Utah, You Can Do Better Than This

Peach City Ice Cream
306 North Main St.
Brigham City, UT




Unfortunately, Utah isn’t exactly known for culinary creativity.

I mean, sure I’ve had some great Mexican at the Red Iguana in Salt Lake City. I enjoyed the heck out of the pizza at Red Rock Brewery. Devoured a decent burrito at Moab Brewery. Got a pretty awesome burger at Crown Burgers.

But when you think of Utah, does one unique delicacy or dish come to mind?

Hmmmm….

…thinking….

…um, no.

Nothing.

When Zagat did their celebrated 50 sandwiches in 50 states expose, every state was able to lay claim to some iconic must try specialty, whether it be Italian Beef in Illinois or the Hot Brown in Kentucky or the Lobster Roll in Maine.

So which sandwich did Zagat pick for Utah you might wonder?

Fry sauce.

Yeah. It’s a condiment.

Not a sandwich.

The best recommendation the foodie folks at Zagat could come up with is to try fry sauce at Artic Circle, a sprawling Western fast food chain that serves burgers and fish sandwiches.

That’s it? That's the best you can do, Utah?

Really?

Well, Suit757 can do better than that.

I was determined to find some local culinary specialty at a non-chain restaurant on my brief trip across northern Utah.

Unfortunately, my first choice of Maddox Drive-In in Perry was thwarted when I pulled up to an empty parking lot at 1pm on a Monday and found that most annoying of all neon signs fully illuminated: CLOSED.

So I texted a fellow Suit who grew up in the area.

He suggested Peach City Ice Cream up the road. However, he did add the caveat that he hadn’t been there since he was a kid.

Peach City Ice Cream is that kind of place. A local drive-in with booth, counter and car service that has been catering to generations of locals since 1937 -- and young families with rambunctious kids smearing ice cream cones all over their faces.

But Suit757 wasn’t there for dessert.

I was hungry.

I ordered the pastrami burger with that Utah-famous fry sauce, a side of onion rings and a “fresh lime”, which is a local soft drink made of…

…you guessed it…

…fresh squeezed limes.

Who knows, maybe my “fresh lime” would have turned out to be that quintessential Utah concoction that would have finally placed Utah on the Suits in Strange Places culinary map.

I kind of doubt it…but you never know.

And we never will.

My waitress never brought my “fresh lime.” Just Brigham City tap water.

Unfortunately, the burger was one of the most dried-out over-cooked slabs of beef I ever attempted to consume.

A terrible burger.

I suppose there are people out there who don’t like juicy, greasy burgers.

If you happen to be one of those people, I have two favors to ask you.

First of all, stop reading this blog.

Second, STOP ORDERING BURGERS. Because you are ruining it for the rest of us.

If a burger is not drippy and juicy, it is not worth eating.

Period.

The pastrami was okay. I mean, when isn’t pastrami okay?

But the only way I could even eat the dry hockey puck of a burger was to sacrifice my fry sauce designed to accompany my onion rings by dumping it on top of the pastrami burger.

Alright. So I know you are dying to know what this mysterious creative Utah exotica, fry sauce, is all about, right?

Are you ready?

Fry sauce is basically ketchup and mayonnaise mixed together.

Otherwise known in the other 49 states as Thousand Island dressing.

That’s it. This ketchup-mayonnaise condiment is the only unique Utah culinary creation anyone in the Beehive State has ever created.

Maybe these Mormons need to take up drinking to get the creative juices flowing a bit more.

All I can say is, Utah, you can do better than this.

Rating: Wouldn’t Wear Shirt if You Paid Me.

Chili Slaw Dogs Prove West Virginia is Worth Fighting For

Morrison’s Drive Inn
126 Stollings Ave.
Logan, WV




Socialists like Barack Obama hate people who work for a living.

I mean, if you are one of those folks who has a job and can afford to make a living, provide three meals a day for your kids, scrape together the rent or mortgage every month and pay your own cell phone bill…

…who the hell needs Obama?

And that is a problem…

…if you are Barack Obama.

Which is about the best conspiracy theory I can come up with to explain Obama’s War on Coal.

West Virginia is the only state in the union that can be utterly destroyed by killing just one industry.

Come down here to the hills and hollows of Logan County West Virginia and you will understand what I’m talking about.

Except for the car hops at Morrison’s Drive Inn and a few McDonald’s burger flippers and Wal-Mart grocery baggers out by the four-lane, coal is far and away the one source of cold hard cash -- and liberty from government dependence -- the hard working folks in Logan County have.

So naturally Obama wants to destroy coal -- and the people of West Virginia -- who gave him barely one third of the vote last year.

His EPA regulations have already shut down 411 American coal fired electrical plants in America and are estimated to result in the closure of hundreds more over the next few years, which currently produce 40% of America’s electricity.

Through rules, regulations and carbon taxes, Obama aims to reduce that percentage to as close to zero as possible, putting thousands of West Virginians out of work -- and onto the welfare rolls.

Which is exactly where Obama wants them.

After all, these West Virginians are the same hard working folks Obama derisively claimed were shunning Democrats because they were “clinging to their guns and their religion” -- despite all the free goodies Obama was offering them.

This is Obama’s final strategy to win them over. Destroy their livelihood and make them dependent upon food stamps, Obama phones and welfare checks signed by Obama and his minions in Washington DC.

Now, I know what you are thinking.

You are thinking, “Okay, Suit757, enough with the Sean Hannity anti-Obama rant and get on with telling me about those famous West Virginia chili slaw dogs. Besides, all Obama is trying to do is save the world from global warming.”

But if you really believe that, I have one thing to tell you…

…as they might say down here in Logan County…

…“bless your heart.”

Dude, get a clue.

Do the math.

The United States of America has roughly 300 million people. That is just 4% of the population of the world.

If Barack Obama could shuttle every last one of us off into a FEMA extermination camp and wipe America off the face of the earth, it would hardly put a dent into global carbon emissions.

China and India alone account for over a third of the entire world’s carbon emissions.

China burns five times as much coal as the U.S.

And guess what?

They ain’t going to comply with the same rules and regulations Obama is imposing on his own country.

Oh, and by the way, even with a glut of domestic natural gas and rock bottom prices, coal is still far and away the cheapest way to boil water and churn the massive turbines that create the electricity to power the lights in your house -- and in the White House.

And it always will be -- if Obama would just let the miners, truckers and engineers of southern West Virginia do their jobs.

But it’s not all work and no play in Coal Country.

A highlight of any trip to West Virginia is a tray full of chili slaw dogs.

Yes. Slaw.

As in cole slaw.

I know it sounds weird. I thought so the first time I ventured into West Virginia coal country down in Mercer County as a naïve suit in his early 20s.

You are going to put cole slaw on my hot dog?

Yes.

I haven’t regretted the decision yet.

Morrison’s Drive Inn here just outside of Logan has been serving them to hard working locals since 1948.

Morrison’s still offers up efficient old fashioned carside service.

From the moment I put my rental Dodge Hemi pick-up into park, to the moment I honked my horn and the friendly car hop hauled away my empty tray, was a grand total of eleven minutes.

Which was good because that’s about all I had to spare to make my flight out of Charleston Airport over an hour away.

But it was the best eleven minutes of my day.

Wrapped in clear cellophane, the hot dog buns are steamy soft stuffed with a nice wiener topped with mustard, chopped onion, spicy chili and creamy slaw.

Morrison’s dogs are a perfect kaleidoscope of flavors and textures. Crunchy, creamy, sweet and savory. In every bite.

You get the feeling that the exact ratio of ingredients and condiments is a carefully followed formula -- and a closely guarded Logan County secret.

The homemade onion rings were crunchy with the ideal fried-breading-to-onion ratio.

As one of the only non-chain restaurants around, Morrison’s looks like it has a loyal clientele of hard working locals.

These are the folks who are going to save West Virginia from a man who has never held a real job in his life.

The folks who come to Morrison’s Drive Inn and munch on chili slaw dogs, fried chicken and onion rings want work -- not welfare.

In fact, workers in Logan County have died for the right to work. Literally.

Just ask the family of Eddie York.

When the United Mine Workers forced their members out on strike here in Logan County in the 1990s, Eddie York wasn’t even a member of the union.

He was just doing his job. Driving a truck. Making a delivery into a mine just a few miles from here. Providing for his family.

For that, he was shot in the head by a UMW militant and slumped over his steering wheel.

The union thugs pelted the rescue workers with rocks when they rushed to Eddie York’s aid.

But it didn’t matter.

Eddie York was killed instantly.

Murdered in cold blood in front of hundreds of UMW witnesses -- for the crime of working for a living.

Thanks to an exemption in federal law for prosecution of union violence, the only charges brought against the murderer were for “Incapacitating a Driver.”

What did the United Mine Workers leadership have to say about the role their thugs had in taking Eddie York’s life?

When asked about the incident, the president of the UMW was quoted in the Virginian Pilot newspaper stating, “If you light a fire and stick your finger in the flame, common sense says you are going to get burned.”

So who was this unsympathetic union boss condoning murder?

His name is Richard Trumka.

He is now head of the AFL-CIO and is Barack Obama’s largest benefactor. He has visited the White House more than any other American.

In the last election, Trumka funneled $1.7 billion (yes, billion) in union dues from the paychecks of workers in places like Logan County to help elect none other than Barack Obama -- the man who is trying to put all those workers out of a job.

And to add insult to injury?

Because West Virginia is not a Right to Work state, all those union mine workers are required by law to pay those dues as a condition of employment.

What a freaking racket.

As Travis Tritt once eloquently sang, “They’re billing me for killing me.”

As you can tell, I get pretty fired up about this stuff.

If we lose our cheap domestic energy powered by coal, we lose the whole state of West Virginia.

And while my personal feeling is West Virginia never should have yielded to the threat of federal firepower and split from the Commonwealth of Virginia in the first place, I still respect folks who are willing to work hard for a living.

And I love West Virginia chili slaw dogs.

So I think West Virginia is worth fighting for.

What do you think?

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

Baltimore Crabcakes of the Gods

Faidley’s
Lexington Market
400 W. Lexington St.
Baltimore, MD




Crabcakes are almost always on the itinerary for most tourists who venture to Maryland.

And most of those tourists want to sample said crabcakes at some bucolic locale overlooking the beautiful Chesapeake Bay where the crab meat came from.

Two problems with this strategy:

1. Crab meat doesn’t come from the Chesapeake Bay anymore.

2. The best crabcakes in Maryland cannot be found at any of the many overpriced waterfront crab houses lining the Bay shoreline.

If you want the best crabcake in Maryland -- hell, if you want the best crabcake on Earth -- you have to come here, Lexington Market, where few tourists venture.

The typical suburban tourists with little white kids in tow might be intimidated by the throngs of loud obnoxious unemployed loiterers blocking the sidewalks leading up to Lexington Market.

But for a Suit in Strange Places? It’s just another day on the road.

I was completely oblivious to all the shouting, screaming, jostling masses of urban Baltimore humanity and rap music all around me.

As one of the few tourists within a four block radius, I felt sorry for all those out-of-towners traipsing around the Inner Harbor five blocks south in a futile search for the quintessential Maryland crabcake.

I mean, other than the aquarium and the Babe Ruth Museum, Baltimore isn’t exactly a tourist Mecca anyway.

A trek to Lexington Market would be more enlightening -- and much more delicious.

For 234 years Lexington Market has been the place for natives of downtown Baltimore to come for everything from fresh produce to fresh raccoon meat.

But the most prominent vendor at the market is Faidley’s, a relative newcomer, having just arrived at the market 128 years ago.

Justifiably famous for its delicious lump crabcakes, Faidley’s is a holdover from the days when the nearby Chesapeake Bay teamed with blue crabs.

Now days your crab meat is more likely to come from the South Atlantic or Gulf coasts.

Like every other entrepreneur with any sense, the blue crabs have fled the union boss-dominated, high tax Leftist utopia of Maryland for friendly climates in Florida, Louisiana and Texas.

The crabs might now be imported from Right to Work states, but the folks here at Faidley’s haven’t forgotten how to construct a hell of a crabcake.

At $13 each, they aren’t exactly cheap eating, but trust me, the crabcakes will be worth every penny.

If you really want a discount, you can get a backfin crabcake for four bucks less, but I don’t recommend going cheap in this instance.

The lump crabcakes feature moist nuggets of luscious crab clinging together by a very light mixture of mayonnaise, mustard and breading.

With just the slightest touch of my plastic fork, the crab crumbled into luxurious tender lumps of delicious crab meat.

This is everything a crabcake should be.

In comparison, the creamy crab soup and fried onion rings were just ordinary.

And unfortunately, there is no waterfront view.

You have to stand in line to order, then stand in line to pay, then stand up at the communal raised tables to eat.

But it is not like eating crabcakes of the gods in the chaos of Lexington Market lacks charm.

Amid the hustle and bustle and displays of fresh fish and oysters, stand up dining at Faidley’s is a one-of-a-kind urban experience.

Just don’t forget to cap off your Lexington Market experience with Baltimore’s second most famous culinary attraction -- a Berger Cookie from Berger’s Bakery.

Both the bakery -- and its famous namesake cookie covered in a thick spread of chocolate frosting -- are Baltimore institutions.

I was glad I got to enjoy my Berger Cookie while it was still legal.

Apparently people in Baltimore are too stupid to realize that fudge covered shortbread is not health food, so the Obama Administration has proposed new regulations that would make Berger Cookies illegal.

Our Nanny State Dictator-in-Chief is now telling me what kind of cookie I can eat??

Well, eating the cookies won’t technically be illegal, but making them will be.

Proposed FDA regulations will ban the use of so called “transfats” which just happen to make the fudge in the famous cookies so delicious.

Charles DeBaufre, Jr., owner of Berger Bakery, says he’s tried tinkering with the century old recipe to comply with the proposed law change but can’t make them taste as good. So he’s threatened to shut the bakery down for good.

Thus a Baltimore icon just as important as Old Bay seasoning and Cal Ripken, Jr. could be banished to the dustbin of history just because our federal government thinks it knows better than we do what kind of food we should put in our mouth.

It’s only a matter of time now before the NSA shuts down this whole damn website.

Suit757 will be given a choice: go on a steady diet of carrot sticks and tofu or be sentenced for life to a FEMA Camp in Detroit.

Well, all I can say is, the Feds better come locked and loaded because they’ll have to pry my Berger Cookie from my cold, dead, chocolate stained fingers.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

A Southern Fried Shout Out to the Lowly Catfish

Little Libby’s Catfish
234 Lime Quarry Rd.
Madison, AL





I feel obligated to defend the honor of catfish.

Let me guess?

You consider the bottom dweller of the South’s muddy waters to be lower class food.

Right?

Reality TV shows featuring rednecks “noodling” in swampy waters for giant catfish with their bare hands probably do nothing to help catfish’s rep.

But the fact is, fish of all kinds have gone from poor man’s food to the most expensive protein at your local Piggy Wiggly.

Wild caught fish goes for $12 to $25 per pound retail in our current Bernanke Bubble economy.

Even lowly species like catfish now can cost more than New York Strip.

So I think it’s about time catfish gets its due.

Besides, almost all catfish you eat these days comes from carefully regulated farms here in the American South.

Normally, I not a big fan of farm-raised fish, but in the case of catfish, which will eat just about anything in the wild, including the fists of fat sweaty bubbas on TV, maybe it’s not such a bad idea.

I’ll take farm-raised fish from right here in Alabama over farm-raised fish like tilapia raised in China -- any day.

Maybe I’m a bit naïve, but I trust the good-ole boys here in Alabama to know how to properly raise a tasty catfish more than a bunch of Commies half way around the world.

Little Libby’s, here in Madison, Alabama, is a bustling joint tucked behind the interstate near the Huntsville Airport.

Damn convenient for Suit757. And a nice oasis in this thriving metro area in northern Alabama.

Huntsville is so freshly scrubbed and gleaming and thriving, it’s easy to forget you are even in Alabama.

Unfortunately, progress in America usually means lots of traffic, well-manicured medians, landscaped strip malls and national chain restaurants as far as the eye can see.

In Huntsville, all this “progress”, so called, is financed by a steady flow of federal tax dollars.

Thanks to NASA and multiple federal military installations and contractors, “Rocket City” gets more than its fair share of slop from the federal trough.

So, if nothing else, a stop for lunch at Little Libby’s provides a welcome return to real Alabama.

While catfish is no longer a bargain, at least Little Libby’s gives you your money’s worth.

For $16, I got an overflowing plate of two big fried catfish filets, two small deviled crabs, a pair of hush puppies, a bowl of cole slaw and a pile of onion rings.

Whew!

At least I won’t have to eat again today.

The catfish were moist and flaky, encrusted in a crunchy, mildly seasoned corn meal batter.

Pretty tasty. But even better with a few dashes of Louisiana Hot Sauce.

The deviled crabs packed a flavor wallop.

Deviled crabs are a Southern specialty. Two tiny hard crab shells encase a crab-flavored breading that is deep fried.

Kinda like a really bready, spicy crab cake stuffed into a crab carcass.

Admittedly, the actual crab is an afterthought here. The overwhelming flavors are onion, garlic and celery salt.

Any true crab connoisseur from the Chesapeake Bay used to big clumps of white delicate crab meat would probably shrink away in horror.

But I would dare Mr. Crabby Pants to tell me deviled crab doesn’t TASTE good.

You can’t tell me it doesn’t -- despite the fact that there isn’t much actual crab within deviled crab.

The cool, crunchy cole slaw was decent. The onion rings were just okay.

The hush puppies were a disappointment. Doughy and bland, they were just taking up precious stomach vacancy.

Overall, Little Libby’s Catfish was an adequate lunch stop on the way to the airport, a nice taste of Southern fried seafood in an otherwise soulless boiler-plate North Alabama metropolis.

I was glad I stopped by.

I set out with two goals.

Feed my face.

Defend the honor of catfish.

On both counts, mission accomplished.

Rating: Would Wear a Free Shirt.

How to Satisfy those Honky-Tonk Beer Munchies

Robert’s Western World
416 Broadway
Nashville, TN





You ever notice how a good greasy meal at midnight doesn’t actually need to be good to be good?

You know what I’m talking about.

After a night of honky-tonkin’ up and down Nashville’s infamous Lower Broadway, fried shoe leather on a bun starts to look as good as Kate Upton losing a water balloon fight.

I’m pretty sure “beer munchies” derives from that same part of the brain as “beer goggles” -- only with milder next morning consequences.

I’d like to brag to you that Suit757 was in such a sudsy state of mind at midnight when I ordered my cheeseburger and onion rings from the hot plate in back of Robert’s Western World.

But that would be a lie.

I made this decision stone sober.

Scary enough. But this isn’t Suit757’s first rodeo. Or first visit to Lower Broad.

I’ve done this enough to know that Robert’s Western World is Nashville’s top oasis of real music in the creative wasteland that is “Music City.”

And the tiny flat top out back is one of the few places in town not named Waffle House to eat after the witching house.

Now, understand, nobody comes to Robert’s Western World to eat.

They come to drink beer, soak up the retro atmosphere and hear the best traditional country music in town.

Eating sometimes becomes a byproduct of the above. Which, I guess is why they put the little griddle back there in the first place.

After a long typical Suit757 day of driving across the breadth of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, I finally checked into my Comfort Inn at a quarter to midnight, checked out of my suit and headed down to that stretch of touristy honky-tonks in downtown Nashville.

Literally in the shadow of the famed Ryman Auditorium, home of the original Grand Ole Opry (until the corporate hacks moved it to the suburbs), a strip of decades old honky-tonks lines Lower Broadway.

If you are “in the know” like Suit757, you can bypass the annoying bouncers out front by cutting through the alley out back next to the Ryman. All the honky-tonks have back doors utilized by the locals.

Three doors down, Tootsies is famous as the place where Willie Nelson and Patsy Cline’s husband got drunk one night and wrote “Crazy”, the most played song in the history of the juke box.

On the other side is The Stage on Broadway, which sports an awesome mural of Merle Haggard hocking George Dickel Whiskey with a tag line that reads, “Water’s for teardrops, Dickel’s for drinking.”

But the live music these resurrected tourist traps feature is the typical cheesy pop country pabulum that passes these days for creativity in this town.

Some dude from Upstate New York awkwardly wearing a cowboy hat singing about tractors and honeysuckle and crap that appeals to 55 year old housewives.

If you are looking for REAL country music in the Country Music Capital of the World, Robert’s Western World is about the only place you can find it.

Every night, you’ll find a real deal talented band that always features pedal steel guitar and upright bass and singer with more talent than all the fake pretty boys this town produces in a year.

BR5-49 used to play here before hitting it big time -- or, at least as big as big time can get playing this genre of music.

The setting is as authentic as it gets.

A former Western wear apparel store, the shelves are still lined with cowboy boots for sale.

The bartenders and waitresses are dressed straight out of central casting from a 1950s hipster stage set. Lots of pink hair dye, mousse and tattoos.

I found a spot at the bar in the back right in front of the little griddle.

Being the only sober guy in the joint, I desperately ordered up a Yazoo Pale Ale, a nice hoppy local Nashville brew.

My second choice was less inspired.

Dos Perros, also brewed by Yazoo, is supposed to be a “Mexican style” beer.

Look, I like Mexicans as much as any other gringo.

Chimichangas and mole? Sure.

But I’m not sure Mexican-style beer is a genre that begs for replication.

It tasted like a Corona without the lime. No thanks.

While the Yazoos were $4.50 each, I was able to score a Miller High Life for less than half the price.

Bargain!

That’s a fraction of the cost of a similar quality beer at Tootsies. With a much better soundtrack.

The best thing I can say about the burger is it is cheap and quick.

This isn’t gourmet.

The grill man chisels a block off a stack of frozen burgers and tosses the hard disk onto the flat top.

The onion rings are frozen too, of course.

But the man knows what he’s doing.

He’s like the Michelangelo of frozen meat product.

In ten minutes, the previously frozen block of beef has been transformed into a juicy tender burger with just a trace of pink in the middle. Topped with lettuce, tomato and a slice of raw onion, I’ve had much worse burgers for double the price.

Best of all were all the jealous looks from all the inebriated tourists surrounding me at the bar struck with beer-munchie-envy.

“Dayyyymmmn! That looks goooood!”

Within moments the grill man went from sedately enjoying the talents of the band to being busier than an IRS agent at a Tea Party rally.

Suit757 the trend setter. That’s me. Always on the cutting edge.

Like I said, sometimes you don’t have to be good to be good.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.

Good Food A-Plenty at the Beacon Drive In

Beacon Drive In
255 John B. White Sr. Blvd.
Spartanburg, SC





There is nothing subtle about the Beacon Drive In.

That’s what’s made it one of America’s most famous restaurants.

This sprawling 66 year old drive-in smack in the heart of Spartanburg, South Carolina serves over a million hungry customers every year.

And I do mean HUNGRY.

You have to be. The menu is as sprawling as the dining rooms.

Red trays groaning under the weight of mountains of food fresh out of the fryer slide down the rail in a steady procession line from early in the morning to late into the evening. Seven days per week.

Like a well oiled machine. Literally.

They say the Beacon churns 26,000 pounds of onions through its burbling vats of grease into onion rings every month.

Over 16,000 gallons of sweet tea – and 3,000 pounds of sugar. That’s more sweet tea than any other restaurant in the United States of America!

And they have the sign to prove it.

I don’t doubt it for a minute.

This place has operated at peak capacity for nearly seven decades.

Most customers are greeted by J.C. Strobel, who shouts out in an obnoxiously loud voice “Let’s move on. Come on, come on, come on down the line!” Just like he’s been doing for fifty years.

Maybe J.C. retired. Or he had the day off. Because I didn’t see him today.

Then again, it might have been the weird hour I showed up – ten minutes past ten on a Wednesday morning.

Is that hour too early to gorge on a pile of beef, pork and fried carbs?

Of course not. Especially when you have to get up at 4am to catch an early morning flight to Spartanburg.

Even though I have to get up at that ungodly hour to catch oh-dark-hundred flights at least once or twice per week, I assure you, Suit757 is no morning person.

In fact, after being up and wearing a suit for six hours already, my internal biological clock was telling me it was the Suit757 equivalent of 4pm.

Time to eat!

The dilemma coming to the Beacon is always the same for me.

Burger or barbeque? They are both equally world famous.

The Beacon is the only restaurant I know in the nation that makes the list of best burger joints in America AND best barbeque joints in America.

As anyone who has dined here knows, the Beacon’s mammoth “A-Plenty” portions make the idea of getting both completely ludicrous.

Well, call me ludicrous.

“I’ll have the Outside Chopped Pork A-Plenty,” I declared to the counter lady.

She immediately called out some code language to the army of chefs behind the counter.

Wait. I’m not done.

Just as she turned to focus her attention on the next customer, I blurted out, “And a Chili Cheeseburger.”

She looked past me quizzically like she was searching for my non-existent dining companion.

Hey, don’t judge me. I’m hungry.

And a world famous restaurant reviewer. “I’m doing this to myself for the sake of my loyal readers,” I rationalized to myself.

Within 30 seconds, she plopped the burger on my tray. Ten seconds after that came a mountain of greasy glistening onion rings and French fries.

I had to dig down a few inches to find a fully loaded barbeque sandwich at the bottom of the pile.

It’s there at the bottom. I think.

I began shoveling onion rings and fries into my mouth two and three at a time, hoping to put enough of a dent into my mound of “A-Plenty” to get to my barbeque.

The fries reminded my why I don’t normally order fries with my meal.

Kinda boring. And a total waste of perfectly good stomach vacancy that could be better utilized for meat.

The onion rings on the other hand were top notch.

Lesser onion rings, like at Burger King, are nothing more than rings of fried dough with a barely discernable trace of shriveled dehydrated onion in there somewhere.

Not here at the Beacon.

These onion rings put the emphasis where it belongs – on the sweet Vidalia onions.

These rings are onions first – with just a bit of nice crispy breading delicately clinging along for the ride.

With a dash of salt, Beacon’s onion rings are addictive.

But no matter how many fries and rings I devoured, I still couldn’t seem to make any headway toward uncovering my barbeque sandwich buried somewhere underneath.

So I decided I better start with the Chili Cheeseburger.

Beacon’s chili is tasty but unlike the traditional tomatoey runny stuff you might expect.

This chili was more like seasoned, finely ground beef – reminiscent of the “loose meat” sandwiches you might find in the Midwest.

So what I really had here was ground beef on top of ground beef. Like a double cheeseburger.

Nothin’ wrong with that.

Loose ground beef on top of a ground beef patty – separated by a slice of melted cheese.

The result was bite after bite of ridiculously tender beefy, cheesy goodness.

By the time I consumed at least the top pound or so of fries and onion rings, I was able to lift my barbeque sandwich out of its tomb of grease.

I requested “outside” meat, which means the darker, more flavorful part of the pig, closer to the skin.

Topped with vinegary slaw and Beacon’s unique sweet BBQ sauce, this was porky heaven.

The sauce was more like a tomatoey relish – like a Southern chow-chow.

Different. But delicious.

The pork was soft, tender and dark. While the slaw and sauce added the tang and sweet kiss to every bite.

The Beacon will never eclipse the legendary barbeque shacks of the Carolinas in barbeque perfection, but there is a reason this place still manages to make all those top barbeque joint lists.

These folks here in the land of The Marshall Tucker Band know what they are doing.

How else do you attract crowds of 5,000 or more every single day for 66 years?

The answer: quantity AND quality.

It was only quarter to eleven by the time I waddled out to my rental car parked on the asphalt sea surrounding the Beacon. But I still left at least half a pound of French fries behind.

I was done. And tempted to curl on the bench seat of my Chevy Impala for a much needed digestion nap.

No chance of that, unfortunately. My day of meetings hadn’t even begun.

Oh well. That’s the life of Suit757.

But I looked on the bright side. At least I won’t have to worry that pesky eating thing again for at least a couple more days.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.