was under Steele's pit watch, Pappy's has been a hit and has gained national recognition in just over two years in business. (April 2013 Update - Scoggins left Pappy's to become one of the owners of Bogart's Smokehouse along with Skip Steele; and Emerson and Matthews bought out Wegmann's interest in Pappy's after contentuous period with Wegmann suing the two for breach of contract.)
I had tried to get into Pappy's Smokehouse on a couple of previous occasions, once just before noon and another time around 2 p.m. Each time, the parking lot off to the side was full of cars and the line stretched out through the "L"-shaped restaurant toward the back door. I wasn't quite willing to wait that long for barbecue, no matter how good it was. However, on a recent trip to St. Louis, I planned on having a late lunch at Pappy's - after 3 p.m. I figured the crowd at Pappy's wouldn't be as big at that point (it wasn't), but I'd also heard that they would sometimes start to run out of food around 4 p.m. (they hadn't).
Pappy's Smokehouse is on Olive Street located right next to The U restaurant and bar, a favorite hang-out of college kids and sports fans. Both Pappy's and The U share the parking lot, but Pappy's uses the share of spots in the daytime while The U will garner most of the crowd at night after Pappy's has closed.
Out in front of Pappy's are two commercial smokers where the bulk of their barbecuing is done. About the time when they start running out of food in the early evening, the next day's meat is beginning to cook - low and slow - at around 215 degrees. They use both apple and cherry wood for their pork ribs and they're cooked dry with a spice rub. Mike Emerson's motto is "We've got nothing to hide so the sauce is on the side." On a typical day they'll cook up to 750 pounds of pork and 300 pounds of beef brisket.
Pappy's also does a large catering business, as well. Niki Puto, who was the former catering manager at the Ritz-Carlton in St. Louis, came over to Pappy's to head up their growing full-service, buffet-style catering business. (Update - Puto also followed Brian Scoggins and Skip Steele over to Bogart's Smokehouse in 2011.)
I was able to get right in to Pappy's when I walked in around 3:15. Actually, the place was over half-full with people either having a late lunch like me or an early dinner. Or they had been frustrated trying to get in during lunch in the past or had been in late in the day when they had already run out of barbecue. In any event, there was a good sized crowd in the place in the middle of the afternoon.
Blues music blared out of speakers located around the dining area. The long part of the "L"-shaped building features conventional picnic tables as well as tables and chairs. There is a small dining area up front by the counter with a few tables and chairs, as well as a high window ledge with high chairs to sit on. Because of the popularity at Pappy's, management asks people not to sit first, then go order. Pappy's isn't the kind of place where people will linger for a couple hours as they don't sell beer (What!? Another barbecue place that doesn't sell beer!?), so tables turn over rather quickly.
Pappy's menu - which is located above the counter where you order - consists of a wide-array of barbecued meats and sides. They feature sandwiches such as pulled pork, pulled chicken, sliced brisket and turkey breast. The food platters at Pappy's feature full and half-slabs of their pork ribs, pulled pork, brisket, pulled chicken and turkey breast. They have a number of sides including cole slaw, baked beans, fries, green beans, fried corn on the cob and applesauce. But they're well know for their sweet potato fries. Pappy's claims to be the biggest seller of sweet potato fries in the nation.
Next to the menu board on the wall is a dry-erase board where they jot down what they're out of at that point of the day. Thankfully, they weren't out of anything when I walked in. I heard one of the workers in the dining area tell an older man that they usually run out of brisket first.
They also feature a number of combinations, including one called "Heifer and Hog" - a combination of beef brisket slices and pulled pork served with thick white bread and two sides. That's exactly what I wanted.
I stepped up to the counter and a pleasant young lady with a good sense of humor took my order. She asked me what sides I wanted and I decided to try their baked beans, but I was torn between getting their cole slaw or the sweet potato fries. I finally opted for the cole slaw - I thought the sweet potato fries would be too much. She said, "Good choice. I like our cole slaw."
I made the mistake of ordering a beer and she said, "I'm sorry, we don't have a liquor license." I got confused because when I came in through the back door I saw a sign for Boulder Buffalo Gold beer. But then I realized afterward that it was on the back door going into The U and not for Pappy's. I got a water instead.
She asked me for my name as they usually dish it up and bring it out to the table. But since it was slow at that point, they handed my platter over the counter. I got a seat at the window ledge with the high chairs and dug in.
First of all, the brisket was absolutely fabulous. The smoke ring around the meat was perfect. The beef brisket was tender, flavorful and fresh. On its own without any sauce, it was just excellent - some of the best brisket I've ever had.
The pulled pork was almost as good as the brisket. The charred ends were chewy, but the inner pork was moist, tender and full of flavor. They definitely know how to smoke their meat at Pappy's as there was just a hint of smoke taste in every bite, not enough to over power the natural taste of the meat like some barbecue places will do. It was very good.
When I did add sauce to the meat, it only helped enhance the taste. Pappy's features three different types of sauce - their Original sauce that has a little bit of smooth pepper taste; Holly's Hot Sauce that they claim is pretty hot, but I found it to be slightly more spicy than their Original; and Sweet Baby Jane, a thick and rich, sweet/smoky Kansas City-style sauce. I tried each of the sauce on a corner of the thick white bread and then began to experiment. I thought that a mix of the Original and the Holly's Hot Sauce was a great combination.
The baked beans on their own were good, but I really liked them better when I put some of the Sweet Baby Jane and the Holly's Hot sauce in them. And the cole slaw was the sweet and sour kind that I like. They weren't very creamy - also a big plus in my book.
The meat portions were generous, the sides were in 6 oz. cups filled to the brim and the two large slices of white bread was more than enough. I was able to finish the meats, but not the sides. I'm going to have to try the sweet potato fries the next time I'm in. And with a number of trips planned to St. Louis in the coming months, I will be back at Pappy's at some point. From what I remember about Super Smokers when they had their location next to I-70 in St. Peters, that was the finest barbecue I've ever had in St. Louis. But I have to say that Pappy's Smokehouse probably smoked 'em and replaced them as my favorite barbecue place in St. Louis. But, of course, the common denominator here is Skip Steele. Pappy's Smokehouse is, simply, barbecue heaven.
While Smoke 'n Fire would be a cool name for a barbecue joint, you can't eat at the place in Overland Park, KS (see map). It's a superstore for barbecue smokers, grilles, inside and outside fireplaces, and barbecue accessories along with spices, rubs and sauces. I had seen their ad on TV when I was in Kansas City recently and I took the time one day to run out there to check the place out.
Jim and Joan Cattey first opened Smoke 'n Fire in 1998. How they got into the business is rather interesting. They used to run a farm feed and seed store in Northern Missouri. Through a number of sales contests, they ended up winning some barbecue grills. They had a friend who was selling wood-fired stoves and they sort of partnered up in selling fireplaces, stoves and grilles. The location on 151st St. in Overland Park is the third location Smoke 'n Fire has been in - each location more than doubled the size of their previous site.
Jim Cattey (right) is sort of a local celebrity in that he has a half-hour barbecue show - Xtreme Barbecue Radio - on WHB radio from May thru October each year, plus he stars in his own commercials that air on TV. Cattey has also authored a book called "Backyard Grilling" along with his wife and chef Richard McPeake. In fact, Richard McPeake conducts a number of barbecuing and smoking classes at Smoke 'n Fire. When you buy selected smokers or barbecue grilles at Smoke 'n Fire, they'll throw in a basic class for free.
McPeake also has authored a couple of books on his own on backyard smoking including "Backyard Barbecue - The Art of Smokeology". He's a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and is a certified judge for the Kansas City Barbecue Society. He has conducted over 300 classes for over 9000 people in his association with Smoke 'n Fire. He is also the guy behind the great barbecue web site, Rib Stars, where he sells copies of his books and his own barbecue rubs.
I'd finished a morning meeting at a dealer I've been chasing off and on in the Overland Park area and it turned out that Fire 'n Smoke's location was not far from the dealer's store. Being the grilling and smoking nut that I am, I wanted to go over and check out this place.
As I walked in the door, I was met by two of the new style Weber "Bullet" Smokers. One was the regular 18' size, but they also have a new 22" smoker that's available for $399. The biggest difference between the Bullet smoker I've had for about three years now and the new style is that the new ones have a built in thermometer - my biggest bitch when it came to my smoker. It also appears to be a heavier gauge of metal in the new ones. I immediately wanted one.
In addition to the two Weber smokers and a large array of Weber grilles, they also had a wide variety of smokers and grilles including some pretty heavy-duty, industrial style smokers that I wouldn't mind having. But the prices certainly weren't cheap at Smoke 'n Fire. The quality of the grilles and smokers they had were top-notch. They featured a large selection of grilles and smokers from Lynx, Beef Eater, Primo and Ducane. They also had one of the famous Big Green Egg ceramic grill and smoker. Those things are not cheap.
The place was just huge. I was walking around in a literal daze just looking at everything they had to offer. It was a barbecue paradise for me. They had everything you needed to make any type of backyard grilling a success. My head was spinning at each turn looking at some of the neat accessories they had to offer. There were little knick-knacks like aprons, mitts, thermometers, grilling tools, cleaning tools and cleaning brushes. They had knife sharpeners, meat marinators and tenderizers, grid lifters (I almost got one of those myself), and something called "Grill Floss". It cleaned the underside of your grill grate. That's a little anal for me.
I was back in the corner of the store and I found their area that featured a number of rubs, sauces and spices. I took a quick picture of the area and a lady popped around the corner and she said, "Sir, we don't allow pictures or videos to be made in the store."
I was incredulous. "Really," I asked. "Why's that?"
She said, "The owner feels that it's his intellectual property and he doesn't want someone coming in here to take pictures so they may get ideas for their own place."
I said, "Oh, OK. Sorry. I live up in Iowa and I wanted to show some of my friends this place. You've got a mecca for grilling and smoking here."
I went back into another corner of the store and I found shelves of wood chips in all sizes of bags - from 100 lbs. down to 10 pound bags. They had all different types of wood from mesquite to hickory to alder to cherry to... Well, if you can think of a type of wood that you can use to smoke with, they had it at Smoke 'n Fire. They even had different varieties of flavors within some of the wood chips they sold. I had to get a picture of this, so I snuck one last picture.
I was still wandering around when I heard the lady who initially accosted me about taking pictures with my cell phone say to another guy, "Yeah, that's him back in the corner. He says he's just looking around."
This guy came up to me and asked if he could be of any assistance. As I told the lady before, I told him that I was a big barbecue aficionado and that I saw their ad on television the night before and wanted to check the place out. He asked me where I lived and I told him I lived back in Iowa. He said, "Well, before you leave, give us your name so we can put you on our mailing list." He said it with sort of an untrusting tone of voice. I mean, I guess I can see why they would be worried about people coming in and taking pictures to get ideas. It was a helluva business for them.
I did give my name, e-mail and mailing address to the lady at the counter before I left. I'm not certain she actually added it to the list as I've not seen anything from them either via e-mail or regular mail, and it's been awhile since I've been in. In the back of my mind, I think they probably wanted to take down my name and address in case they found that I was going to open my own style of Smoke 'n Fire store so they could sue me at some point in the future. I'm now probably labeled as an "undesirable" in their system.
And as I left I did see a sign near the front door that said, "No Photo or Video Cameras". I may or may not have seen that when I came in...
But Smoke n' Fire is truly a mecca for those of us who are heavily into barbecuing and smoking. I didn't buy anything this trip, but I'll be back to Kansas City in a few weeks and I'll have to block out an hour or so during the day to come in and look for some stuff. The only problem is that they close at 5:30 every day so I can't spend some time some evening there. But that's OK - I'd rather be eating good barbecue at that time rather than looking for stuff to buy.
