DC, says:

• Food:

  3/5

• Vibe:

  2/5

• Service:

  2/5

• Value:

  2/5

• Overall:

  3/5

We’ve driven by here a bunch of times and I can’t imagine they are open so late. I never really want to be down here at like 1:30 AM, but I can’t think of another barbeque place open to such hours. Immediately I think ‘front for xxx’ kind of like that pizza place on Wycliff, but maybe I’m totally wrong. An investigation ensues.

I head down here midway through the day. There’s a decent number of vehicles parked outside which lends some potential credibility to the food indoors. Also, the smoke smells somewhat appetizing.

It’s a little confusing to know what to do at first. There is a long bar in the front, with two tills. In the middle there’s a surly looking guy leaning over a case of steaming.…..things and another till on the right. I decide the right is for the barbeque. Since we’re on the quest for dive-y burger sorts of things I figure I’ll go for a chopped beef sandwich and some potato salad.

The girl at the right hand till really likes it if you have exact change and the totals all seem to be strange integers, so there’s lots of fussing for dimes and pennies. With the jaunty, no Jante , tilt of her Ed Hardy hat, I half way expect the finger snapping to start at any second.

How about this establishment? Dive? Well, there are two very large signs outside clearly stating that you should not expect service unless you have appropriate attire, such as a shirt and shoes. Pants optional, apparently. Inside, there are more signs including several “no alcohol, no firearms” proclamations. I guess you can’t get nor bring them. In conclusion, if you’re drunk, naked and brandishing a sawed off over-under shotgun, you’re likely to be politely asked to leave.

There are some articles on the wall presumably about the history of the place, but I stay in my seat because I imagine there’s a “no reading the signs” sign somewhere. Otherwise, the crowd is pretty much what you would expect. I may be just petite, but I am about 200 pounds under the mean weight of the customers nearby.

The guy in the middle is taking orders from his station that includes a variety of gelatinous looking things. I don’t really know how it works, but it looks like you basically just point at whatever you want and he slops it in to a Styrofoam container for you. I’ve never seen the appeal in collared greens, but kudos on the ox tail!

My order is ready to go, so inspection first! The sandwich is wedged in to a foil wrapper in a fairly sauce safe fold. The potato salad comes in a Styrofoam container on the side. There’s also a topper style container of sauce.

Overall, it’s ok, but it’s nowhere near as smoky as I would have liked or expected. I would have thought that with all the wood burning going on this would have a real deep, rich smoke to the meat that you can taste when you exhale, but it is really more subtle than that. Good, better, depends.

The potato salad was gone before I knew it. It wasn’t because it was awesome, but the texture was a little different than I expected. In general, I think of potato salad with chunks, but this was blended as to be manageable for dysphagic and edentulous individuals. Not a bad mustard flavo(u)r, but nothing outstanding. My spoon just went all the way to the bottom before I found any food.

So, dive? Sure. Awesome? Nah, ok.

Yeah as I leave someone asks me for change. He’s being literal.