Hoe are BBQ joints typically set up in your neck of the woods?

Cafe Society
1

Here in Dallas, I’d say 90% of them are set up buffet style (which I hate). You go up to the counter. the guy slices and plates the meats for you, and then hands you the plate so you can continue to move down the line and fill your plate with whatever sides you want.

But when I go to Tulsa, it seems the places are either: Go to the counter, order your food, then they will bring your plate out to you or just sit down and order off the menu like a typical restaurant.

I wish Dallas had more of the sit down and order type joints.

Anyway, I’m just currious which is more common across the States and other parts of the world.

2

Most local bbq here in Little Rock is ordered at the counter. There’s a few small tables for people that want to dine in. Most orders are carry out.

We do have the typical BBQ chain dine in restaurants. I prefer the small independent, hole in the wall places.

3

My go-to for ribs (in the summer) is a huge food truck type affair. The guy used to smoke meat as a hobby, then catered a few parties. Now he runs a truck all summer. He’s open Thursday-Sunday and sells out by closing most nights. As a regular customer, I can call ahead and he’ll set aside my order.

It is now winter. I wouldn’t know where to get ribs if I had to.

4

There seem to be three types that I’ve encountered.
Shacks where you order, they fix the food and you sit outside to eat. (Maryland)
Regular restaurants where you order off menus. (Maryland)
Basically like the second but they specialise in BBQ and have several types of sauce on the table. (Florida)

5

Here in North Carolina, almost every joint I’ve been to is a sitdown restaurant. I think I have been to one buffet, and no counter-order restaurants.

6

It really depends on the barbecue joint. If you’re talking traditional South Side and West Side style Chicago barbecue with the aquarium smoker and all (which is a local thing, though I have seen an aquarium smoker at Cozy Corner in Memphis), you usually order at the counter, get your food at the counter, and walk out. There’s often no place to sit and eat.

If you’re talking more north side and sit-down friendly places, it’s split between order at the counter and you get called when the food is ready, or sit down & order from the menu like a regular restaurant.

7

No buffet-type BBQ joints around here that I know of. They are all sit-down places or outdoor, food truck type spots. Few of them are great. Running about 50/50 passable to crappy. The chain places are uniformly bad.

8

I’ve only been to one. Regular sit-down type place. It’s pretty good.

9

Here in south Texas the typical set up is getting your meats while ordering at the counter, and then getting your sides at a separate salad bar type setup. Most places are sit down.

10

I know of only two “order at the counter” style around here; one was an express version of the sit-down restaurant up the street. Took 'em a long time to even add a seating area to the express counter. Sadly, the express counter and the sit-down restaurant which spawned it have gone outside the Beltway.

Not really any BBQ buffets around here unless you count places like Golden Corral.

11

The ‘cue in NYC is far better now than it was 20-30 years ago, but it’s all still sit-and-order from a menu.

The best buffet I’ve been to in my life was Charlotte Jenkins’s Gullah Cuisine roadhouse in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. And while her BBQ was first-rate, it came in second to her mind blowing fried chicken.

12

In Prague a couple weeks back, our son took us to a butcher shop which was a front for a large room with a beer/wine bar on one side, the other with a counter offering a variety of meats and potato dishes.

We ordered grilled beef shoulder, roasted beef top round, Tafelspitz (Viennese beef shin boiled in stock with marrow and vegetables), a slab of the best meat loaf I’ve ever tasted, a stack of scallion-potato pancakes…and a pile of pulled pork as delicious as I’ve had anywhere in North Carolina.

Everything was spread across a large wooden board, and we ate it all standing at a small high table between swigs of Czech Pilsener, snapping at the food like starving dogs.

13

I live in Korea. Every BBQ restaurant has a gas-powered grill at the table. The waitress lays out little dishes with kimchi, garlic, lettuce and whatnot and brings as much raw beef to the table as your party can cook and eat. Plus, Cass and Soju to drink.

I lived in one city, Gumi, where a wonderful chef launched a “California BBQ” restaurant that Americans would recognize as BBQ. I loved it, but the locals never warmed up to it and it disappeared about two months after I discovered it. I think it’s a game arcade now. It was smack in the middle of a red light district, which may have had some impact on its fate. Lots of “American style” restaurants fail in Korea, though there was a very successful KFC and a McDonalds in the same neighborhood.

14

I’d say order at the counter is probably the most popular here. There’s a couple of places that are kind of a hybrid between sit down and order and a sports bar. They probably sell appetizers as much as full meals.

Never seen one buffet style.

15

I’d say order at the counter is probably the most popular here. There’s a couple of places that are kind of a hybrid between sit down and order and a sports bar. They probably sell appetizers as much as full meals.

Never seen one buffet style.

16

Most people might not associate barbecue with California, but we actually have our own regional barbecue style – Santa Maria style beef tri-tip. I’d never encountered it until I moved here. Sorry, that was a bit off topic.

Back on topic, I think most actual brick and mortar barbecue restaurants in these parts are the order at the counter variety, although there is a sit down place near the new arena downtown. But one of the better barbecue places in these parts is actually a food truck – Smokers Wild. These guys actually tow a smoker around behind their food truck.

17

What’s a BBQ joint? Allegedly there actually are a couple of dedicated BBQ joints in New Hampshire in Nashua and Manchester and one up in the Lakes region but I’ve never been to them.

18

Yeah, on the Lockhart & Seguin BBQ trail you order meat at a counter in the smoker room where the guys pull it right off the racks then slice and weigh and collect your money. The heavenly aromas always make you order too much, and you never ever regret it. Then onto a separate room where you get sides & drinks at another counter and there’s tables to sit and eat. Butcher paper on rollers serves as tablecloth and placemats. Most other central/south TX places have the combined order counter. Some like the Salt Lick even do table service.

19

Hoes gotta eat, too!

20

Nitpick, I live in the same neck, and I refer to it as “cafeteria style”. The only true buffet barbecue joint I’ve ever been to is Moonlite in Owensboro, KY. You grab a plate, and can make as many trips down the buffet as you like while grabbing as much as your plate will hold with the tongs (only place I’ve ever seen smoked mutton, and I’ll be sure to eat more the next time I’m there, and to skip breakfast). With cafeteria style, they charge for each item, and the only thing you’re grabbing are the plates that are offered.

I don’t know how cafeteria style became the standard in DFW, but it really is. My favorites, Sonny Bryan’s, Pecan Lodge, Longoria’s, Bailey’s and Heim don’t do it. Heim Longoria’s, and Pecan Lodge have you sit and wait after you order (if it isn’t to go), some Sonny Bryan’s locations I’ve been to have you stand around (e.g., the one on Mockingbird the last time I visited, who are open 24 hours now!*), but some have a cafeteria set-up. Bailey’s usually have my sammich prepared by the time I get done paying, but I’ve seen others standing around waiting for large orders. Dickey’s, Cousin’s, the generally departed Colter’s, and just about other place that starts up is going to use cafeteria style, though. I don’t have a particular dislike for it, it has its trade offs. If you are getting chopped brisket at the cafeteria style counters (I usually go for sliced), they ask if you want fat, lean or a mix (folks have preferences). Sliced customers usually get lean. I don’t see that kind of distinction being made about the cuts you get at the other style restaurants. I’ve often been served a fatty sliced sammich that I wouldn’t have gotten from a cafeteria style place because I would have seen it, and asked for a different cut. OTOH, more often than the others, the slowest way to get served barbecue.

If I were to guess how it caught on here, it’s because the high profit banana puddin’, carrot cake and chocolate pie look a lot more appealing when you’re coming down that line with your tray with an empty belly, and not when you’ve crammed it full of barbecue, onion rings and other sides.

*Those maniacs used to be only be open until they ran out of meat that was smoked on site the night before. It had it’s charm, but you usually had to get there before noon if you wanted to have a selection, and they were closed on the weekends by 3 or so. I don’t know if they started carting in meat smoked at other locations, but as a person who used to work the graveyard in that neck of the woods, it is a welcome change.