Blue Sky Barbecue, Woodstock GA (CLOSED)

One indecisive Saturday recently, the girlchild asked to stay in bed, and so her brother and I went out to eat something. I was so indecisive that I started one direction and changed my mind, and then turned the other way. I finally figured out which direction out of our neighborhood that I should go when I remembered hearing that a barbecue place opened on the outskirts of Woodstock last year. It’s called Blue Sky Barbecue and it’s just off GA-92, less than a mile west of I-575 on the way to Acworth.

The owners picked a competitive location for the restaurant. It’d take you a couple of minutes, but you could walk to the popular and established Bub-Ba-Q from here. It’s in a small strip center in front of a big Lowe’s, a couple of doors down from a pretty good used bookstore, so that’s a guaranteed plus for me. There are few better ways to spend an hour than enjoying some barbecue and looking through some old books.

Our server couldn’t really answer any of my questions about the preparation. I understood that they use wood in a smoker in the kitchen, and, driving around back, there was indeed a very small and unobtrusive rack with a few logs by the back door. The style of the pulled pork owes a lot to the Sam and Dave school, with a mix of very pink meat, black bark, and very white meat that I’d honestly prefer to be chopped a little more before serving. The meat is a little smoky, but also very, very dry.

There are three sauces on the table. Like you often see in this area, there’s a mild sweet tomato-based sauce, an ever-so-slightly spicier version of that, and a mustard-based sauce. Let me tell you how dry this meat was. I’ve often seen meat absorb vinegar-based sauces so quickly that I’ve learned to only pour a small amount of sauce at a time. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen pork absorb a thicker tomato-based sauce quite so quickly as this did. Seems like I poured almost a third of that bottle of the spicy sauce onto my meat, and it never did get my tongue burning.

It was a pretty good lunch, but honestly not a standout for this area. We found some pretty good kids’ books, and my daughter enjoyed the food that I brought her, so everybody was satisfied. The next time that I feel like coming a few miles up I-575 for barbecue, however, I think I’d like to swing by that place that used to be Beetles and see how they’re doing under new ownership and a name change. Yes, probably should get around to that sometime.

Are you planning a barbecue road trip? You can see all the barbecue restaurants that we have visited for our blog (more than 320 !) on this map, with links back to the original blog posts!