Briar Patch Bar-B-Que, Hiram GA (take two)

Last month, the boychild and I drove out GA-120 to Hiram to revisit Briar Patch, a big barn of a restaurant that we last visited more than four years ago. I was hoping to get some more information about their mustard sauce, which is very, very similar to Chicken Comer’s sauce from Phenix City and which can be found at many of the older restaurants in the western suburbs of Atlanta.

Unfortunately, none of the servers knew much of anything about it, and my emails to the restaurant went unanswered. I would certainly love to know who can claim credit for bringing Chicken Comer-style hot lava mustard to northern Georgia, and when that was. Answers on a postcard, I suppose, readers…?

The tomato-based sauce is thicker than I remembered it, and thicker than I’ve previously reported it. There are enough similarities that I believe Briar Patch should be grouped into those restaurants in the Hudson’s/Wallace footprint, but theirs is not actually the thin sauce that Wallace originated. A really good and meaty stew with some proper, floppy, hand-cut fries are great accompaniments to a meal here.

The chopped pork has a really good taste, probably not as smoky as it should be, but it’s flavorful and moist. I don’t know that I’ll ask for it with sauce ever again. I only did that because I was anticipating the thinner Hudson’s-style sauce. No, the mustard sauce is much, much more interesting.

Are you planning a barbecue road trip? You can see all the barbecue restaurants that we have visited for our blog (more than 350 !) on this map, with links back to the original blog posts!