Downtown BBQ Makes the Grade in KC

Winslow’s BBQ
20 E. 5th St.
Kansas City, MO





Sometimes I feel like a Kansas City barbeque failure.

I pride myself on my barbeque tasting expertise. You name the smoke shack or pig joint and chances are I’ve been there, tasted the ‘que, lived to tell you all about it and bought the shirt (or cleaned my grill with it).

I feel like I have a good handle on a wide cross section of the meat served in all the barbeque Meccas like Memphis, Columbia, Lexington and Lockhart.

But I’ve never really eaten my way through Kansas City, one of America’s great ‘que towns.

Oh sure, I’ve done the obligatory stops at Gates and Arthur Bryant’s.

Who hasn’t?

But to really get a sense of the barbeque culture of a city, you have to do more than just check off the list of places that make regular appearances on cable TV.

And that’s where I feel like I can improve my performance in Kansas City.

I need to hit up L.C.’s, Rosedale and Danny Edwards -- the lesser known pit houses where the locals go to get real KC ‘que.

Unfortunately, all those venerable authentic smoke shacks tend to congregate on the south side of Kansas City -- a place where Suit757 rarely travels.

In general, local dive barbeque shacks tend to be in the parts of town Suit757 doesn’t have much business. (I’ll let you speculate about why that might be.)

Of course geographic inconvenience has never stopped me before. But with a tight schedule, I knew venturing out to wilds of South KC wasn’t going to be in the cards on this trip either.

There’s got to be some place in this barbeque crazed city to get some ribs and burnt ends near downtown.

Sure enough, I found Winslow’s BBQ.

It’s been around for over four decades. That’s a good sign.

Won lots of awards. Another good sign.

But when I walked up to Winslow’s I quickly realized that it is located in one of those fake touristy taxpayer subsidized “festival marketplaces” downtown along with stores selling souvenir KCMO coffee cups and key chains -- and t-shirts that read “Who farted?”

Not a good sign.

And during prime dinner hour I was the only customer in the place.

Definitely NOT a good sign.

There’s no way I’m going to get any sense of authentic KC barbeque at this joint.

But you know what?

The smoked meat served at Winslow’s was downright exquisite.

Too bad I was the only one in Kanas City getting to experience it.

Fortunately, the one lady who did double duty as the lone waitress and bar tender had the TV turned to the MLB Network with the sound turned up loud.

I happily sat there alone positioned directly in front of the TV drinking a big Boulevard Pale Ale out of a plastic cup watching baseball -- just like at the bar in my home.

Only I haven’t figured out how to make barbeque this good at home.

I ordered the three meat platter for $15. It was enough food to feed a family of four.

Five big meaty ribs with pork soft and tender like butter.

The pulled pork was soft and smoky like the best you’d find in North Carolina or Tennessee.

The brisket was best of all.

Usually when you order brisket, you can choose between sliced or chopped. This was like both in one.

The beef was sliced, but it was so tender it fell apart into delicious morsels of chopped brisket with the slightest touch of my fork.

All three meats were smoked to perfection, with telltale red smoke rings.

Most extraordinary was how tender and moist all three meats were.

Dave Winslow, the original founder, hired an engineer to invent a steam pit that evaporates 50 gallons of water per day.

At Winslow’s, the meat isn’t just smoked. It’s enveloped in steam for hours, yielding fall apart moist barbeque that needs no sauce.

Of course being Suit757, I had to try it anyway.

East Coast barbeque purists love to disparage Kansas City style barbeque for the thick glops of ketchupy sauce Midwesterners supposedly like to slather onto their meat.

Here at Winslow’s, that sauce discretion is left to the barbeque eater.

Winslow’s sauce was not as thick or sweet as some Kansas City sauces.

The sauce was good -- but unnecessary.

Some purists would claim it would be a crime to cover up such perfect barbeque with sauce.

For me, the real crime was that I was the only customer in the place.

Where the heck is everybody? There should be a line out the door for barbeque this good.

I think it is the location.

Nobody goes downtown anymore.

This has been a known phenomenon in virtually every American city since the advent of the shopping mall forty years ago.

This is the type of problem politicians like to solve with our tax money.

Of course they don’t bother to consider the REASON nobody goes downtown any more.

Business owners don’t open businesses downtown because…

…wait for it…

…nobody goes downtown any more.

So here’s the solution: pay business owners to locate downtown with taxpayer financed “festival marketplaces” like KC’s River Market.

But no matter how many tax subsidized businesses locate downtown, the politicians can’t create customers out of thin air.

Because nobody goes downtown any more.

No matter how good the barbeque happens to be.

And that’s too bad.

Winslow’s deserves a wider audience than just from suits who don’t have time to venture to the south side of town.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

Deep in the Heart of Fly Over Country

Squealer’s Bar-B-Que
4805 Great River Dr.
Meridian, MS





I love “fly over” country.

That’s the derogatory term used by the San Francisco/LA/New York leftist elites for the rest of America.

You know -- those of us who drink beer, eat barbeque, watch NASCAR and college football and think Barack Obama is purposefully trying to destroy America.

Basically, every tax paying, non-lawyer, non-actor, non-government worker who has a job.

For the cultural one percenters, the farms, fields and small towns they “fly over” in First Class from JFK to LAX are an embarrassment. Like the crazy uncle whose uncouth jokes they tolerate at Thanksgiving dinner.

And they call conservatives like us closed minded?

As Suit757, I see plenty of “fly over” country. Up close.

I call it America.

Hell, that’s why I take the time to write a blog about it. (In fact, as I write this, I’m soaring 35,000 feet above the rolling blue grass hills of Kentucky.)

But unlike those Park Avenue penthouse dwellers coasting on the jet stream above, I’ve actually been in the hollows, hills, and barbeque shacks below. All 50 states. Virtually every airport in America with scheduled service.

Meridian, Mississippi is the epitome of “fly over’ country.

To the elites, at 35,000 feet, it’s just another town of roads and roof tops carved out of the red clay hills of Eastern Mississippi.

But if you are lucky enough to touch down in this corner of our country, you’ll find 50,000 souls living, working, eating and dying in the heart of real America.

The leftist elites might say progress bypassed Meridian. You won’t find Whole Foods here selling overpriced hippie granola munch and vegan tofu burgers at twenty bucks per pound.

When I first stepped foot in this town sixteen years ago, the only non-fast food joint turned out their lights before the kickoff of Monday Night Football. That’s 8pm here in the Central Time Zone.

Now, Meridian has caught the fancy of almost every national restaurant chain in America.

But if you want my opinion, real progress can be defined by a place like Squealer’s Bar-B-Que.

Teresa Cranmore founded the barbeque place in 1998, taking old time Southern traditions to the lucky masses who take the time to seek out real “fly over’ country cuisine.

Ribs, pork and chicken slow smoked over hickory for hours.

Best of all for indecisive barbeque connoisseurs like me, you can get all three in the “wings and things” combo.

For less than ten bucks.

I had to ask my young waitress to verify my good fortune.

“You mean I get a barbeque sandwich, three wings, a rib and a side of beans? All that for ten bucks?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied enthusiastically in an East Mississippi drawl.

My beer was an even better deal.

In a big bi-coastal metropolis, you can expect to pay five or six bucks for a decent microbrew.

At Squealer’s? Three bucks for an Abita Turbodog.

Did I tell you I love “fly over” country?

The barbeque sandwich was exquisite. Smokey pulled pork marinated in a sweet tomato-based sauce on a buttery bun, this is barbeque done right.

The wings are a Squealer’s specialty. The zesty sauce is baked right onto the wings, not ladled over the top like an afterthought at so many corner sports bars.

But the highlight of the plate was the rib.

Yes, one single solitary rib.

But that one rib had more meat on it than some of the half racks of baby backs I’ve had at the big city chains.

That one rib, smoky and tender, contained enough pig meat to qualify as a decent sized meal. Which was convenient, because this was the only meal I was going to get for at least 24 hours.

While the rib meat was outstanding on its own, I couldn’t resist the urge to pop off the cork on the mini “moonshine” jugs of sauce placed in the Miller Lite carrier at the center piece of my table.

Just a touch of the sweet sauce elevated my rib to close to barbeque perfection.

As I gnawed off every last scrap of pork from the bone, fingers sticky with charred meat and barbeque sauce, I couldn’t help but think about those deprived cultural elitists jetting over Meridian at that very moment.

I mean, do these folks ever discover the great joys of America? Like attractive waitresses with sweet southern accents? Or three dollar microbrews? Or the fun of eating dead sticky animals with their fingers?

Nope. And they probably never will.

But that’s okay. That just leaves more of what makes America great for you and me.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

Suit757 is Down with his Yellow Mess in the ‘Hood

Jenkins’ Bar-B-Q
830 N. Pearl St.
Jacksonville, FL



I had my first conversation with a black person when I was 20 years old.

Yeah, Suit757 lived a sheltered upbringing.

I told that person that everything I knew about black people came from The Cosby Show.

When she recovered from her wild convulsions of laughter – about ten minutes later, if I recall – she said that probably wasn’t the most representative depiction of black lifestyle.

I’m pretty sure she meant that to be an understatement.

But I have friends who claim to be experts on the latest comings and goings of hip hop culture who won’t so much as drive through the black neighborhood in their town in broad daylight with the doors locked.

And yet they claim to be connoisseurs of real barbeque.

I may still be confused about that guy who got shot. Six Pack? Two Pack?

Or how many “Doggies” are in Snoop Doggie Doggie Doggie’s(?) name.

Or is it no Doggies now?

No clue.

But I know enough to know that some of the best barbeque in America can almost always be found within a few miles of Martin Luther King Boulevard. And I don’t have a problem going there to get some.

Come to think of it, maybe I did spend too much time watching The Cosby Show.

Or just maybe, being a Suit in Strange Places conditions you to being out of place in pursuit of great food.

I mean really, the friendly folks at Jenkins' Bar-B-Que in the black section of downtown Jacksonville certainly don’t cause me any more concern than the collective head swivels from the natives at the backwoods redneck bars I’ve patronized in Mississippi.

You know Charlie Daniels’ song “Uneasy Rider”? Yeah. Been there. Done that. All the time. In a suit, no less.

So I don’t have any problem standing in line with the regulars at Jenkins to give my order to the lady behind the counter.

Especially when the barbeque is this good.

The specialty here? Ribs slow smoked over hickory.

Your choices are a large rack, a small rack, a double order or a “rib sandwich”.

The most popular order is the sandwich. I’ve ordered that before.

If I didn’t feel out of place being the only white guy in the joint, I would have if I actually tried to pick my “sandwich” up and eat it.

Um…don’t do that.

That’s because a rib sandwich in Jacksonville isn’t a sandwich at all. It’s a slice of white bread under three ribs (bone in, of course) and another slice or two on top.

These ribs may be slow smoked and tender, but you still can’t eat the bones!

The double order is six bones. Small rack is 10 or 11. Large rack is 13 or 14.

Since I had a dining companion with me, I knew I needed to go bigger than the “sandwich”. But how much bigger?

“Get a double order,” the friendly lady behind the counter advised. “If you get a small rack, you’ll have left overs for lunch tomorrow and dinner on Saturday!”

Hmm. Left overs aren’t an option for a Suit in a Strange Places. Ribs don’t travel well.

But, since I wasn’t planning to order any sides, I took a chance and ordered the small rack any way.

Good move.

Apparently the Jenkins’ lady must get all her knowledge of white culture by watching people starve on Survivor.

We had no problem polishing off the entire rack.

“Next time, we’re getting the large”, I said.

An absolute mess.

That is the only way to describe Jenkins’ ribs.

But messy in a good way.

For about twenty bucks I was handed a giant package of butcher paper that smelled like heaven.

Like a four year old on Christmas morning, I gleefully plopped down at a vacant booth and tore into the package.

At first I thought she had given me a loaf of Wonder bread. That’s all I could see.

Tossing aside my slices of white bread like superfluous ribbons and bows, the real reason I came to the “bad” side of town revealed itself to me.

A rack of ribs submerged in a pool of signature yellow barbeque sauce.

The sauce is yellow because it is mustard-based. And that’s the way folks like their barbeque here along the Southeast Atlantic coast.

“Most Northerners don’t like it,” is the way Jenkins’ owner Meltonia Jenkins-DuBois, describes her famous sauce. “But they get used to it.”

I don’t even like mustard. But I love Jenkins’ mustard barbeque sauce.

The sugar, vinegar and spice take the tart mustardy flavor to whole new -- and better -- place.

Providing more spicy kick than most mustard-based sauces, the sugar and spice are perfectly balanced. It’s sweet, but you get that enjoyable tingle on your lips too.

Jenkins’ offers a “spicy” version too for the hardened regulars.

Under that avalanche of sauce are some pretty good ribs.

I noticed that one end of the rack was smoky, tender and meaty. The other end offered a bit more tooth resistance while contributing more flavor from the smoke kissed “bark” of the meat.

Under the ribs was yet another half a loaf of Wonder Bread soaking up all that mustardy goodness.

I went through a small forest of napkins to keep the yellow sauce from running down my arms. Despite five minutes of scrubbing in the men’s room, my fingernails were permanently polished yellow.

By the time I gnawed the meat off the last precious rib and pushed back my mountain of bones and yellow stained napkins, I was feeling perfectly comfortable being the only white dude in Jenkins.

After all, I had proved myself worthy. I polished off a whole rack. Enjoyed the heck out of the quirky yellow sauce.

And knew enough not to eat the bones in my Wonder Bread sandwich.

Yeah. Suit757 fits in here. No problem.

I can hang in the black part of town.

Just don’t ask me what Snoop Doggie Dog sings.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.

The Ribs That Dreams Are Made Of

Dreamland Bar-B-Que
1427 14th Avenue South
Birmingham, AL



Bread. Ribs. Beer.

What else do you need?

Nothing. You’ve got to love Dreamland BBQ. My kind of place.

I’ve always considered Dreamland to be the perfect restaurant for anyone on a diet.

As long as it is a low carb diet.

Every other restaurant in America wants to tempt you with carb-loaded sides like corn bread, hush puppies, baked beans and biscuits.

Look, if you put it in front of me, and it’s good, I’m going to eat it.

But John “Big Daddy” Bishop, who founded Dreamland as a small cafe in the college town of Tuscaloosa in 1958 never wanted to mess with any of that.

Bread. Ribs. Beer. That’s all anyone needs.

And the bread – a couple slices of grocery-store bought Sunbeam white bread thrown on the plate – is so untempting, it really shouldn’t even count. No way I’m wasting precious stomach vacancy on that stuff.

Well, okay, maybe a few bites to lap up some of that famous tangy Dreamland sauce.

But it’s always been the meat alone that has been the star of the show at Dreamland.

Racks and racks of meaty spare ribs slowly smoke over the open pit imbuing the entire restaurant with the sweet smell of smoldering hickory and simmering pig meat.

If God has a BBQ pit (and I sure as he--, er heck, hope he does), this must be what heaven smells like.

If your idea of ribs is those “fall-off-the-bone” yuppified baby backs served at your neighborhood Chili’s, you need to get that out of your head right now.

It’s time to grow up and step up to the adults’ table at Dreamland.

Ribs here aren’t tough, but they do provide a nice meaty gnaw in every bite -- every bite full of smoky, meaty flavor that gets boiled away at your local strip mall chain restaurant.

Dreamland ribs are the real deal.

“Ain’t nothing like ‘em nowhere.” That was Big Daddy’s motto.

Unfortunately, Big Daddy Bishop passed away in 1997.

And no surprise, his family has begun to diversify the menu just a bit. Hopefully, Big Daddy isn’t rolling in his grave.

You can actually get beans, macaroni and cheese, greens and sausage now.

But you have to order them separate.

Since this was far from my first visit to Dreamland, I decided to get a little adventurous to see if the new menu additions could live up to Big Daddy’s high standards.

The smoked sausage was five star, all the way. Crisp charred on the outside, soft and spicy on the inside, and absolutely perfect when dipped in Dreamland’s BBQ sauce.

The macaroni and cheese was good too, tender noodles welded together by massive quantities of soft cheese.

I washed all this down with a couple IPAs from Atlanta’s Sweetwater microbrewery. I always enjoy the fruity-sweet flavor evident in all varieties of Sweetwater’s beer.

But no matter how many good things they add to the menu, it’s still the ribs that steal the show.

So I tend to agree with Big Daddy on this one. When you do something this well, there’s really no need to complicate it. Stick to what you do best.

Bread. Ribs. Beer.

Can’t go wrong with that.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

Stuck in the Non-Smoking Section

Don’s Famous Bar-B-Q
217 East US 80
Pooler, GA




It’s easy to be skeptical about Don’s Famous Bar-B-Q.

No billowing smoke. No piles of hard wood out back. No pickups in the parking lot. No customers inside.

Not even a chimney.

No chimney? How to you operate a BBQ joint with no chimney?

Most suspicious of all, the sign says “Don’s Famous Bar-B-Q, Lexington, NC Style.”

Lexington, NC style? In Pooler, Georgia?

Hmm.

Well, I have a feeling that the folks up in western North Carolina would be none too pleased to discover a chimneyless, smokeless BBQ shack in Georgia passing itself off as “Lexington style”.

Lexington, NC considers itself the barbeque center of the universe, boasting more BBQ joints per capita than any other place on earth.

In Lexington, barbeque is smoky pork hacked to smithereens and flavored with a vinegar sauce sweetened with just a touch of tomato.

When done right, like at Wayne Monk’s Lexington Barbeque No. 1, it’s good stuff. Slap your grandmamma good.

But down here in the Low Country, folks are more likely to look upon Lexington barbeque as some sort of Yankee conspiracy (after all, the stuff does come from NORTH Carolina).

Nope. Folks here along the I-95 corridor hanker for smoked pulled pork slathered in golden mustard sauce.

From Duke’s up around Walterboro and Ridgeland to Wall’s in Savannah down to Island BBQ in Yulee and Fred Cotten’s in Jacksonville, peppery mustard-based sauces are the required condiment on pulled pork and ribs along this southern stretch of I-95.

Suit757’s preference?

Call me the Newt Gingrich of barbeque eaters. I like to maintain an open relationship with all styles.

So if some pit master wants to serve Lexington style barbeque deep in the heart of coastal mustard country, I’m okay with it.

If it’s actually good.

From the looks of Don’s Famous BBQ, he’s not winning too many converts.

The empty place looks like a dilapidated former Dairy Freeze, complete with peeling paint and hand stenciled lettering on the roof.

But that’s not a problem. Looking from the outside like the place needs a visit from the health department is in no way a disqualifier for good barbeque.

Not actually smoking your barbeque most certainly IS.

The well scrubbed inside offers no more evidence than the outside that any barbeque is being made here.

Folks, by definition, barbeque has to be smoked. Over real wood. Otherwise, it’s not barbeque. No matter how much peppery North Carolina sauce you slather over your meat.

Of course the real test is to taste it.

The sweet and tangy vinegar sauce nicely complimented the minced pork on the sandwich. But there was no discernable smoke flavor.

The Carolina-style vinegar spiced red cole slaw was an interesting diversion from the sweet stuff more typical of these parts – and a nice textural crunchy addition on top of the soft finely hacked pork on my sandwich.

The sugary baked beans and crunchy hush puppies were fairly standard.

The Brunswick stew was interesting. Surprisingly spicy, the stew was much hotter than the self-described “Hot” barbeque sauce provided on the table. Strange.

Like the minced pork, the ribs also are covered in tasty sauce, but no tell-tale red smoke ring. And the meat is so tender, one has to suspect the ribs were boiled rather than smoked.

“Fall-off-the-bone” might be a good marketing slogan for Applebees, but barbeque connoisseurs recognize it as a dead give away for faux que.

Real slow-smoked ribs are tender, but offer up just a bit of tooth resistance. Enough so you can see your teeth marks in the meat after that first bite.

Look. I don’t want to be too accusatory.

Saying a BBQ pit master doesn’t actually smoke his meat is like calling someone a racist. It’s just about the worst epitaph you label someone with.

But I’m just sayin.

No smoke flavor. No smoke. No wood. No chimney.

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

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

Brisket…Deep in the Heart of Texas

Angelo’s
2533 White Settlement Rd.
Fort Worth, TX





One of my many Suit757 services I like to provide is letting you know which cool cities are worth visiting and which congestion-choked sprawling hellholes to avoid.

It’s one of the benefits of having been everywhere.

There is no better dichotomy of the two options than the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.

Dallas is typical 20th Century suburban hell devoid of character, charm or attractions of any sort. It has no soul. No sense of place.

Deep in the heart of Texas? Think again.

If you were blindfolded and dropped into the middle of I-635 congestion near the Galleria, you could easily think you were in Atlanta, Houston or Cleveland.

Other than a few smoking hot Texas beauties prancing around with $75 worth of make-up on, you’d have no way of knowing you were even in the great nation of Texas.

I mean, Atlanta’s got plenty of them too.

(Cleveland? Not so much.)

Bottom line: Dallas is just another big modern city of cul-de-sacs, strip malls and 14 lanes of idling SUVs on the interstate.

Once you’ve hit the Texas School Book Depository (the scene of Lyndon Johnson’s crime) and Sonny Bryan’s, you’ve pretty much seen it all.

Fort Worth, on the other hand, is everything Dallas isn’t.

Real. Laid back. Accessible. Historic.

And Texas to the core.

When you cruise into old “Cow Town” you can’t help but notice the freight trains hauling cargo, grain elevators rivaling the gleaming downtown skyscrapers and cowboys with genuine Texas red dirt on their boots.

No question, Fort Worth was -- and is -- a Texas city full of Texans doing Texas-type stuff.

And I think that’s cool.

Way cooler than watching minivan-driving relocated Yankee soccer moms jockeying for parking spots in the Galleria garage.

And no place personifies Fort Worth’s genuine “Cow Town” heritage better than Angelo’s, by far the best barbeque joint in the entire sprawling Metroplex.

At lunch time the parking lot is packed with pick ups and the line snakes right out the door, well past the Angelo’s T-shirt-wearing bear that has greeted Angelo’s customers for years.

But the bear is just the beginning of the dead animal displays. The dining room is lined with a rouges’ gallery of every conceivable form of game high above the hordes of happy customers.

Happy that is unless you happen to be a very, very lost vegetarian.

The aroma of slowly melting cow fat over mesquite wood permeates the sprawling dining complex.

When you finally get to the front of the line, tell the rough-looking Texan with the large knife what kind of dead smoked animal you want on your plate. No small talk.

Folks don’t come here for friendly customer service. If you want that, go to Chick-fil-a.

After all, barbeque is serious business here in Texas.

And when in “Cow Town”, the dead animal you want is, well, cow. As in brisket and beefy Texas hot links.

The deadly serious knife wielding guy slapped a charred hunk of beef on the butcher table and slid his gleaming weapon through the meat like butter.

That’s because the brisket IS like butter.

Chop. Chop. Chop. The thin slices of beef just slump off the carcass before being scooped up onto my serving plate.

Smoky, beefy, fatty slices of the some of the best brisket Texas has to offer. Utensils are completely superfluous. Deodorant in a tent full of “Wall Street occupiers” would get more use.

The hot links are just a bit firmer with a nice spice kick.

In many parts of Texas, sauce is as frowned upon as forks. With meat this smoky, moist and tender, why bother?

But if you skip sauce at Angelo’s you will be missing out on some of the best in Texas.

Thin, but sweet with a touch of tangy zip, the sauce compliments the meat because it doesn’t coat, cover or cling to it. It just kind of flows right over it, leaving behind just the right flavor to bring out the smoky goodness in the slow cooked beef.

I’m a big believer in “when in Rome” dining, but I just couldn’t resist the temptation to deviate a bit from dead cow to sample one of Angelo’s pork ribs.

I’m damn glad I did.

Forget all that mass marketing hogwash about “fall off the bone” meat you see in the national chain advertisements. True slow cooked, barbequed ribs are tooth-tender. But not “fall off the bone”.

“Fall off the bone” means boiled ribs.

Folks, no Texan worth his Justin Boots would be caught dead boiling ribs. Certainly not at Angelo’s.

Nosiree.

These ribs are slow cooked over hard wood and infused with a salty, earthy dry rub that permeates the tender meat. So tender your teeth sink right in.

If you want your meat (and flavor) boiled off the bone, there are dozens of Chili’s and Golden Corals on the other end of the Metroplex to choose from. You can stand in line, beeper in hand, waiting with the other relocated Yankee suburban dwellers.

Me? I’ll take the real deal.

Ice cold Shiner Bock long neck in hand, you’ll find Suit757 in old “Cow Town”, deep in the heart of REAL Texas.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!