Judging a BBQ Joint BEFORE you walk in

[jharner]

BBQ is usually not on my list when I am looking for a restraint out of town. I guess I don't like being disappointed. I believe the main joints that I do visit do not compete. Locally we have Cobbs BBQ Beef , hot link, and turkey only, with sides. They have been in business for over 50 years. Two other places I like to visit are in Arkansas - Burgess in Lewisville and McClards in Hot Springs

[Breadhead]

I don't order ANYTHING in a restaurant that I cook at home. I haven't eaten at a BBQ joint in 10 years. I don't order steaks at a steakhouse. I look for something on the menu that I don't cook.

I did go to the Metropolitan Grill in Seattle, a famous steakhouse, on my trip with my son to watch the Seahawks /Cardinals game. I ordered a Prime grade bone-in ribeye. My motivation was to compare this famous Steakhouse's version of a steak I've cooked on my grill 100's of times. Because they were swamped because of the football crowd after the game, they served me an underdone steak. My guess was they served at 129/131 degrees. Too rare for me. I ordered medium rare, thinking I'd get a 135° to 140° steak. They were swamped and I decided to not send it back but I was disappointed.

When I go out to dinner I usually go to Chinese or Italian restaurants.

[Huskee]

Wife & I opt for fancy Italian (where you can't pronounce the menu) or sushi. It's hard to go to a BBQ joint, unless others in the group really wanna. Then I suck it up and order wings and loaded cheese fries as of late.

[ecowper]

Breadhead I love The Met. That is very unusual. They always get my steak and my wife's right (MR for me, MW for her). I don't know anyone (until now) that had a bad experience there. You absolutely should have sent that steak back for another 5-10 degrees.

[Breadhead]

I really should have sent it back but they were swamped. I would have felt like a jerk. The shrimp coacktail, Ceasar salad, garlic bread and wine were very nice though.👍

[Breadhead]

Huskee ...

I really only dine out when I get roped into it. I love to cook and know what I like. When I don't feel like cooking I sometimes order Round Tables, King Arthur Supreme Pizza.😆

Round Table Pizza is a way over priced pizza parlor. I feel robbed every time I give them $35 dollars for a pizza.😡 But I keep their coupons close to my phone.😆

[Huskee]

There's a place up in Mackinaw City that sounds like what you're describing, has incredible pizza. My wife & I and 3 young boys costs me $60+. I had one beer and the wife did too. Way overpriced but you know that going in.

[Fine Swine]

I like to see some smoke in the air. Took me 3 yrs to visit a place just a few miles from me. People were nice with some great service. Owner showed me his indoor pellet smoker which I thought was cool. Regulations are tough to get through around here, but now he has a real nice Lang outback.👍 We talked several times over the past few months. Anything about Meathead to Chris Lilly's white sauce chicken.

I too like the high priced pizza. I'm hoping to be able to make a portable pizza oven.

[Mosca]

Regarding Smokey Bones, remember that any chain location is only as good as the franchisee and local staff. The Smokey Bones in Wilkes-Barre PA is pretty decent.

[Moscuba]

You can't use the cockroach test. I was in a place highly recommended in Georgia. The place was in the middle of no where and surrounded by a car junkyard (and had a gun toting guard). There was a dead giant cockroach on the bathroom floor; a floor that had not been cleaned for days based on food and what ever else on the floor (who eats in a bathroom?).

The food was fantastic. Not the food on the bathroom floor!

[EubieQ]

I avoid chain restaurant Q at all costs. Generally, if I can't smell the smoke from up the street and there isn't a line waiting to get in the door at prime meal times, I'm probably doing a drive-by. But we don't have many authentic BBQ joints here in Porkopolis. Eli's is a notable exception (in a residential area). It's in an old house that probably has an acre of picnic tables outside in adjacent yards to handle the crowds.

[Craigar]

I don't go into joints that can't make their own iced tea and/or don't serve beer. If they can't make tea, they had better serve beer.

[LangInGibsonia]

ribeyeguy I grew up in Youngstown. Pizza and Italian food is the specialty there. Some darn good places for a worn out rust belt town.
Smoky Bones is a Darden Restaurant property. Sister of Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Bahama Breeze and I think a couple others. That should give everyone an idea of the quality of their food.

[billg71]

I agree with Meathead, if there isn't a big pile of wood out back and smoke coming out of a chimney I drive on. Here in the Southeast, there aren't too many places that serve brisket and even fewer who know how to cook it so that's not really a consideration. That may not be a regional thing, the worst brisket I've ever been served was in Belgrade, MT so go figure.

I don't really care what the place looks like or if it's a chain, we had a Smokey Bones nearby that had really good pulled pork and ribs. Never tried their beef but their doughnuts were to die for. We used to have some really nice chain places around here that unfortunately deteriorated with age(can you say "Sonny's")?

My rule of thumb is that at lunch and dinnertime, the parking lot has to be full. If I don't have to wait it isn't worth waiting for.

[ribeyeguy]

ribeyeguy I grew up in Youngstown. Pizza and Italian food is the specialty there. Some darn good places for a worn out rust belt town.
Smoky Bones is a Darden Restaurant property. Sister of Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Bahama Breeze and I think a couple others. That should give everyone an idea of the quality of their food.

So how do you compare Youngstown now to the Youngstown you grew up in? I enjoyed our stay there but it reminded me of a lot of other once bustling manufacturing cities that are now on the decline. The concert though was at the Covelli Center which to me was a great, modern venue.

[ribeyeguy]

You can't use the cockroach test. I was in a place highly recommended in Georgia. The place was in the middle of no where and surrounded by a car junkyard (and had a gun toting guard). There was a dead giant cockroach on the bathroom floor; a floor that had not been cleaned for days based on food and what ever else on the floor (who eats in a bathroom?).

The food was fantastic. Not the food on the bathroom floor!

I don't know. A place surrounded by a junkyard with an armed guard plus a cockroach on a filthy bathroom floor might have raised my hackles a bit. I can handle some dust and a moderate lack of sterilization but cockroaches and unkempt bathrooms tells me to exit stage left asap.

[Huskee]

I agree. Some things are just too much ungood.

[LangInGibsonia]

ribeyeguy Youngstown has a long and interesting history, most of it not very nice. I was born after the collapse of the steel industry and when most of the hardcore mob stuff was on the decline. (My dad worked vice for YPD and had some crazy mafia stories.) I grew up during the height of the crack cocaine and street gang era. In the mid-90's we were dubbed Murder Capital USA with the highest murder rate per capita in the country. Needless to say most areas of the city were not very safe. The suburbs were always nice though with decent schools and hardworking people. The largest employer was/is the General Motors plant in Lordstown. Most of the violence has subsided and there has been a small renaissance of the downtown area fueled in large part by the opening of the Covelli Center about 10 years ago. But if you go a few blocks from the center of downtown in any direction there isn't much to see. Everything is closed up and abandoned. The last recession hit the area pretty hard. GM made major cuts and a lot of people lost jobs. The "rot", as I call it, has started to spread even to the surrounding suburbs. It's funny how when you live there you don't really recognize how bad things are. Now that I've been away for a little over 10 years it seems to get worse and worse every time I go back. It's sad really.

If you're really interest, here's a very entertaining documentary on Youngstown done by boxing legend Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini. It's long but very well done and entertaining.

[gcdmd]

So, things have changed since Sherwood Anderson's day?

[LangInGibsonia]

Not gonna lie, I had to Google that one. I may be wrong, but from what I can tell Anderson wasn't a Ytown boy. He was born in SW OH and lived in the Cleveland area for a time. Either way, yes things have changed quite a bit since his day.

[ribeyeguy]

I'll definitely watch it. Youngstown reminded me of my home town, Racine, Wisconsin. We were once a major manufacturing hub, mainly smaller shops that supported the handful of large businesses; Case, Johnson's Wax, Modine, etc. The last recession took out a lot of those small shops and it remains a city that's in decline, it's a shame to see.

[LangInGibsonia]

If you do watch it, the high school mentioned toward the end of the film and the university mentioned throughout it are my alma maters.

[Atalanta]

There is a bar near us that was going to start smoking. They have this HUGE smoker out front that's been sitting there unused for years (if they used it, I'm close enough I'd smell it!). Across the street is the German restaurant/bar that uses their smoker well and the sweet tendrils of smoke call me. A little further away (meaning I have to get in the car), there's a take out place that installed a smoker 5-6 years ago. I wasn't expecting much and was pleasantly surprised.

As for "real" Q joints, they're a little harder to find near us. There's the Fireside in Feasterville, PA. We first went there because a friend bartends there (and she's never there when we go) and keep going back because it's really good. Then there's Smokin' Dudes in Bensalem (near Neshaminy Mall). Haven't been there yet, though I suspect the place that used to be in Croydon was theirs. Abner's in Jenkintown had awesome smoked wings, but that was before they were sold and then closed. We recently hit Whole Hog in Cherry Hill, NJ. The pulled pork was great, the wings were good, and the brisket was dry and chewy (in other words, not recommended).

How do we pick? We look at the menu (which is how we pick a lot of places) and how far away it is. If we're going with a friend of ours (formerly of Texas, her parents recently moved back there), we let her pick. I always order sauce on the side, I want to taste the smoke and decide if I like it or not. I prefer places that have a "sauce bar" or at least let you do the saucing (I don't like a sauce soup with a few bits of meat).