Neil's Guide to Great BBQ (and Some Other) Restaurants

Latest Update - April 22, 2008 (Bradenton, FL and Oahu, HI)

"You don't need teef to eat my beef."  (Author unknown.  Supposedly from a BBQ joint in Austin, TX.)

"The best barbecue you'll ever eat in in building that isn't condemned."  (Author unknown.)

"Eat well, stay fit, die anyway."  (Big Moe's M&M Ribs, 200 Geneva Ave., Boston, MA)

"Ribs so good even Adam would love them."  (Thanks to Paul Scott, Selectman, Town of Pelham, NH)

Welcome to my ever-evolving guide to barbecue restaurants across North America. The ratings are based on the quality (and quantity) of the food, the quality of the staff, the atmosphere, and anything else that happens to strike me. For example, my new favorite, replacing Werner's Pork House in Wilmington, OH, is Hot Rod's in Lutz, FL, north of Tampa.  Hot Rod's not only did a superb job on most of the standards but also offers grilled "bat" and fried Spam as appetizers and looks like it was put together using lumber scavenged from the side of the road.  Again, it's tough to beat a place like that.

I travel often so this list gets updated periodically. Also, feel free to send in your suggestions which I'll add periodically and credit you for. (Note that “periodically” means when I get around to it.)

Restaurants change and sometimes close so I can't vouch for the absolute accuracy of the listings. But I can vouch for the fact that each one was “darned fine” when I ate there.

Arizona 

Honey Bear's BBQ

7670 S. Priest Dr.

Tempe, AZ

480-222-2782

Take the Elliot Rd. exit off I10 East, take a right at the first light, take the first left into the Applebees parking lot, go past the Applebees, and Honey Bear's will be directly ahead.

I had a pulled pork sandwich with Texas red-hots (aka sausages) and a piece of sweet potato pie.  The red-hots were very good - hot sausages filled with red pepper flakes.  However, the pulled pork was so mild, almost bland, that it needed BBQ sauce to get it going.  However, the only sauce (in a heated soup tureen, by the way - nice touch) is a thin red sauce chock full of floating red pepper flakes.  It tasted good, but my mouth was so anaesthetized by the time I finished the sandwich that I couldn't taste anything else - a shame, because I love sweet potato pie.  Having a milder sauce available would better balance out the different foods.

Overall rating – Good, based largely on the imbalance between the different foods.

Big City BBQ

5118 S. Rural Rd.

Tempe, AZ

480-756-5702

In a shopping mall on Rural Rd. (which may have been rural once, but is now a major main drag) about a quarter mile south of Rt. 60 and a very easy shot to and from the airport.

Somewhat nondescript looking, like most good BBQ places, but neat and well laid out.  You order at a small counter and someone then brings the food to your table.

I had a two-meat combo, brisket and hot links, with mac-n-cheese and candied yams.  The brisket was excellent, thick chunks that needed almost no chewing and that were covered with a thick, slightly spicy sauce with, I think, a hefty dose of molasses.  Unusually, the brisket wasn't sliced.  Instead, it was in chunks, more like pulled pork.  The hot links were also good, chewy and with a good bite but not enough to anaesthetize the mouth like Honey Bear's.  The mac-n-cheese was excellent, slightly grainy as if it was made with real cheddar.  Finally, the yams were outstanding - chunks of yam in a thick sweet sauce.  Add a pie crust and some whipped cream and you'd have the makings of a first-class sweet potato pie.

Overall rating – Outstanding.

Thanks to Maggie Haenel, Jay Jolly, and Karen Pasley for bringing me here, treating me to dinner, and polishing off my leftovers.

Connecticut 

Brannigan's Restaurant

176 Laning St .

Southington , CT

860-621-9311

Exit 32 off I 84. You can see the restaurant directly ahead as you come off the exit ramp on 84 E. Follow signs for Travelodge and Holiday Inn Express. Pass the Holiday Inn Express. The restaurant is on the right about 200 yds past.

BBQ in Connecticut seems like a violation of the laws of nature, and the place was a little schitzophrenic. I had a half-rack of ribs with chicken breast, rice, and coleslaw. The rib quality was excellent - moist inside, crispy outside, and falling off the bone. The chicken also excellent. The rice and cole slaw were okay - bland. However, the BBQ sauce was bland to the point of being a lubricant rather than a sauce and actually detracted from the expectations set by the look of the meat.

The restaurant is really an Irish pub that also happens to serve ribs. Much of the décor consisted of road signs on the walls giving directions and distances in Gaelic. The staff was also young and more of a bar staff than a BBQ restaurant staff.

Overall rating – Because of the quality of the ribs, the place deserves an Excellent rating. However, the quality of the sauce brings it down to a Good. Still worth a detour though. (Thanks to a former client, now retired, for this recommendation.)

Florida 

Bubbalou's Bodacious BBQ

1049 East Altamonte Dr. (Hwy 436)

Altamonte Springs , FL

407-478-1212

Pass shopping center and RR tracks, on left. Watch for low sign with 3 dancing pigs.

I got ribs and sliced pork. They use pork ribs rather than baby backs, but they're tastier, meatier and less fatty than Kellers'. The pork was good but a little dry. Hot, mild, and sweet sauces were very good – the sweet was the best. The macaroni and cheese had a very good consistency but needed salt. Good garlic bread. The waitress called me "hon", then earned extra points by calling me "sweetie" on her next swing around the room.

Overall rating - Very good.

Keller's Real Smoked Bar-B-Q

280 South S.R. 434, St. 1047

Altamonte Springs , FL 32714

407-786-7750

See review for Keller's in Lake Mary .

BBQ Ray's Way

(Just outside Bradenton)

3436 Us Highway 301 N
Ellenton, FL 34222
941-721-4269

Great BBQ, with a good story. Ray had a license to sell bbq from a stand, but he put his stand in his back yard. The neighborhood wasn't zoned commercial, so they shut him down, even though many of his customers were municipal employees.

It took him a few months to re-open, in a small strip mall on 301. He still uses the same smoker out back of the restaurant. You can pick up the smell blocks away. Hickory smoke and pork fat. Mmmm.

I had the standard pulled pork and baked beans. Tried my first bite with no sauce or bread. Very tender, good smoky flavor, more clumpy than stringy ... and did I mention that it was tender. The charred edges were perfectly done also, not tough and thick, just crispy thin and crunchy. I usually like a tangy red sauce, ala Big John's Alabama BBQ in Tampa. I I tried Ray's red sauce and it was just okay. Then I tried the self-proclaimed best mustard-based sauce around. The first bite with that sauce didn't seem like anything special, but by the third bite I was pouring extra mustard sauce on every bite. There is just something about Ray's homemade sauce that is incredibly addictive.

The baked beans were also good, nice balance of bean and brown sugar and molasses. Tangy and sweet but not spicy.

My dining partner had the beef and I tried it. I am not a fan of beef BBQ in general, but it was every bit as tender and flavorful as the pork. I have not found many BBQ places that do both pork and beef to such a high standard, and equally well.

I can't give Ray an excellent on only one visit, but a solid very good / great. Going back 5/3, to do some field research and check for consistent quality / service.

There is an equally glowing review here:
http://www.insiderpages.com/b/15239225961

Ray vaulted straight into my top 5 or 6:
1. Big John's Alabama BBQ Tampa
2. Greenbreir Restaurant, 27028 Old Hwy 20 at Greenbrier Rd, Madison AL [Fried Okra! Hushpuppies!!!] -- careful, there is a Greenbrier BBQ on new hwy 20 ... not the same!
3. Big Bob Gibson's, Decatur, AL and Gibson's, Huntsville, AL
4. BBQ Ray's Way, Bradenton, FL
5. Clark's Outpost, Tioga, TX
6. The Commissary, Germantown, TN

Thanks to Victor Chapel, who seems to run in some major-league BBQ territory, for this review.  Nice work.

Keller's Real Smoked Bar-B-Q

3893 Lake Emma Rd.

Lake Mary , FL 32746

407-333-1444

In Lake Mary Center, behind Chili's, at corner of Lake Mary Blvd. and Lake Emma Rd., just past traffic light for Primera Blvd. (Another store in Altamonte Springs, in the WalMart Shopping Plaza at the corner of S.R. 434 and 436.)

I had the pork, beef, and rib combo. Overall, the meats were bland. The beef was fatty. The ribs were pork ribs rather than baby backs and somewhat fatty.

The hot sauce was very hot. The medium sauce was excellent and added a lot of flavor to the meats. The cowhide-look plastic tablecloths added a nice tacky touch. The waitress called me "dear" - not as good as "hon" but close.

Overall rating – Good, largely on the strength of the medium sauce and how it added flavor to the meats. Basically, you could view the meat as a vehicle for the sauce.

Happy Jack's

3151 US HWY 98 South
Lakeland , FL 33803
863-666-2900
www.happyjacksbbq.com

Happy Jack's is in an industrial section of a still relatively rural (but rapidly urbanizing) area of Florida between Tampa and Orlando . It's a place where you expect people to know good barbecue and likely make a good 'cue themselves as the standard against which all others are judged. A bad barbecue joint wouldn't have much chance and could never have the lived-in look of Happy Jack's.

The building looks like an old former service station. What limited seating is available are picnic tables out front in the dilapidated parking lot next to the big barrel smoker and the sizable woodpile. All of which were promising signs, although I'd heard some mixed reviews of the place.

The menu is a pretty straightforward affair, offering dinners, sandwiches, and family servings of ribs, chopped pork, brisket, and chicken. I ordered a rib and pork combo with green beans and potato salad on the side. They also offered baked beans, cole slaw, and corn cobbet [sic]. The generous dinners were also served with rolls. I also got the sweet tea (jumbo sized only, but comes in non-sweet regular for those without the southern sweet tooth) and a slice of red velvet cake with the optimistic anticipation that I'd have room for dessert (I didn't).

The ribs were almost too tender. I actually bit through a softened bone (yuk!). The meat, however, was flavorful and moist, so not overdone despite the obviously long time in the smoker. The chopped pork was tasty, although a little dry in bites. The beans were well-flavored with pork, but a bit overcooked. The potato salad was a mustardy version that paired nicely with the barbecue.

I tried all three tomato-based sauces: sweet, mild, and hot. All complemented the smoky  flavor of the meat well. As a fan of hot sauces, I was surprised to find the sweet sauce my favorite. It started with a taste of molasses and finished with a clean vinegar kick to give a pleasantly sweet-sour experience. The hot was underwhelming for any true fan of heat.

Overall rating - Good to Very Good. If the meat texture had been a little more consistent and the green beans a little less done, it would be an unequivocal Very Good.

Thanks to Karen Bachmann, one of my southern BBQ mainstays, for this review.

Hot Rod's Country BBQ

18430 Livingston Ave
Lutz , FL 33559
(813) 948-7988

http://www.hotrodsbbqgrill.com/

The silliest, weirdest, and most memorable BBQ joint I've found… Also one of the best. The only place I've found with “grilled bat” and fried Spam as menu options…

Hot Rod's is 20 miles north of Tampa , and just before a traffic light if you're going north on Livingston . That's an important landmark.  Without it, it's easy to miss the place because Hot Rod's looks less like a restaurant than a large shack built out of stuff scavenged off the side of the road. The overall impression is silly schlock but authentic silly schlock, rather than silly schlock put together by a restaurant designer.

Eight of us went, so we gave the menu a good workout. The first selection, with some nervousness, was the grilled bat. This apparently used to be a real fruit bat until the health department stepped in, at which point they switched to quail but kept the bat theme. We ordered one on a bed of cornbread pudding. The “bat” was covered in a nice, sweet sauce, but doesn't have much meat. Think of it as a small, slightly moister (“slimy” according to one person) chicken. It may be an acquired taste. Mild but good cornbread pudding. (Note that this isn't pudding in the usual sense, but more like grits.)

The second appetizer was an entire can of Spam – “redneck prime rib” – sliced, fried, and laid out on a plate with the can as a centerpiece. If you like Spam, as I do, it was great and I gave it high marks. If not – if you think about what you may be eating, for example – it's best left alone.

For the main part of the meal, I'll sum it all up rather than go through each order. Ribs – outstanding, slightly crunchy on the outside and just short of falling off the bone on the inside. No fat whatsoever on mine or Mike's, although Connie wasn't happy about some globs of fat on hers that she had to pick off. Pulled pork – outstanding, not mushy at all and with a slightly sweet sauce. Chicken – very good but too mild without the skin. Cornbread pudding – good, slightly sweet, but didn't really stand out on its own. Cole slaw – very good, finely chopped and sweet. The green beans were apparently explosive. The baked beans were between very good and excellent, firm and with chunks of pulled pork mixed in.   Sweet potato – unusual for a BBQ place and outstanding, half a huge sweet potato done up with orange juice, brown sugar, molasses - we think - and who-knows-what else. (It reminded me of a sweet potato that I bought off a yam cart in Pensacola , FL in 1973 and that I still remember fondly. It was that good and so was Rod's.)

There were three sauces – mild (used as a base on the ribs), sweet, and hot. The mild was good but very mild. The sweet sauce wasn't very sweet until I swirled a layer of honey, I think, that had settled to the bottom of the container. Then it was excellent. The Cajun (hot) sauce was excellent, with enough bite to make it hot but without anesthetizing your tongue.

The dessert was excellent but not quite what we expected – peach cobbler with ice cream that was more of a cobbler cake with peaches on top.

On the dark side, a few people thought the inside smelled musty, as if it had been flooded recently (Florida, land of hurricanes…) and never quite dried out. We sat outside so the smell wasn't a problem while we ate, but it was noticeable enough to be a downcheck from several people.  Several people also saw a cat run by the table, something to be aware of if you don't like animals running through your seating area.

Overall rating – Outstanding, with the weirdness plus the quality of most of the food, plus the Spam and the “bat”, offsetting the mildness of the chicken and the musty smell.

Thanks to George Smith of SoftComputer in Clearwater for recommending the place (and ironically not being able to make it). Thanks also to Jennifer Morse of MadCap Software Sales for sending me to do a Flare course at SoftComputer and starting all this. Finally, thanks to Nancy and Scott Edson for being willing to try eating in a place that looked like this, Mark Lewis and Karen Bachmann, who'll happily try anything called “BBQ”, Mike and Anne Mauro, who battled Tampa traffic to get there and loved it enough to want to go back, and Connie, just for being Connie. A good and congenial group to go out for BBQ with.

Hickory Smoke House Bar-B-Que

6769 U.S. 19 N

Pinellas Park , FL 33781

727-525-0948

On the main road on the north side of St. Petersburg . A comfortably dark, old-fashioned looking place. I got the combo platter - ribs, chicken, pork, beef. They use pork ribs instead of baby backs so they're less meaty and fattier but tasted good. Tangy sauce but with little aftertaste. The pulled pork was good with good texture. The beef was okay but chopped like the pork and even tasted similar. At one point, I wasn't sure if I was reaching for chopped beef or chopped pork. Chicken was good but all dark meat. Corn on the cob was good but a little mushy. Fries okay.

Overall rating - Good.

BBQ Rib Ranch

2545 S. French Ave.

Sanford, FL 32773
(407) 321-0090

S. French is a local main drag about 5 miles east of I-4.  The restaurant is on the left side of S. French, about 300 yards south of 46A.  At first glance, the place looked not only closed but condemned.  It was only by accident that I noticed a small neon sign that said Open, so I pulled in (thinking that the place already looked promising). 

The building is a faded reddish-brown, with a faded reddish-brown sign with no neon at all and a battered metal chimney rising out of a smoker in the back of the building.  The inside is paneled in quasi-knotty pine, with 4 x 8 sheets of plywood, painted the same reddish-brown, serving as the ceiling.  Cartoons and old maps of Florida on the wall...  The more I looked, the more points the place gained just in atmosphere.

The menu offered too many things to pick from, so I got the sampler combo - ribs, beef, pork, and a quarter chicken (a breast and a drumstick), with cole slaw and mac-and-cheese on the side.

Overall assessment - Ribs were outstanding, crunchy and spicy on the outside and moist and tender inside.  They used regular pork ribs and left on the tip bones that get trimmed off in a St. Louis cut, but there was almost no fat.  Chicken was excellent, again spicy and crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside.  The beef and pork were both very good, chopped into large chunks but a little dry and needing BBQ sauce to juice them up.  The cole slaw was excellent, as was the mac-and-cheese.  The latter was even salty enough for me, and made me think that if my mother had ever run a BBQ joint, this was how she would have turned out macaroni and cheese.

There were two sauce, sweet and hot.  Both were excellent, although I preferred the sweet for no reason that I can name.

Overall rating - Excellent, held back only by the dryness of the pork and beef.

Thanks to Karen Ozolnieks of SunGard HTE in Lake Mary for recommending this place.

Fat Boys' Bar-B-Q

2912 13TH St
St Cloud, FL 34769-5902 
(407) 892-4400

Follow 192 E out of Kissimmee and watch for the restaurant on the left about half a mile past Brown Chapell Rd. on the left.  Big place, with plastered walls set off by dark wood beams.  Nice but a bit upscale for a BBQ place.

Went with Connie, her sister and brother-in-law Nancy and Scott, their son Dave, and his wife Ana.  Everyone got various samplers, except for Ana who, somehow, remains a vegetarian in this crowd.  Ana got onion rings - big, thick, hot, and fresh - which largely disappeared after one pass around the table.

The waitress or the kitchen got the orders mixed up - bad sign - but brought extra ribs to atone - good sign.

Overall assessment - Ribs were excellent, moist and tender with good flavor although not that much smoke.  Sliced beef was excellent, tender.  Chicken was very tender but a little bland.  Sauce helped.  Sliced pork was disappointing, tasty but fatty.  Fries were okay.  Ana's corn on the cob was okay but had the usual steam table mushiness. 

Offered three sauces in squeeze bottles - hot, sweet, and honey mustard.  Dave, Connie, and I tested all three and preferred the sweet.  The honey mustard was good but Connie thought it had a bitter aftertaste.

Overall rating - Very good to excellent, held back largely by the fattiness of the pork and the non-descript fries.

Sonny's Real Pit Bar-B-Q

4475 13TH St
St Cloud, FL 34769
(407) 892-2285

A southern chain, with restaurants across the south and plastered across Florida and Georgia.  The St. Cloud one is on the right on Rt. 192 east of Kissimmee (Orlando area).  Big place, big dining room, with a big salad bar.  As with Fat Boy's, Sonny's is nice but a bit upscale for a BBQ place.  On the other hand, it doesn't have the cutesy "fish shack" look of Famous Dave's. 

Went with Connie and her sister and brother-in-law Nancy and Scott.  Got the Feast for Four - pork, beef, chicken, and ribs, plus sweet potatoes, green beans, and cole slaw, plus corn bread, plus a side of fried squash for Nancy.  The ribs were excellent, moist and tender with good flavor but not that much smoke.  The beef and pork were thin sliced and a bit dry, with good but very mild flavor.  The chicken was excellent, juicy rather than dry as it so often is.  The corn bread and cole slaw were excellent, as were the sweet potatoes which came with cinnamon butter.  Even the green beans and squash were good, and I can't stand either one.

Offered five sauces in squeeze bottles - sweet, mildly hot, hot with chipotle, mild, and mustard.  I liked all five, but the vote was for the sweet. Connie didn't like the chipotle flavor and thought that all the sauces except the sweet were a little gritty.

Overall rating - Very good to excellent, held back largely by the mildness of the pork and beef and Connie's thumbs down on four of the sauces.

Jazzy's BBQ

5703 W. Waters Ave.

Tampa, FL 33634

813-243-8872

A snap to reach from the airport area - just get on Veteran's Expressway north, get off at exit 6A, go to the light at the end of the exit ramp, and Jazzy's will be almost directly in front of you across the street.  (It's easy to miss.  I went half a mile up and down the street before realizing that it had been right in front of me.  Sigh...)

Jazzy's is built in a defunct restaurant and has an odd mix of "building-that-used-to-be-a-restaurant" features and traditional BBQ joint features like an unpaved parking lot filled with everything from Harleys to Cadillac SUVs.  In the back, there's a large, trailerable BBQ smoker and a huge pile of logs.  A great start...  The inside is pretty spartan, with Jazzy's slogans painted on the walls, an iced tea dispenser against one wall on a folding table, an open counter, and a double-decked grill behind it with a mix of ribs, chicken, and sausage going full tilt.  The place smelled great.  And I took it as a good sign that there were fifteen people in line in front of me.

I got a two-way combo platter - pork ribs and sausage.  The ribs were done to a turn - meat almost falling off the bone.  However, they were very lightly smoked and were charred in a few spots.  The sausage was very good - coarsely ground but with an unusually thick casing.   I got cole slaw as a side, which was a standard good cole slaw.   They only serve mac and cheese on Fridays, unfortunately.

Overall rating - Very good.  Less charing on the ribs would have bumped the place up to excellent.

Thanks to Mark Lewis (who described Jazzy's as "...should be right up your "dirt" alley.") for recommending this place.

Georgia 

GA Pig (12/31/08)

Route 17 & I-95
Exit 29 (Jekyll Island exit)
Brunswick, GA

912-427-2628

"Like something out of Deliverance..." according to my sister-in-law Nancy, "with a fire burning out back and two hound-dogs running around loose." Inside, the place is "filled with Elvis photos and an overwhelming smell of smoke.  'Hundreds' of sauces...  Family-style seating...   The local cops eat there..." Nancy and her husband Scott stopped into the GA Pig almost by accident on their drive from Vermont to Florida for their three-month snow-free stint, and it's clear that years of eating BBQ on my back porch has paid off.

To see what the GA Pig actually looks like, go to this site.  Nancy said she was reluctant to even go in at first.

They split a two-meat plate - chopped pork and ribs.  The pork "... was amazing.  Smoky but not too much so.  So good..."  The ribs were "...chewy, smoky, tasty."  "Nothing over-sauced."

Overall rating - "Outstanding, if only for the ambiance."  (I have to qualify this by noting that it takes a lot to earn a rating of Outstanding.  On the other hand, you have to trust your people in the field.  So, outstanding it is...) Thanks to Nancy and Scott Edson for putting their hides on the line in the interest of pure research...

J.R.'s Log House

6601 Peachtree Industrial Blvd.

Norcross , GA 30092

770-449-6426

Big, old-fashioned-style place (a good sign) with blackboard specials. Tried a 2-meat platter - sliced brisket and chicken. The brisket very good but only mildly smoky, with the smoke ring less than 1/8" deep. The chicken was very good, moist and with a lot of tangy sauce. The macaroni and cheese was thick and cheesy but needed more salt. (This is a common problem with the macaroni and cheese in BBQ joints, but may also be my problem since my mother tended to bury everything in salt.)

The Brunswick stew was very good, with pureed tomatoes rather than chunked tomatoes. They only offered one sauce but it was excellent - tangy, a little sweet, and crunchy with small bits of onion.

Overall rating - Excellent.

Slope's BBQ

10360 Alpharetta Highway

Roswell , GA

770-518-7000

Ate here in 1997 so the place may not even exist anymore. But the pulled pork and sauce were excellent. Be aware that they close at 2:30 on Sunday.

Overall rating - Excellent.

Hawaii 

Vicky's Filipino Cafe

Hotel St.

Honolulu , HI

Obviously not a BBQ restaurant but too good to pass up. (Besides, it's my list.)

A Filipino cafeteria in the group of Asian restaurants and noodle shops on Hotel St. in downtown Honolulu . I was the only non-Asian in the place, which took the staff and other diners by surprise. But the cooks were great and gave me a detailed explanation, sometimes more detailed than I wanted, of all the different dishes. I had adobo, some sort of beef with gravy, and rice, all of which, even the rice, were great. They also served balut (hard-boiled duck eggs with the embryo) which I skipped for obvious reasons but took as a sign that this was the real thing.

Overall rating – If you don't mind being an object of curiosity and some giggling by the staff and the other customers, then the place gets an Excellent.

Molly's Smokehouse

23 S Kamehameha Hwy
Wahiawa, Central Oahu
621-4858
Open Daily 11am - 9pm

Molly's Smokehouse - Texas-Style BBQ in Wahiawa - My favorite BBQ restaurant on Hawaii (Oahu).

Thanks to Pavel Peroutka for this recommendation

Indiana 

Smokey Bones BBQ

5910 E. 82nd St .

Indianapolis , IN 45250

(317) 595-0094

www.smokeybones.com

In NorthEast Indianapolis at the intersection of Rt. 465 and Allisonville Rd.

A crowded place that gives beepers to the people in line. Excellent St. Louis style ribs, very meaty and falling off the bone, with a smoky and tangy sauce. Excellent sausage. Pulled pork was good but, as usual, a little mushy. Very good sauce. Cinnamon apples were good but mushy.

Overall rating - Very good. (Would have been excellent except for the pulled pork and cinnamon apples.)

Kansas 

Hog Wild Pit Bar-B-Q

1200 S. Rock Rd.

Wichita, KS

316-618-7227

About half a mile south of Kellogg Rd. (Rt. 54), on the left in a small strip mall.  Doesn't stand out very well so watch carefully after turning off Webb and onto Rock.

The look is what you'd expect from a place in a strip mall - neat and clean.   A sign on the door states that this is a "smoke-free" restaurant - a surreal touch for a place that sells smoked meat.  A row of plants stretches the length of the store above the ordering and serving counter, but this is offset a bit by the fact that the signs for "Order", "Pickup", and the restaurant name itself are made out of twisted strands of barbed wire.

I ordered a two-meat plate - brisket and pulled pork.  Both were very good and tender.  The only problem was that the brisket came chopped and, after covering the brisket and pork with BBQ sauce, it was hard to tell them apart.  Excellent BBQ sauces, by the way.  The mild had a deep taste and the hot wasn't really hot, just spiced up a bit to give it a bite but without making sweat break out on your hairline.  Excellent cole slaw.

Overall rating - Very good. (Would have been excellent except for the difficulty distinguishing between the brisket and pulled pork.)

Thanks to Rex Schechster of CCH for this recommendation.

Two Brothers BBQ

300 S. Greenwich Rd.

Wichita, KS

316-683-1330

www.twobrothersbbqkansas.com

On the right, about 300 yards north of Kellogg Rd. (Rt. 54) on Greenwich, almost directly across from Subway.  Basically, the place is in the southeast corner of the Raytheon/Beech Airport.  It's in a small, whitewashed brick building that stands alone, but doesn't stand out very well so watch carefully after passing Subway.

The inside is nicely spartan, with a small order and pickup counter, ten or so small tables, and two TVs.

I ordered a two-meat plate - brisket and Kansas City burned ends.  The brisket was outstanding - thinly sliced, moist, and with a deep smoke ring. 

I'd read descriptions of burned ends but never had them before.  They're made out of the end pieces that get trimmed off when cutting a brisket and are then smoked all over again.  (Assuming that you save the end chunks rather than eating them.  This never happens when I make brisket at home because my wife steals the end chunks and shares them with the dog, so the idea has never progressed beyond theory.)  Burned ends are usually described as looking like pieces of charcoal covered with BBQ sauce, but these looked just like small chunks of brisket.  You don't get the full effect until you pop a piece in your mouth, at which point the piece just melts away like a meringue.  Absolutely outstanding.  There's a story, probably apocryphal, about a BBQ restaurant in Austin, TX whose sign read "You don't need teef to eat my beef", and you see what they mean when you try a burned end.

The BBQ sauce was also outstanding.  I kept eating it by the spoonful.  The cole slaw was very good, but little more than an afterthought in this meat nirvana.

Overall rating - Outstanding.

Massachusetts 

Midwest Grill

1124 Cambridge St .

Cambridge , MA

617-354-7536

Brazilian Barbeque restaurant. There's no set menu. Instead, the cooks go to the market every morning and buy whatever looks good. They then cook the meats on sword-like skewers and the waiters periodically carry the skewers around the dining room and offer to carve some of whatever they're carrying directly into your plate. The pork, steak, and chicken were excellent. Even the chicken livers were excellent and I normally wouldn't touch chicken livers at gunpoint. The feijoada - pronounced "feshwada" - Brazilian fried rice is wonderful. The biggest problem is to avoid pigging out on Feijoada and being too full for the meat.

Overall rating - Outstanding.

Firefly's

235 Old Connecticut Path

Framingham , MA 01701

508-820-3333

www.fireflysbbq.com

Modern place, well-laid out. Owned by the guy who started Tennessee 's, which is also in Framingham . There's another Firefly's in Marlboro, MA, which is more convenient.  (See below.)

Went with Nancy and Scott, my wife's sister and brother-in-law. Very good ribs - use St. Louis-cut ribs that were meatier and more tender than mine, and probably a special cut for restaurants. However Nancy liked the taste of my ribs better. (No wonder I like her.) Their pulled pork was better than mine - slightly sweet with a slight zing.

The cheesy potatoes sounded good but were bland. However, the sweet potato pudding with chopped pecan pralines was outstanding. The macaroni and cheese was very good but, as usual, needed more salt.

Overall rating - Excellent.

Beira Rio

26 Andover Street

Lowell , MA

978 - 454 - 5007

An Argentine barbecue like the MidWest Grill in Cambridge , MA . (See above.) Beira Rio looks like a cafeteria, unlike the MidWest Grill which was a very nice looking place, but has great food for a lot less money. You can either get buffet only (with some meat, including a great beef with onions but not the full barbecue) for about $6 or everything for about $14. Great desserts too. At one point, the waitress lost track of who ate what and offered to give us the deserts for free if we came back. We told her that wasn't necessary; we'd come back anyway. The only problem was that the food came too fast and had to ask the waitress to slow down.

The place lived up to its first impressions on a return visit, which often doesn't happen. The cook was carving meat for me and kept going when I kept saying “no mas”, which I thought was Portuguese for “no more”. I wound up with over a pound of meat which I ate while the rest of the table made fun of my Portuguese language skills.

(Thanks to Allen and Susanne Beebe for this recommendation.)

Overall rating - Outstanding.

Firefly's

350 East Main St.

Marlboro, MA 01752

508-357-8883

www.fireflysbbq.com

Second location of the Framingham restaurant.  (See above.)  Owned by the guy who started Tennessee's, also in Framingham.

From Tewksbury - Take 495 South to exit 24A for Marlboro, Rt. 20 East and follow Rt. 20 for about 3 miles.  Restaurant is on a small rise on the left as the road bends to the right. 

Went with Connie, my BBQ partner and competitor (and wife, incidentally).  She got a 1/2 rack of St. Louis ribs and I got a 2-meat platter with pulled pork and sliced brisket.  The consistency of all the meats was great - tender but not quite falling off the bone for the ribs, pull-apart tender for the brisket, and non-mushy for the pork.  The problem is that the ribs and brisket had little or no smoke flavor and were so mild as to be almost unspiced.  The pork tasted good but that might have been the Memphis sauce (which Connie highly approved of).

The sweet potato pudding with chopped pecan pralines was outstanding, just as it was in Framingham.  (We debated taking it home in a doggie bag but, by the time we finished debating, we'd eaten it all.  Good sign.)   The macaroni and cheese wasn't as cheesy as the version in Framingham and, as usual, needed salt.  Connie got the collard greens which she said were "good".

Overall rating - Good.  If the ribs and brisket had had more spice, the place would have gotten a Very Good or even a low Excellent.

American Barbecue

5 Railroad Ave.

Rowley, MA 01969

(978) 948-2626

www.theamericanbarbecue.com

In a small town on Boston's north shore, about 30 miles north of Boston itself.   The restaurant itself is just off Rt. 1A and easily visible, and there were signs out at various points in the road.  The building is a log-look with a small porch.  The menu is on boards over the ordering window, and there's popcorn machine and a barrel of peanuts near the door for munchies.

The place has a good selection of traditional BBQ meats, including Texas smoked sausages and beef brisket, both of which are rare in BBQ places in New England.  (One owner once told me that no one in New England understands what brisket is, and by the time he finished explaining the customer had decided on something else.)

We split a three-meat combo - Memphis ribs, pulled pork, and pulled chicken, with baked beans for Connie and mashed sweet potatoes for me.  The ribs were good - a little overcooked with the meat falling off the bone a little too readily and not that much flavor.  The pulled pork was excellent - a mix of chunks and threads with no mushiness.  The pulled chicken was also excellent and unusual, with chunks of chicken as well as threads - as if if had been pulled and chopped.  Very well done.

Connie approved of the beans.  We split on the sweet potato, which had some sort of citrus undertone something like lemon and orange.  I liked it, but Connie thought it was odd.

They had several sauces - a mild one, which we liked very much, a hot one, which was good but had a long and lingering burn, a yellow mustard sauce that we didn't get to try, and a vinegar-based sauce in a shaker bottle which we tried and liked.

Overall rating - Given that a BBQ place in New England has to be rated on a different scale than one in the south, I'd rate the American Barbecue Very good, based on the pulled pork and chicken and the mild sauce, with points off for the ribs.  Well worth a visit.

(Thanks to Deb and Jeff Sauer for this recommendation.)

Smokey Bones BBQ & Sports Bar

431 Middlesex Road

Tyngsboro , MA 01879

(978) 649-5410

www.smokeybones.com

Next to Pheasant Lane Mall outside Nashua , NH .

Very crowded place, with beepers given to people in line. Very good ribs, very good spicy fries. Other than that, not much stands out about the place for some reason.

(Thanks to Brian and Amy Hunter for this recommendation.)

Overall rating - Very good.

Maryland 

Bubba's BBQ

201E. Pratt St .

Baltimore , MD

410-783-0137

In the Inner Harbor , facing the Pride of Baltimore Baltimore Clipper. Went with charter members of the STC's BBQ SIG – Karen Bachmann, Julie Bommarito, Nicky Bleiel, and Ed Marshall – at the end of the 2004 STC annual conference. Ribs were good - meaty and tender with a good, mildly spicy sauce. Pulled pork was "a little mushy" according to Karen.

Checked oilcloth table clothes was a nice touch. No extra sauce on the table gets points off. Basically a good barbecue place in a very touristy area but still good for all that.

Overall rating - Good to very good.

Copeland's

1584 Rockville Pike

Rockville , MD 20852

301-230-0968

New Orleans Creole cuisine rather than BBQ. I ordered jambalaya, which isn't Creole but was on the menu anyway.

Overall rating - Very good.

Michigan 

Memphis Smokehouse

100 South Main St .

Royal Oak , MI 48067

248-543-4300

North of Rt. 696 at corner of Main St. and 11 Mile Rd. in Royal Oak . Take Woodward Ave. exit off 696E, follow service road to NEXT light, turn left onto Main St. , and follow for about 1 mile. Place is on left at traffic light. For municipal parking lot, turn right at same light, go ~100 yds., and turn right into lot.

Primary impression of the place was dark – dark wood floors, dark oak tables and chairs, dark ceiling, etc. A very old-fashioned looking place.

My first experience with Memphis style ribs, where they sprinkle on a final layer of dry rub just before bringing the ribs out. I also had a long talk with the cook, who said that they cookd the ribs at 270 degrees for about 3 hours.

Overall rating - Excellent.

Minnesota 

Famous Dave's

2131 Snelling Ave.

Roseville, MN

651-633-4800

Famous Dave's is, in theory, everything that a BBQ joint should not be - part of a huge chain (100+ outlets), in chain restaurant-style buildings with overly cutesy decor, and lots of professionally-done advertising.  And yet...  I like the place.  The meat is excellent, the sauces vary but they're all at least good, the place is clean and easy to find...  More specifically...

This restaurant is on a main drag - Snelling - north of Minneapolis and about four miles south of Rt. 694 at the Snelling Avenue exit.  It's also just across the road from the Har Mar Mall, so it's easy to find.  I went in the late afternoon on a Wednesday, so the place was pretty empty.  It's full of old-looking oak tables and chairs, with a take-out booth at the front door and an apparent take-out booth inside where you actually place your order for someone to bring to your table.  They were playing a great Blues CD in the background, which included Long Tall Marcia Ball on piano.

I ordered a two-meat platter - ribs and pulled pork - with apples and coleslaw.  The platters also come with corn on the cob and a corn muffin.  The ribs were excellent - falling off the bone tender with no fat at all.  The pork was also excellent - chunks and strings, chewy but not mushy, covered with sauce on a slice of white bread.  Apples were excellent, as was the coleslaw.

Overall rating - I'm probably violating some law of nature by doing this, but I rate the place as excellent.

Nevada 

The Claim Jumper

4905 South Virginia St. (Redfield Promenade)

Reno, NV

(775) 829-0200

Easy to find - about a mile south of the Peppermill casino and almost directly across from the Olive Garden.

Not a BBQ place but a restaurant with a broad menu that includes chicken, baby back ribs, St. Louis ribs, and beef ribs.  Very nice looking, but expensive and lacking standard BBQ joint elements like neon signs for cheap beers and tacky vinyl tableclothes.

I got St. Louis ribs with cole slaw and the cheesy potato cakes - fried potato cakes mixed with three kinds of cheese and topped with a 1000-island style dressing.  Ribs were very good - meaty and tender but very mild and with little smoke flavor.  The idea seems to be to use the BBQ sauce if  you want to jazz up the meat.  The sauce was a tomato-based sauce with what I thought was a strong molasses note but the waitress said there wasn't any molasses in it.  Whatever it was, it tasted good, with enough bite to spice up the ribs.  The cole slaw was standard good.  The potato cakes were very good but dry and could have used extra dressing on the side.

Overall rating - As a restaurant, excellent.  As a BBQ joint, good.

(Thanks to Kim Radzik of Intuit for this recommendation.)

North Carolina 

Bullock's Barbecue

3330 Quebec Dr

Durham , NC

(919) 383-3211

A very popular place with a line at the door, including many families which seems like a good sign.

Carolina style rather than Texas style. No ribs or brisket on the menu but heavy on fried chicken, pulled pork, and southern BBQ style side dishes like okra, as I recall, along with the usual cole slaw, etc. Went with a group and got the family-style order - basically non-stop bowls and platters of fried chicken, pulled pork, cole slaw, beans, etc. Excellent beans, very good pulled pork with a mix of shreds and chunks. Waitress had a bleached beehive hairdo and clearly took no guff from anyone – extra points.

Overall rating - Excellent.

(Thanks to Sarah O'Keefe of Scriptorium Publishing Services for this recommendation.)

Q Shack

2514 University Dr .

Durham , NC 27707

919-402-4BBQ

A fairly large and modern looking place with lots of glass and indoor and outdoor seating areas. Extensive selection and a staff that seemed perfectly happy to give out samples. Almost made a meal out of the samples before deciding that we'd better order something.

Had ribs and pulled pork, with cole slaw and hush puppies. Excellent ribs, meaty and well cooked with just enough bite to be interesting but not overpowering. Pulled pork was also excellent, not mushy at all and with a mix of shreds and large chunks. Either we got some fresh out of the smoker or else they've figured out a way to avoid mushiness. (A lot of other places could take a lesson from whatever the Q Shack does to prevent mushy pulled pork – highly recommended.) Cole slaw good, hush puppies excellent. Also had fried pies (apple) for desert. Messy and excellent.

Sauce was a good, vinegar-based sauce. However, the pork was good enough by itself that the sauce barely registered.

Overall rating – Between Excellent and Outstanding.

(Thanks to Ann-Marie, Hank, and Lian (my little crème brulee buddy) Grissino for this recommendation.)

Davis Family Barbecue

10208 Chapel Hill Rd.

Morrisville , NC

919-380-9039

Directions from the airport - Follow Airport Blvd south/west , cross over Rt. 40, and go about a mile until Airport Blvd ends at Chapel Hill Rd. Left on Chapel Hill Rd. Go about a mile, watch for Morrisville Station (strip mall) on right. Restaurant is about 100 yards further ahead on the left.

Definitely not a chain. Looked more like what I expect a southern BBQ restaurant to be. Located in a small brick and cinder block building, with a drive-up window, next to a car wash. Picnic-table style booths inside, with plastic covered menus and a pass-through ordering and serving window.

Excellent pulled pork with a mix of shreds and chunks. Almost no mushiness. Chicken tasted great but was a thigh so not much meat. Only sauce is a generic vinegar-mustard sauce in an unlabelled squeeze bottle – sort of a “take-it-or-leave-it” sauce. Hush puppies good but a little bland.

Cook called me "buddy". Not as good as a "hon" from a waitress but still enough to earn points.

Overall rating - Very Good.

Don Murray's

2751 Capital Boulevard

Raleigh , NC 27604

919-872-6270

In a non-descript white building that looks like a large one-story frame house.  The seating brought back memories of the kitchen set in my parents' house in the early 1960s.  Our waitress fit the "tough-but-with-a-heart-of-gold" stereotype that seems so prevalent in southern BBQ places.  Went with Cevin Moran of RemoteSite Training and her friend Alex, also from Boston, and the waitress gave Alex and I some mild ribbing, in a great southern accent, about having to come so far to get decent food.  Speaking of which...

This was my first North Carolina buffet, and it was awesome - hush puppies, chopped pork, smothered (in brown gravy) pork chops, smothered hamburg steaks, fried trout, fried chicken, lima beans, collard greens, potatoes, chicken and dumplings, and a bunch of other things that escape me now.  There was also a salad table, although Cevin was the only person I saw go near it.  The desert table looked great, but I never got to it after being stuffed to the gills.  (The takeout menu also includes things like fried okra, fried squash, corn sticks, flounder, black-eyed peas, etc., that sometimes make it onto the buffet.)

The chopped pork was excellent - shreds and chunks with very little mushiness and a tart, thin, vinegar-based sauce.  The fried chicken was very tasty and, unlike most of these places, was either a breast or one of the meatiest thighs I've ever had.  The chicken and dumplings was excellent, with enough chicken fat that a cardiologist could set up shop next to the cash register.  I thought the hush puppies were good but a little rubbery.  (I seem to be in sync with a lot of local reviewers, who said much worse things about the hush puppies.)

Cevin ordered fried chicken livers off the menu, and got a platter that she got about halfway through before giving up and taking them home.

The place was also very cheap - under $10 for the buffet. 

Overall rating - Excellent, as long as you go once a year and take the rest of the time to recover.

(Thanks to Cevin Moran of RemoteSite Training for this recommendation.)

Old Time Barbecue

6309 Hillsborough St .

Raleigh , NC 27606

919-859-2544

www.oletime.citysearch.com

Definitely an old-time looking place, with a counter, five or six tables, and a lot of bric-a-brac all over the walls. Waitress was young and didn't call me "hon" but had a great southern accent of some sort that made up for it.

Had pulled pork, fried chicken (this is North Carolina ), cole slaw, hush puppies. Pulled pork tasted great but had the usual mushiness that seems endemic to pulled pork that's spent the day on a steam table. Fried chicken was very tasty, but was a thigh so didn't have that much meat. (Don't these places ever serve breasts?!) Very good hush puppies, standard cole slaw. Offered a moderately zingy vinegar style sauce. Cheap (combo was $7.95) and fast (plates showed up less than 10 minutes after we ordered).

Overall rating - Very good.

(Thanks to Cevin Moran of RemoteSite Training for this recommendation.)

New York 

Sal's Birdland

Rochester , NY

BBQ chicken chain in the Rochester area. There's a site near the airport, very convenient for picking up sauce on the way home from a job. Very good, juicy chicken. Excellent, explosive mustard and vinegar based sauce with lots of red pepper flecks floating around in it. By varying the amount of sauce, you can get the chicken ranging from SissyBird to, as I recall, Nuclear. Go Nuclear but expect your tongue and the corners of your mouth to go numb.

Introduced to the place in the early 80s by my brother Jay who attended the University of Rochester and would send me 6-packs of sauce as birthday presents.

Overall rating – Excellent.

Dinosaur Barbecue

246 W. Willow St .

Syracuse , NY

315-476-4937

99 Court St.

Rochester , NY

585-325-7090

646 W. 131 st St .

New York , NY

212-694-1777

Note that two people independently recommended this place. Thanks to Robert Galloway and Gary Levine.

Robert Galloway

Next time you are in NYC, I would invite you to visit Dinosaur Barbeque.

http://www.dinosaurbarbque.com/nyc/index.html

It's around the corner from my apartment here in Manhattanville in what has become an unexpectedly trendy part of town -- the Hudson River shore above 125th Street.  (Columbia University is planning to expand its School of the Arts into that neighborhood.)

I thought that being buried in a former meat packing district in the wrong end of town, under the West Side highway, would make this one venture doomed to failure. To my utter amazement, the house is packed every weekend. I couldn't even get a reservation on a Saturday night.

I am no expert on BBQ, but the catfish is good, and you can't beat the look of the place. They made it look like it's been on the block for the last 60 years.

Gary Levine

I always wanted to go on a bar b q tour of the US like on Travel Channel and Food Network. Taking daughter to look at schools in south will take me to Tenn , NC and Va. Going to tast my way while she looks at schools.  

The Dinosaur is the upstate NY rage. I work next door and eat there often. The atmosphere is unique-the waitresses all have an edge, the diverse clientele, the long daily waits, the lack of parking and all in a old former RR building. Great place with consistently great food.  

"Dinosaur Bar-B-Que kicked into gear in 1983 when John Stage, a Harley-loving biker with a taste for barbecue, took to the road cooking sandwiches on a sawed-in-half 55-gallon drum at "biker gigs" up and down the East Coast. Stage sampled world-class barbecue in Virginia , Texas , North Carolina , and Memphis , soaking up "the Southern barbecue vibe" (and picking up Creole, Asian, and Cuban influences along the way) before setting up shop in Syracuse , New York , in 1988. Dinosaur Bar-B-Que: An American Roadhouse captures the reach-out-and-taste-it smell of slow-cooked barbecue that hits you two blocks away from the "genuine honky-tonk rib joint," where outfront a row of gleaming Harleys stand at attention and inside a sassy, ready-to-bust-your-chops wait staff cuts through the eclectic crowd of bikers, students, suits, and blues lovers (there's live music almost nightly), serving up half-racks of Dinosaur-Style Ribs, Texas Beef Brisket, and Honey Hush Corn Bread." www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580082653/104-575