Marie’s B-B-Q House, Heflin AL

Because, as I’ve mentioned, I am a little mercenary and wanted specifically to add an extra chapter or two to this blog, I hoped to grab one more small bite to eat before we got back to Atlanta. So on our way into town, I noticed that there was an outpost of a small, somewhat well-known barbecue chain located in St. Clair County, and decided that when we left Birmingham several hours later, we would stop by and have a snack and another entry. It didn’t work out that way; we did indeed pull off at that exit to gas up, but darned if we weren’t all still so stuffed from the sandwiches at Kool Korner that none of us could face the prospect of ordering even a single sandwich. Continue reading “Marie’s B-B-Q House, Heflin AL” →

Saw’s BBQ, Birmingham AL

One of the current faves among the restaurant-reviewin’ crowd in Birmingham is Saw’s, a barbecue joint that has moved into the space formerly occupied by the much-loved Broadway Barbecue. It’s in a really nice little strip of shops and restaurants on Oxmoor Road in the Homewood community just south of the city center and Vulcan Park, a strip which, it would transpire, held one or two other surprises for us on our trip to Birmingham this weekend. Continue reading “Saw’s BBQ, Birmingham AL” →

Country’s Barbecue, Columbus GA

Our day trip to middle Georgia and Alabama brought us back to Columbus after some time spent shopping at Hastings. We spent better than an hour enjoying the city’s Riverwalk along the Chattahoochee before going to visit our friend Cheryl, who had recommended we stop at Mrs. Story’s earlier in the day. We had a good time telling stories and hearing about her new stepdaughters before we decamped to get some supper at one of the town’s roadfood heavyweights, the incredibly popular Country’s Barbecue. Continue reading “Country’s Barbecue, Columbus GA” →

Thompson Brothers Bar-B-Q, Smyrna GA

The Thompson Brothers moved here from Oklahoma quite a few years ago and I kept telling myself that I needed to get over to their little storefront on 41 and promptly forgot. They’re either in the space or next door to the space once occupied by one of a local chain of CD stores whose name I can never remember, Atlanta Disc Exchange or something. In the summer of 1991, I was supposed to be dropping off menus and coupons for a pizza place and I ended up here, buying a Maura O’Connell CD, after the apartment complex on the other side of Herodian, where Dan Barken used to live, caught me “soliciting” and told me to beat it. That, I remember.

Anyway, I was caught in unusually heavy traffic a couple of weeks ago and switched on the only station in town that gives traffic reports worth a damn. This means taking a deep breath and listening to some mule-lipped lying loudmouth talk about all that’s wrong with our country. This he does always, even when his party’s in the White House. So I was sitting still there on I-75, drumming the steering wheel and wondering, not for the first time, whether anybody would actually notice if this loudmouth stopped speaking and just barked like a dog, when one of the Thompson Brothers called in. They’d catered some event for him or something the day or the week before, and the loudmouth said something like “You and I may not see eye to eye politically, but I have got to tell you, those were some amazing ribs you cooked for us.” The next couple of minutes were almost pleasant, listening to the loudmouth shut the hell up about his politics and just tell his gigantic audience how wonderful the food here was and how much he appreciated the good job Thompson Brothers did for him.

So I told myself then that I really needed to quit forgetting about this place and get my butt in there. It was in part that the loudmouth, for the first time in perhaps ever, actually sounded genuine about something, and in part that his organization hired these guys and their little store instead of some much better-known brothers with a great big store about four miles up the road who’ve been supporting the loudmouth’s politics for decades. For anybody to shut this loudmouth up for two minutes to just tell the world about some good food was an act that demanded a visit, at last.

The other week, I was writing about Smyrna’s Old South Bar-B-Q and mentioned that there were some other ‘cue joints within a hop, skip and a jump that I had not tried. I was planning then to stop by as soon as it was convenient. This turned out to be Saturday evening; it was a fine little break between watching the UGA game at home and watching the LSU game with my dad at his place. I’m not sure whether the brothers watched either, as they seem to be Sooners fans.

The house specialty here is what they call “The Whole Nine.” This is a giant plate of beef sausage, bologna, ribs and chopped beef. I confess that I was very tempted, but after the previous night’s pizza, I was still, almost a day later, a little stuffed, so I settled on a sandwich. In deference to the Thompson Brothers’ Oklahoma origins, I ordered beef, which I almost never do in barbecue restaurants, with a side of baked beans. My daughter had a pork sandwich with stew. I sampled them and they were very good.

Interestingly, the beef is just wonderful on its own and doesn’t really go all that well with either of their sauces. They have two, a spicy-sweet one and a this-is-far-too-darn-sweet one, and they mix pretty well with the pork, but the beef is so nicely smoked that neither accompany it at all well. On the other hand, perhaps the sweet baked beans helped with the interference in flavor?

I’ve occasionally read that fans of western-style barbecue believe that their meat doesn’t need any sauce. If the Thompson Brothers’ beef, smoked out back in a cinder block smoker, is a good representation of what they have all over Texas and Oklahoma, then they’re right. I still prefer North Carolina-style, but this was a very nice change of pace.

Other blog posts about Thompson Brothers:

My BBQ Blog (Jan. 31 2008)
Smoked Pig and Sweet Tea (July 10 2011)
Foodie Buddha (July 15 2011)
The Georgia Barbecue Hunt (Oct. 7 2011)

Old South Bar-B-Q, Smyrna GA

The last time I wrote, I was talking about Alpharetta’s oldest surviving restaurant. This time, it’s Old South Bar-B-Q, which, since the closure of Fat Boy a couple of years back, has become the longest-lasting place in Smyrna to get something to eat. It’s managed this through three generations of family ownership by creating some remarkable loyalty in their customer base.

Honestly, Old South is about the living definition of hit and miss. You never know what you’re going to get here. I’ve had some very good meals, and I’ve always enjoyed their really, really thick original sauce, but man, can you ever tell when somebody new is in the kitchen chopping, pulling or slicing the meat. Unfortunately, everybody’s meat was a little disappointing this time out. There was just too much fat and gristle on display.

Normally, I get chopped pork whenever I have barbecue, but I guess I was feeling a little contrary and, this past Friday night, asked for pulled pork instead. Marie and I were visiting my folks with my daughter in tow and Old South was my bright idea. My dad didn’t really feel like going out, so I phoned in an order of quite unreasonable complexity – my brother, God bless him, has really specific requirements about how he wants his grub – and they got it exactly right.

The sides here are pretty inconsistent. While I never cared for their potato salad or slaw, their Brunswick stew is among the best around. It’s an almost black brew with lots of stringy meat and corn. Some years back, I took three of my friends from Nashville, Brooke, Dash and Tory, here. None of them had tried Brunswick stew before, and I was glad to set ’em straight with the good stuff first.

Their rings and beans are certainly just fine, but I knew that my dad, who likes their onion rings better than anybody else’s, would have more than enough to share. Dad loves these, especially dipped in Heinz 57 sauce. He has been doing this for better than twenty years and still asks whether I want some, because I “really need to try this.” Overall, this meal was just “okay,” let down by the inconsistent meat. I’ve certainly had considerably better meals here, but I think the next time the road takes us to Old South, I’ll stick to having my pork chopped. It is, nevertheless, better than many of their competitors in this part of Cobb, although I can name two within a hop, skip and a jump that I have not yet tried. There’s something else I need to get on with.

Pig in a Pit, Macon GA (CLOSED)

This is Marie, contributing a little story about a barbecue place that Grant hasn’t visited. The review is for the Macon branch of the Pig In A Pit Bar-B-Que restaurant. Their branch in Milledgeville is the original one, and maybe we’ll make our way there eventually. Continue reading “Pig in a Pit, Macon GA (CLOSED)” →

Wallace Barbecue, Austell GA

Many things cross my mind about what to talk about when Wallace comes up, but first and foremost is their sauce. They have two. One is a hot mustard-based sauce that’s bottled and on the table already. It’s terrific, and as promised, it goes very well with the restaurant’s Brunswick stew.

The other sauce is served with your order. I’d advise diners to ask for their pork dry, like David did when he and I went to supper Saturday night and ended up here. David’s on a pretty strict diet for blood sugar problems and needs to take it easy with the greasy fries and sweet sauces. I probably should have done it that way myself, because I like the way that Wallace serves their sauce on the side, piping hot, in a bowl.

The only other place that I’m aware of that does this is Sprayberry’s Barbecue down in Newnan, which is worth revisiting one day very soon, but possibly not this calendar year. The datebook is sort of packed. Now, the makeup of the sauce is quite baffling. I have heard that in Owensboro, Kentucky, they serve up a Worcestershire-based sauce, and kind of got a roundabout confirmation of that from the fifteen-sauce selection at Asheville’s Ed Boudreaux’s BBQ last month. I wonder whether Wallace might be using that as well. It’s certainly very thin and pleasantly vinegary, with pepper, but I couldn’t say beyond that. Our server, and you simply could not ask for a better one, politely declined to assist in identifying it. She explained that there’s one fellow “locked in the back” mixing up their sauces and that nobody but him knows the recipe. I just love that.

I first visited Wallace in 2002. Back then, I was working on a well-intentioned guide to barbecue restaurants here in Georgia that I had hosted on Geocities and waiting for tips on new, or old, places to try. Creative Loafing, the largest and best-known of Atlanta’s alt-weeklies, gave Wallace a good review, so I trekked down to Austell from my old apartment in Alpharetta one Saturday. That really was a haul when there’s nothing at your destination but one barbecue place and a thousand traffic lights and miles of abandoned, low-rent suburban blight along the way. Driving through the community of Mableton along what used to be called Bankhead Highway and is now Veterans’ Memorial Parkway has been one of the region’s most cringeworthy exercises for more than a quarter of a century. There’s really nothing wrong with this agonizing shithole of a road that a really powerful tornado wouldn’t fix.

Sadly, I haven’t found the chance to go back nearly often enough. I know that I’ve tried convincing my folks to have dinner out here instead of their usual barbecue haunts, but for some insane reason, my mom doesn’t like the place. Really, the only thing I have against them is the extremely greasy fries, which I had completely forgotten about. They’re really tasty, but I’m getting awfully close to forty and shouldn’t have fries twice in one day anyhow, particularly if the second meal’s fries are as greasy as this. I should have gone with the slaw.

Wallace is a pretty big place and it’s extremely popular in the area. Saturday nights, the place is packed with folks having a great time. I definitely need to find reason to head out this way again before long.