Alternate Reality Barbeque: Sconyers Barbeque, Augusta, GA.

Walking into Sconyers Barbeque in Augusta was like traveling to an alternate reality, where everything is almost the same, yet just a touch...umm...off.

Walking up to the place, everything seemed normal. It's a nice large wooden structure just off 520. I reckon it was meant to echo a log cabin, just more immense. You walk over a nice pond to go inside, wherein things start to get weird. First off, all the female employees are dressed in what I would call "colonial wear": full skirts, corsets and bonnets. Peculiar. I'm not sure what they're going for with that. I've never once thought "I wish I had some barbeque from the 18th century". The male employees were all wearing overalls, which I assume was also restaurant policy, although I've been to a couple of barbeque places where it was just considered high fashion. Maybe if I ever come back, I'll wear my overalls and bus a few tables, just for fun.

Having a gander at the menu, I discovered they didn't serve chopped pork, but "chipped" pork. Ye olde waitress informed me it was the same as chopped. I also had to get her to explain what "hash" was. It appears they don't have proper brunswick stew here. Perhaps it was pronounced "devilish", given a scarlet letter B and rode out of towne on a rail. I don't know. What they do have is "hash", which is a kind of brunswick stew, just a more pious paste-like substance served over a bed of rice, a combination I've seen in the South exactly nowhere.

I found the pork sandwich relatively of this dimension, although the slightly off tradition continued with the pickles, which were the sweet, bread and butter kind. Land-a-Goshen, where am I? Who does that? Even the Coke I had was suspect, falling somewhere between "flat" and "diet".

Two other events solidified the peculiarity of the place: Whilst washing my hands in the restroom, a man came in evidently for no reason other than to count his substantial money roll. Also, upon leaving, a fellow with a couple extra chromosome no.21s enthusiastically bid me farewell. I'm probably going to hell for mentioning that last part, but it was a very Lynchian end to an overall strange dining experience.     

Overall score: C
Appropriate soundtrack: "Strange Days" by the Doors, "Mama Told Me Not To Come" by Three Dog Night.

Well, it depends...Old South Barbeque, Smyrna, GA

 Do I like Old South Barbeque, located just East of the intersection of Windy Hill Rd and South Cobb Drive in Smyrna? Well, it depends...

It depends on whether I'm feeling social or not. On my latest visit (the first time I'd ever been there in the evening), I was called "sweetie" so many times, I started contemplating a visit to the dentist.  Which is nothing compared to what happens when you go at lunch. There's a waitress there at lunch that insists on hugging every single patron that comes there. It's tad disconcerting the first time it happens, but you get used to it after a few visits. At least you better, 'cause it's gonna happen whether you want it to or not.

Well, is the food good? Umm...it depends. There's been times I've gone there and it's been very satisfying, but there's been an equal number of times when I've left there mildly disappointed. On average, I'd say the meat tends to be a bit too smoked/dry and the stew a bit too rich. This latest visit, I splurged for the BBQ plate, which was a mistake. For one thing, I suspect the meat was leftover from lunch, and for another, it was too expensive ($12.65 as of 7/2/14). I also had to get up and ask for crackers, after which the waitress apologized profusely, the "sweeties" increasing greatly. Your best bet, quality-wise, is to go at the peak lunch hours.

I honestly want to like the place. It's very blue collar (with a touch of military, being next door to Dobbins Air Force base), which I like, and I love that it's basically an old house converted into a BBQ place. That's one reason I keep going back and giving it another try. But I find it impossible to rate it above a solid C grade, no matter how many times I'm called "sweetie".

Rating

Food: C

Atmosphere: B- with a 100% chance of lunchtime hugs

Overall: C
        

Whistling Pig - Pine Mountain, Ga

 My friend Alex introduced me today to the Whistling Pig Cafe, located in Pine Mountain, Ga. He declared it probably his 2nd favorite BBQ in the state (after Fincher's in his hometown of Macon). Let's see what I think...

 The Whistling Pig certainly is my kind of BBQ place, in that it's firmly in the blue collar category. It was buzzing with customers as we stepped in. I do declare that I am quite the sucker for black and white tile! The lady at the counter was a bit brusque in her demeanor: not unfriendly, just as busy as that proverbial one legged man in a derriere motivation contest. We sat down and I did my best to avoid the interest of a very loud man seated adjacent to our table. He was in possession of a humongous plastic beverage container that said "Thirst Buster" on it. It had to hold 2 liters, if it held a drop. "Bladder Buster" is more like it. But I digress. Our plates arrived and I said hello to a rather large pork sandwich and it's companion, a bowl of Brunswick Stew:

 Our hosts were generous with the pickles, as my sandwich came with three, to which I added three more, as Alex is not as fond of them as I am. I don't know how many pickles it would take for me to draw the line, but it must be more than 6! The sandwich was very satisfying, although I would have preferred a little more vinegar kick to it. The stew, however, was disappointing, mostly because it seemed to be noticeably watered down, like the staff had added water to make it go farther. I had to deploy the crackers as absorption devices just to counteract the sogginess. 

So, in a nutshell:

Sandwich: A-

Stew: D

Atmosphere: B

Overall: B-

   

Barbecue Time Machine

Yes folks, I went back in time tonight, courtesy of the Old Hickory House restaurant on Northlake Parkway. For those that don't know, Old Hickory House used to be a chain of barbecue restaurants all around the Atlanta area back in the 70's. There were quite a few of them. I fondly remember going to the one in Forest Park with my mom when I was a wee lad. I bet you've seen that one, even if you don't realize it. It stood in for a bus stop in Smokey and the Bandit ( that scene where Burt and Jackie are at the counter together).

Sadly, the Old Hickory Houses faded away. The one in Forest Park has long been bulldozed, and (what I thought was) the remaining ones had been usually re-purposed as Oga's or OB's (see my review of the now defunct OB's on Veteran's Memorial Parkway elsewhere on this blog). So it was with great glee that I discovered that there were still a couple existing: one in Dunwoody, and one in Tucker! My BBQ Blog partner ( I swear he still exists) Grant had been to the one in Tucker, so we set out tonight on a mission to go there.

Let me tell you, when I say Old Hickory House is a barbecue time machine, I mean it. It was so like the Hickory Houses I remembered as a kid, I could feel multitudes of synapses popping long dormant memories back to life in my brain. I swear even the barstools are as I remembered them! I don't think there was a single picture on the wall that wasn't 30 years old.

Oh yeah, the food: I was a bit nervous about that, because these two surviving Hickory Houses don't have the best reviews online, but I feel those reviews must be heavily Yankee-centric, because I thought the food at the Tucker location was great! Remember, of course, that I'm biased myself toward the more blue collar barbecue establishments. Those used to boutique barbecue will most likely be disappointed. But as I said, I was well pleased. The pork sandwich, especially, wins top honors. I'm not kidding. I hereby proclaim that the sandwich I had here tonight is EXACTLY what I think a barbecue pork sandwich should be. Not too big, not too expensive ($2.95) and with a pickle on it, as God intended. A working man's delight!

The Brunswick stew, however, brought me back down to reality. It wasn't bad, just average (maybe a little below), a tad too rich for my tastes. I got a combo which included the sandwich, a cup of stew and a cup of cole slaw, which was good enough to make up for the stew's mediocre performance.

So to review...

Pork sandwich: A+

Brunswick stew: C

Decor: A for authenticity!

Overall grade: A!            

Moe's Barbecue, 14th St. and State St, Atlanta

I walked into Moe's (not to be confused with the burrito joint) in a good mood, mostly because I was on vacation and had remembered that I had been wanting to try this place out for a while, being that it was two doors down from where I once lived. You would've thought I would have something against the place, being that it inhabits the space of the former Kool Korners Grocery ( once home to the best Cuban sandwich in Atlanta), but I realize time moves on, as does progress. While it does have a bit of the "Boutique Barbecue" feel to the place, a lot of the details served to dispel that feeling, from (poorly) painted images of musicians on the wall that had to have been homemade, to a well picked playlist on the overhead speakers. Several other "imported rustic" pieces were well placed. I was pleasantly surprised to see the old Kool Korners sign hanging up inside. A nice touch for an old timer like me.

Trepidation set in, however, when I saw that the Brunswick stew was not a main menu item, but rather a special of the day. Forging ahead, I ordered the stew, my standard pork sandwich and some potato salad. The price for the plate (including a Coke) was reasonable, considering the amount of food ordered: Just shy of $10, not including tip. I sat down and awaited my order. It came pretty quickly, and I was amused to find the sandwich both smaller than normal for such establishments and wrapped in checkerboad paper. I'm a sucker for checkerboard. I was glad the sandwich was small, because I think a lot of places make the sandwich too large, making it literally a handful to hold, sometimes two handfuls. I believe you should be able to hold a barbecue sandwich with one hand and not have it fall apart on you. Moe's pork sandwich passes this test. And it tasted pretty good too, a lot closer to (my idea of) "authentic" than I've tasted in most big city BBQ joints.

The stew, on the other hand, failed at just about any criteria you could think of. It was a small portion. It was full of beans. The chunks of meat in it were way too big, especially considering the small container the stew was served in. And lastly, it just wasn't that good. Another case of someone mistaking "stew" for "soup". No wonder it isn't always on the menu.

So in review:
Sandwich: A

Stew: D

Decor: B-

Overall experience: B-

Ballistic on BBQ

I have to admit I was already pissed when I walked into Pig-N-Chick BBQ on Briarcliff tonight. I had just came from a nearby shooting range (Quickshot, on Zonolite rd.) where my rifle had promptly jammed after 6 shots, ending up with me breaking a brand new $25 magazine I had just bought. Add the $16 dollar hourly fee I had to pay for all of 5 minutes of shooting I got to do, and you can see the mood I was in. But I was looking for comfort food and was hoping Pig-N-Chick (P-N-C from here on out) could deliver. No such luck.

Problem number 1: Pig-N-Chick is located in the old Dusty's BBQ building. I have fond memories of Dusty's and was a little sad to see they were gone. I had hoped P-N-C was carrying on the tradition. Nope. Which leads us to...

Problem number 2: The sandwich. I had hoped for the nice chopped sandwich Dusty used to serve. What I got was the same ole' gigantic pulled pork sandwich that every other new BBQ upstart sells. Huge chunks of pork on thick loaf bread. How did these things get to be so popular? I never once had one like this growing up. To me it's just pure laziness. Instead of taking the time to chop (or at least continue pulling) the meat, modern BBQ places just give you huge chunks of pig meat in a large portion, evidently hoping that quantity will overpower quality. And you're not fooling me by using the Texas (un)toast either. You're shooting for faux-BBQ cred, aren't you? You think that bread will make you legit? Well get this: BBQ is blue collar food, and when blue collar folks go to a restaurant and pay for food, they want it fancier than what they make at home. That means buns! You think I came all the way across town to eat a sandwich on loaf bread? (this falls in the same category as those Mason jars Po-Folks used to serve drinks in. Don't even get me started on those) Taste-wise the sandwich was about the same as the ones all the other restaurants serve. in other words, not distinctive. See, I was paying attention to more than just the superficial aspects of the food.

Problem number 3: The stew. Brunswick stew makes or breaks a BBQ joint in my opinion, and P-N-C's is one of the worst I've had, mostly because it wasn't stew, it was soup! This is mission 1 for making a stew: having it end up a stew, with texture, for Pete's sake. Otherwise it's just vegetable soup. FAIL!

Problem number 4: P-N-C, you charge me $1.40 for a Coke, give it to me in a CAN and then you ask me if I want a cup of ice with it? Are you F&*king kidding me? The whole meal was $8.50, which might have been okay if it was worth a flip.

What a night.

(Normally I'd put the BBQ place's address here, but I don't want you to go here, so never mind)

Time for a change

Since this blog has started, several of the establishments have closed. Probably for good reason as we noted in the reviews. We will start a new way a rating the joints we visit. Either by a grading scale from 1-10, A-F, or some sort of audio/video clip. Stay tuned and eat more bbq.

Grant

REM at Walter's BBQ

Chain, Chain, Chain...Dickey's Barbecue PTC

Pork Sandwich: B
Brunswick Stew: C
Authenticity: D
Overall: B-


I found I liked Dickey's Barbecue in Peachtree City better the second time around. It's a chain out of Texas, located in a strip mall, but I'm gonna let that slide. Their pork sandwich was above average, if a little thick and rich. The stew was the thickest I've seen since starting this blog. It was basically meat with sauce added. I usually add crackers to the stew, but felt wrong in doing so with this concoction.
Oh, and it was pretty expensive, too. $9.00 for this:
















They do have a diverse menu that more adventuresome bbq fans will appreciate:







Oh yeah: they have free vanilla ice cream cones, too. Yay!

They are located at:
Braelinn Village SC
460 Crosstown Rd
Peachtree City, GA 30269

www.dickeys.com

Walter's Theme by REM

For the two years I spent in Athens, Walter's BBQ never once looked open. A pity, since they have one of the best theme songs a BBQ place could have. Grant did name his son Walter though. Hmmm.

You Can't Go Home Again: Fresh Air Barbeque

Sandwich:B
Stew:C+
Authenticity:A+

They say that you can't go home again and that you should never meet your heroes. Sadly, this is the case with my recent experience with Fresh Air Barbeque in Jackson, Ga. I had a very pleasant (if hazy) childhood memory of the place, and it was high on my list of places to rediscover with this blog. But the truth, as my taste buds see it, is that Fresh Air's barbeque is merely slightly above average, not the legendary fare that a very old set of electrons in my brain said it was.



The pork sandwich was okay, with a tomato and vinegar sauce. It did have a sort of personality to it: more of a zing than a twang. The lack of pickles barred it from ever being in my top ten though.

The stew, frankly, tasted like it came out of a can. Doing my little trick of adding the house barbeque sauce to it livened it up considerably, but I shouldn't have had to do that.

One saving grace for Fresh Air lies in it's authenticity. It's been around since 1929, and has been the favorite of former governors Herman Talmadge and Joe Frank Harris. It still has the gravel parking lot and the sawdust floored outside eating area that I remember from 30+ years ago. Pictures of late owner "Toots" adorn the inside. The cook inside was encouraging folks to purchase muscadines from her son who had a makeshift stand just outside the front door.

I just wish the food was a bit better.

Sprayberry's: Sweet Sorrow

Before we embark on our new format, I want to say a little bit about Sprayberry's Barbeque in Newnan, Ga, since we just went there last night and it's fresh on my mind.

Sprayberry's has been around since 1929 and is partly famous for being the favorite BBQ haunt of the late Lewis Grizzard, beloved southern author and columnist for the AJC. Country singer Alan Jackson supposedly waited tables here when he was young as well.

It all started on a whim, with me calling up Grant an hour or so before quitting time and proposing the adventure of driving down the back roads to Newnan for a quick dinner at Sprayberry's. Grant gives in very easily to the "call of the pig". I also called my friend and former bandmate Daniel to meet us there, as he lives in the area.

Turns out we were the only patrons there as we arrived at about 8:00, so we had the place to ourselves. Our waitress was very friendly and stayed so throughout the visit.

I ordered the "Lewis Grizzard Special" which was everything that I normally order (a pork sandwich and an order of brunswick stew) plus the addition of onion rings. No wonder dear old Lewis needed a new heart valve, if this was his usual order! Grant ordered two different kinds of meat, some stew, beans and Texas toast. Daniel had "the Aristocrat", which consisted of a pork sandwich, onion rings and fries.

I have to agree with a number of reviews I read online in saying that, unless you're a local, Sprayberry's is nothing to write home about. But then again, if you are a local, what are you writing home for anyway? I guess it's one of those things you have to grow up with, not unlike my family's obsession with the Varsity: I just don't get it.

My meal was, for the most part, average but was ruined by that most humble of ingredients: the pickle. Sprayberry's uses sweet pickles on the sandwich, which just made it all wrong to me. I'm definitely pro-pickle, but sweet pickles don't work for me on my BBQ sandwich. On the other hand, the stew was serviceable, maybe even above the average of what I've been getting lately.

So to wrap it up, I'll say Sprayberry's gets a C, maybe even a C+, but just barely. I would probably go there again and give them another chance. Even with a C, they are better than your average generic strip mall BBQ place.

Reboot!

Hey internet! It's time for my yearly post! Pathetic isn't it? Yes, I think so. It's not like Grant and I have stopped going to barbeque places. Lawds no! But I think we're just not motivated enough to pontificate at the level we were when we started this blog. So I'm going to change the way we review things. From now on, we're going to implement a scorecard method of rating the places we visit, and if we feel inspired enough, we'll say a few words in a paragraph or two at the end. We'll see how it goes.

O.B.'s or not O.B's

Hello there, Internet. Long time no see. I'm glad to be back. I apologize to all our loyal readers (all 3 of you) for being gone so long. What say we skip the awkward "You never wrote" part and take up right where we left off?

Up to now, the reviews have been pretty straightforward. We either liked a place, disliked it, or were ambivalent about it. I feel this review is gonna be different. I went into this one kinda excited, because I had went to this particular place two or three times before, and it was growing on me. I wanted to be able to right a positive review. But I tell you, Internet, it's a little harder than I thought.

The place in question is O.B.'s Barbeque at 499 Veteran's Memorial Highway in Mableton. It's a recent new addition to the barbeque places available to Grant and I around our workplace. We discovered on our first visit that the location was once an Old Hickory House, a long gone but fondly remembered barbeque chain from my youth. (Old Hickory House trivia: The scene where The Bandit and Sheriff Buford T. Justice meet at the Bus Stop restaurant counter in Smokey and the Bandit was shot in a Old Hickory House in Jonesboro, Ga., the very same one that I grew up going to.)

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not overly fond of barbeque chains these days, but the staff at this particular O.B.'s (if not a chain, at least a franchise) has a certain charm to them that goes a long way at dispelling any chain feel to the place. They do this by being very friendly, very casual, and honestly, kinda slow. Not speed slow, but, umm, brain slow. For example, I once heard one of the wait staff ask another, loudly:

"Hey, what's 12 minus 7?"

Another one has a entertainingly narcoleptic way of serving you. She kinda drifts over to your table and engages you in a style of conversation that most closely resembles the term "bedhead", if that makes any sense.

I know these statements sound derogatory, but they're not really. I find these things harmlessly entertaining, and they give me the opportunity to use that most southern of sayings: "Bless her heart!"

For entertainment value alone, the wait staff gets an A. (They do actually work rather well, I've never had a real complaint about the actual service here)

Let's move on to the food, shall we? To be honest, they do a lot of things that I don't like, but somehow seem right, for this place anyway. I'm on record as saying that I don't like it when a place doesn't make a commitment by not putting sauce on their barbeque. This place is one of those places. However, I like all three of their sauces that they provide on the table: mild, sweet, and hot. Therefore it doesn't bother me that you're obliged to put the sauce on yourself. But I'll tell you what I don't like is the large chunks of pork that make up their sandwich, and the lack of pickles on said sandwich. I've found I prefer the barbeque plate here, which is yet another contradiction to all I hold dear in barbeque. But seriously, go for the plate.

Casting our attention to their Brunswick stew, it started out pleasant enough, if a touch rich. However, as I got closer to finishing it, it lost a bit of it's character, becoming almost like stew from a can. This may have been because I ordered a mammoth 12 ounce serving. 12 ounces doesn't sound like too much when I ordered it. Oh well.


I'd also like to mention they something called "Frickles", which I assume is some sort of fried pickle. I'll have to try that next time.

So in review, I'm gonna have to give the food a C+, but I feel with a couple of tweaks, possibly on my part, it could easily rise to B- or a solid B.


So what do we have here? The exception that proves the rule? It's hard for me to say. I can say that I do like the place, and will return. And I guess that's what it's all about, isn't it?

p.s. I'd like to give a honorable mention to this here painting located above the booths in the back of O.B's. Like the restaurant itself, I find it contradictory, yet pleasing in it's own way. It features a deer couple serenely observing a flock of ducks from the lakeside. Relaxing, huh?

This blog could use a woman's touch...so here it is! Willamson Brothers BBQ

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce a special guest reviewer: My friend Laura has graciously taken on the task of reviewing one of the Atlanta area's favorite BBQ places:Williamson Brothers BBQ in Canton, Ga. Without further ado...Miss Laura, Guest BBQ Expert:

The parking lot was pretty packed at about 8 PM, which I guess is a good sign for a Monday night. The decor was all drab & brown, but I guess that's fitting for a BBQ joint. I felt out of my element a little, but I suppose I would be hard pressed to find a pink, frilly BBQ joint...LOL.

It looked like a hunting lodge to me with various animal heads mounted on the wall, but we were in the sticks, aka Canton, so it fits with the locals. No matter. I was there for the BBQ. At least it wasn't a Jim n' Nicks fake atmosphere. We were seated in a little nook of the restaurant, so I couldn't see much else. I did take this photo from our booth, because I was feeling a little homesick.

I also would like to note that they also had leather "privacy" curtains hanging up, which we found to be amusing.

Anyway, to the food.

We started off with Brunswick stew.

It was decent. I probably wouldn't want to try it again, simply because it had a bit of a sweet taste to it, and I really don't like sweet Brunswick stew. I was sad quite honestly. And for $3.49 each serving. Plus, I didn't even feel compelled to finish it. The texture and heartiness of it was fine, it was the sweetness factor that ruined it for me. Perhaps it would work for someone else that prefers it that way. I did dip my fries in it, and it was a much yummier alternative to ketchup, so I will give it that. I will say that it was the kind of Brunswick stew without lima beans, and that was a good thing as far as I am concerned.

I wanted to try lots of different things, so I opted for the BBQ platter, which had 2 nice sized ribs, a giant chicken breast (I specified that I wanted white meat, otherwise they may have brought dark), a pile of pulled pork (they asked if I wanted pulled, sliced, or chopped) and chopped beef. The platter also came with 2 sides and a slice of garlic toast. I got mac & cheese and steak fries. I think that is was like $14-15 for the platter, which is a lot for a meal in my opinion, but we were splurging.

I thought it was funny that the entire platter was nothing but lots of saucy meat, and one lone pickle...but I am easily amused. It was a ton of food! I personally barely made a dent in it since we had the stew and it had 2 sides. I could easily make 3 meals out of what I got. Maybe a guy with a heartier appetite could make 2 meals out of it.

The BBQ sauce itself tasted good to me. Not too sweet, not too spicy. Just pleasant. No other choices though...so you had to like it. The meat had it on it, plus there was a bottle at each table in case you wanted more. I ate one rib, and it was pretty good. I am by no means a pork expert, but I liked it if that means anything. It wasn't too small or dry. They had a roll of papertowels at each table, and I had to make use of it after eating a rib. Not a biggie. I prefer messy over dry if given the choice.

The chicken was honestly probably the most boring thing, but because it was such a fat portion of meat...so it was a little bland and a little dry when you got beyond the BBQ sauce layer. I can't remember if they had the option on the menu, but I think a shredded chicken with sauce version would be much yummier. That way it would be nice and juicy like the pulled pork and the beef. The pulled pork and the beef were my favorites. All around juicy and flavorful.

The steak fries were good. No surprises. Just your average steak fries. Like I said before, dipping then in the Brunswick stew was yummy. The mac & cheese was kind of rubbery and bland. I would pass on them the next go round. I did sample Alex's sides, and his were both yummy. Mashed potatoes & cole slaw. The cole slaw was excellent. It was finely chopped & very juicy the way I like it. I don't like it when the cabbage is shredded in strips...I mean, I'll eat it, but the more finely chopped way with lots of juice was awesome. The potatoes were scrummy with a hint of garlic salt and just a bit of the potato skins mashed in.

Alex got a slab of BBQ ribs.

I think it was $18-19 for the slab, plus the 2 sides and slice of toast. Again, we were splurging. With the tip we spent $52.00 for the two of us to have our platters, plus each a Brunswick stew and a sweet tea. He was only able to eat half, and he has a pretty hearty rib appetite.

While the stew was disappointing, I think the place deserves a B. I don't think I'll be rushing back, but I would go back...this time I know what to get and what to avoid.

There you have it folks! I'd like to personally thank Laura for her review. A review of Williamson Bros. almost killed this blog a while back!

Into The Pit: Southern Pit Barbecue

You can tell a lot about a barbecue place by the cars in it's parking lot. A lot of midsize american sedans mean the place has a dedicated older clientele, who are notoriously picky. Big pickups mean hungry blue collar guys. Old pickups and minivans mean the prices are reasonable. Southern Pit Barbecue in Griffin, Georgia, has all these.

I've been to Southern Pit three times since we started this blog. That in itself should tell you which direction this review will go. But this time something special happened. I'll get to that in a minute. But first let me describe the place. Most barbecue places tend to follow the modern concept of "put a bunch of old crap on the walls". Southern Pit takes this concept to the extreme. There's hardly a square foot on the walls that doesn't have something hanging on it. Deer heads, old farm implements, signs, posters, shrines to NASCAR drivers, It's all here. But Southern Pit has a couple of (so far ) unique touches. First is the hats. There are literally hundreds of baseball style caps lining the walls of the place! Second is the train. They have a small model train that runs continously around the restaurant on a track about eight feet off the ground. Take my word for it, you'll never run out of things to look at on the walls here. If I have a bad thing to say, it's that you get a sense of being overwhelmed by advertising. It's on the walls. It's on the hats. It's in the tabletops. It's even on the little train! Mercy! Grade: B



But we're not here to stare slackjawed at the decoration. We're here to stare slackjawed at the food! Southern Pit doesn't disappoint. As of this writing, I haven't experienced any barbecue better than the grub they serve at Southern Pit. It's nothing fancy, just barbecue done right. I find the stew has just the right consistency, not too soupy, not too chunky. It does have small chunks of tomatoes in it, so you people that are bothered by that sort of thing, consider yourself warned. I find the chopped pork sandwich delightful. I have a hard time describing it, because, again, it just seems right. I would like to mention that at Southern Pit, they've got the chopping formula down pat. Some places don't chop it enough, leaving you at risk to have a slice of pork sticking out your piehole after you take a bite. Some places chop it too much, and it falls apart before it ever gets to your mouth. Southern Pit, I think, strikes a happy medium. Grade: A!



Here's where we hit extra credit. Southern Pit serves cornbread with their stew (or do they just serve it with everything?). Now I'm more of a crackers kinda guy, so this cornbread is kinda wasted on me. However, I am a fan of a peculiar southern delicacy: Cornbread and buttermilk, together in a glass! It's just one of those things. Either you're into it, or you think it's gross. Me, I was raised on it. I la-huv it! So this time out, I decided to ask my waitress if they had any buttermilk. "Sure!" she answered, like it was a silly question. So folks here it is, feast your eyes!:



Ok, I know it just looks like a glass of milk, but it's a site for southern sore eyes to me. So I must say I give Southern Pit extra credit in the food category for making this come together. It boosts them to A+!

I'd like to add as a footnote that this entire meal (sandwich, stew, cornbread, buttermilk, and a coke) cost $7.44 . Take that, Jim and Nick's!

Southern Pit Barbecue is located just north of Griffin, Georgia on highway 19/41. Feel free to play that Allman Brothers song on your way there.

http://www.southernpitbbq.com/

The Inevitable: Jim and Nick's

The Jim and Nick's Experience

Jim and Nick's is the place that inspired this blog. High praise, huh? Not hardly. I was inspired because I thought the place was fake. Now, I had been to Jim and Nick's a few times before this emotion took hold. I had always thought their fare was ok. Not spectacular, not bad, merely ok. I was not a fan of going there, because this merely ok barbecue is damned expensive. More on that later. But what ignited my distaste was this: One day, I saw their takeout menu. On this takeout menu, at first glance, is a picture of presumably an old Jim and Nick's barbecue shack. By old, I mean it looks like it was taken in 1947. But if you look at it closer, it's obvious that the Jim and Nick's signs on the building are photoshopped on. Look closer, and you see that the building isn't even an eatery, it's a gas station, for crying out loud! (You can see this photo on the homepage of their website. While you're there, check out "our story" on the left side. Surprise, surprise, there isn't one. It's a mission statement.)
Truth be told, a lot of why I dislike J&N has to do with their theme park atmosphere. It's like the Hard Rock Cafe of BBQ. They have these old timey looking pics on the wall of people cooking barbecue. A real barbecue place would have a pic of the cook of your restaurant on the wall, probably with his arm around somebody famous who had the good fortune of stopping at his restaurant. You would know it was the cook, because you could look in the kitchen and see him, probably a little grayer in the temples, still on the job! To cut to the chase, You could plop J&N right down in the center of Buckhead, and it'd fit in perfect. If you like your barbecue culture served up at arms length, sanitized and safe, by all means go ahead. Me, give me something with a little grease on it's shirt.
Decor/Authenticity: D

Ok, on to the food. my greatest complaint about their food isn't that it's not good. It is. It's average good. On a realistic scale of 1 to 10 (not the modern day scale where things have to be an 8 or it's crap), it's a 5. Completely average. What gets me all riled up is the price: $8.50 for a sandwich and a (small side). Hey, a theme park doesn't run on good intentions, does it? The total tab today for myself and the Lovely Lady La La was $25! (a word of disclosure here: We didn't actually pay anything today. One of my bosses was at another table, and he told the manager I had a BBQ blog going on, and she came over and insisted the meal was on the house. I tried to talk her out of it, but even though I told her it probably wasn't going to be a favorable review, she insisted on it being free. I guess it proves you can't buy my vote. Oh yeah, another disclosure: the ticket said $6.99 for the sandwich. I don't know if that's a lunch price, or because I turned down the side order in favor of a full stew bowl. Should barbecue be this complicated? How about one price, all day?)

First up was the stew, which truth be told, was better than I remember it. It's still not gonna win any awards, though. It was pretty watery, but that's about the worst thing I can say about it. Not a big fan of beans in stew, but these were unobtrusive. At least it didn't go too far one way or another. Lady La La may have a different opinion. I think we may hear from her soon... My grade: C+

Here's the pulled pork sandwich. That's a quarter laying in the plate, for size reference, although I have to say it looks bigger in the pic than it was in real life. I prefer the meat a bit more shredded, but that's just me. Again, It's not bad, it's not extraordinary. I can't tell you much about the sauce, because it just didn't have much personality.Just average.
Again: C+

As a side note, I have to say these are the most pitiful pickles I've yet to see on a barbecue sandwich. Poor little fellows...

Well, there you have it. Damned by mediocrity, cursed by high prices. If money is no object, you could do worse. If price and authenticity is a factor, you can do much better.

Overall grade: C

I have discovered the theme song for this Blog. Since I'm stupid and don't know how to add songs to this site, I found this on YouTube. The artist is Wendy Rene. She likes BarBQ. Enjoy:

Let's Not Let the Whole City of Atlanta Know

Since my place of employment has recently moved, we are now within five miles of two barbecue establishments. One being Atlanta Ribs. It is located on Highlands Camp Parkway, which is right off the east-west connector in Smyrna. It resides in a small strip mall, along with a bike shop, smoothie store, and a few other businesses. On this trip Scott did not go with me. If he had, he would have kicked me. Luckily I talked the lovely Stephanie into coming along.

Anyways, it's been there for under two years, and it looks like it. Still somewhat clean, somewhat ordered out of a catalog, and somewhat scary. Not scary like "I'm going to be shot!", but scary like, "This is a flooring store or a nouvelle-fusion-chain restaurant and not a BBQ joint." They do not have a line of sight into the kitchen or a visual of where the actual cookers or pits are located. Instead you are shown pictures of what the food supposed to look like. Very disconcerting. The menu is large right behind the cashier, who is ready to take you order and give you a number on a stick. The menu is not that confusing & it does have nice descriptions of what you will be getting.

I step up to the mike and give the attendant the order: pork plate with Brunswick stew and french fries. I get my number and find a seat in their dining room. Again, dining room...? .It looks like it was ordered from dining roomstogo or Ikea or the budget haverty's for kids. Light woods, hanging lamps; someone paid for cheap art direction or designer. OK, OK, all places have to start somewhere and someplace. Maybe it will get seasoned over the next several years...we'll see. But we're not here to talk about interior design, we're here about mouth-watering good BBQ, that only heart attacks dream about!

After a very short wait, maybe 4 minutes 30 seconds (or what ever a good microwave time would be), they bring out the stuff. Looks very clean. A great mound of pulled pork, small dish of stew, and a massive amount of crinkle-cut french fries. I love crinkle-cut fries. The fries are very good. They do put some type of season mixture on them, but if you drag them through ketchup, then it nullifies the seasoned salt. The stew is okay. It does have all the ingredients you want, pork/chicken, corn, tomato, etc. It lacks something. It doesn't have the tangy-ness like most good Brunswick stews have. It is chunky and you can actually see the ingredients. It is not a blended mess. The pile of pork is tender, thick, and pulled. They cook it and give it to you, then you put their sauce on it. On the table have a regular sauce and a spicy sauce, as well as store bought hot sauce and pepper vinegar sauce. The sauces are heavy on sugar; brown sugar and ketchup. It gums up any sense of tastes of the meat and suffocates any other flavors from the rest of the food. Use it sparingly. I got Stephanie to make me a drink, a sweet/un-sweet half & half mixture. And from I could tell, one half was corn syrup and the other half was sweet tea. Unfortunately the corn syrup sweetened tea along with the heavily sugared BBQ sauce sent my taste buds into a diabetic coma, unable to be re-awakened. Needless to say, I felt like I had to finish the meal, but even with my fat body trying to do it's job, I had to quit eating. And Stephanie kicked me.

With a name like Atlanta Ribs, you're putting the whole city on the line. Hopefully the rest of Atlanta doesn't know about it and will not come with torches & pitchforks. You would hope that the smell of smoking ribs and barbecuing meats would extend all throughout the city, but you cannot even tell they are a BBQ establishment at all. You can be driving by a paper mill, and smell a BBQ joint. When you're on the road to no-where going through Smyrna and you smell nothing and you see a BBQ sign...just keep on moving. Unless you want to a basket of french fries.

BBQ Sauces = D-

Pork = B-

Brunswick Stew = C

Fries = B

Corn Syrup with Tea flavoring = D-

www.atlantaribs.com

Branching Out; Dunk's BBQ

Hi, Folks. Hiwatt Scott here. Grant and I have decided that it's better for us to split up and go solo on some reviews, since he lives on the north side of town, and I am on the south side (on the weekends, at least). Expect reviews from Grant on Dreamland BBQ and Williamson Brother's BBQ, while I'll provide reviews on several places in Griffin (my hometown), places in Jonesboro (Dean's, Harold's), and beyond (Fresh Air Barbecue in Jackson, Fincher's in Macon). We shall continue to do reviews together of places we can reach on our lunch hour.

Moving on, it's with a heavy heart I submit my first review of a Griffin area barbecue place: Dunk's Barbecue. Why so glum? well I realized that now I have to cast a critical eye upon places that, as a result, might be the worst for it. Read on...

Dunk's is located on the spot where another barbecue place used to stand: Leon's. I have very fond memories of Leon's. I can remember going there with my uncle Ed, drinking coke from a bottle (later on, they switched to bringing you a can of coke and a glass of ice, which is somehow endearing, if a tad lazy). Leon's also planted the seed in my head that you had to have objects of pig worship in your BBQ joint: Statues of pigs, postcards of pigs, carvings of pigs, just all around pig idolatry. The kind of stuff that'd have you heading out the side door in a hurry if Moses happened in. Their barbecue was good enough to risk getting caught skipping school, which I did, just for lunch sometimes (it helped that Leon's was next door to my high school). Anyway, as things go, Leon's was eventually torn down, and Dunk's rose in it's place. Dunk's was a place famous in Griffin before my time, but was revived for this venture. Here's a front view:

(sorry for the lousy quality photos, they are from my phone)

As barbecue places go, it's a nice looking place, somewhere between the charm of a genuine hole in the wall and the bbq theme park look of some of your chain restaurants. There's a nice stairway leading up to the restaurant:




Here's where the trouble starts: The sign that greets you as you walk in...



It is quite a pet peeve of mine when people misspell "y'all". The apostrophe goes between the Y and the A, people! It's a contraction of the words "You all"! why would you put the apostrophe between the A and the first L? You're not removing any letters there!

Inside, the place is pleasant enough, although it feels unfinished. I have a love/hate relationship with the kind of junk that normally gets put on the wall at restaurants. It's become such a cliche to have a bunch of mismatched junk hanging on your restaurant's walls, so much so that there are now companies that provide such "flair" from a catalog! On the other hand, when the clutter is amassed genuinely over a number of years, such as the aforementioned pig paraphernalia, it can bequite comforting, which is why I guess places like Zaxby's have enough fake junk on their wall to choke a flea market. But check out the walls at Dunk's:

There's nothing on the walls! Perhaps this is a transitory state. I do admit that Dunk's looks a little different every time I go in, so maybe they're working on it as they go along.

So I sit down and order my usual from the waitress: Pork sandwich, brunswick stew, and a coke. She brings the drink while I'm fooling around with the camera phone, so I don't even take notice of it until she brings a curiously light brown liquid in a little mini pitcher, and leaves it on my table. Hmm, that looks like tea, I think to myself. At this point, I sample the cup.Sure enough, it's tea. Strike two. Soon, she brings the rest of the order. Here's what it looked like:




It tastes better than it looks, being quite vinegary, which is how most Griffin area places make it, and subsequently how I like it. The stew is actually a bit disappointing. It tastes ok, but looks like a soup with a bunch of cornbread in it. Overall, I'm going to have to give the grub a B-. It's good, but I don't expect it stand up to the offerings I will be experiencing in the near future. Like people say about the way kids are brought up today (i.e. constantly praised): "They can't all be above average".

Speaking of kids, take a look at this paper towel holder:

Now, does this belong in a family restaurant? Does it belong in any restaurant? Does it even make sense without a question mark?

So, it's with a sigh that I give Dunk's Barbecue of Griffin a grade of C-. You can do better, guys. I hope ya do. I'm pulling for ya.