Based on a highly subjective assessment of local culinary institutions that lay claim to authentic, deep-smoked meats – mainly ribs, chicken and brisket. Who has the best? Create your own barbecue safari and decide for yourself.
1. Big Papa’s BBQ
6265 E. Evans Ave., Unit 1, 303-300-4499; 12652 W. Ken Caryl Ave., 720-922-3233, Littleton. Catering.
Outstanding hickory-smoked meats, especially succulent beef ribs (the only place we’ve found them in the metro area). Choice of baby back or St. Louis cut pork ribs. Piquant hot links. All meats do hard time in a 700-pound smoker with Ferris-wheel-like racks that rotate slowly, allowing the meat to marinate and smoke for eight hours at 200-225 degrees.
If you can be there when ribs are just coming out, you will experience heaven on a bone. It is rib nirvana. Don’t miss the signature sweet potato casserole. Equally splendid are the homemade potato salad, feather-light fried okra, and macaroni and cheese.
Southern blues flows in via satellite radio. No cobbler, but that other Southern standard, banana pudding, is available for dessert if you can find room for it. Beer, wine, soda, lemonade and coffee slake thirst. Now, if only they can resist succumbing to expansionitis.
2. Tennessee Hickory Smoked BBQ
5298 W. Mississippi Ave., 303-935-7900, Lakewood. Catering.
Think Tennessee, and Memphis comes to mind. Hickory-smoked meats here are done the way they’re supposed to be done, with patience and care. Ordering is simple and food is plentiful at this wonderful storefront. Eight customers will fill the place, so don’t be surprised if you have to stand in line.
The options are ribs, brisket, hot link sausage, chicken, pulled pork and the mighty turkey leg. Sides are baked beans, coleslaw, macaroni salad, potato salad and white bread. Not Texas toast. Not whole wheat. Not seven-grain.
Canned soft drinks. Dessert – sorry, but who eats strawberry-topped cheesecake after pigging out on pig?! Plan to take your food with you, because there are only a couple of tree stumps to sit on outside. If the weather’s right and you can snag one, you can sit and watch the traffic – which is not as dull as it sounds. When we were there, in a stroke of true irony, a car caught fire and we ate smoked ribs while firefighters squelched flames. Wherever you eat these ribs and chicken, your stomach will be happy.
Here you get the basics: meat and sides, sauce, onion, pickle, soft drinks, the end. Take time to visit with Toni and Tennessee, if they have time to talk. They’re a stitch.
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3. Chapter One BBQ and Grill
2260 S. Quebec St. (southeast corner of Evans Avenue and Quebec), 303-755-4777. Catering.
In addition to ribs, chicken, brisket, hot links, rib tips and turkey, Chapter One has hot dogs, hamburgers, fish and chips, bratwurst, catfish and corn dogs, or as they call them in Texas, ‘corny dogs. Sides are the usual baked beans, coleslaw, corn on the cob and potato salad.
The atmosphere is cheerful, and tables are covered with the requisite oilcloth. If you’re in a hurry, you might want to make that point up front – or call in your order before you arrive. Service can be slow, but then, part of the Southern tradition is to eat slowly. The owners are from Louisiana, where lunch time is given over to relaxing and enjoying a meal. And this is definitely food you can enjoy. Nicely seasoned baby green beans assuage guilt if you’re concerned about eating so much meat with so little roughage. Console yourself by saying you don’t eat like this all the time – unless, of course, you do, in which case you should keep the Tums handy.
4. Famous Dave’s Legendary Pit Barbecue,
7557 E. East 36th Ave., Quebec Square/Stapleton, 303-399-3100. Catering.
The good news is, a good-sized rib joint has hit Stapleton. The other news is, it’s a chain place that might or might not stick to its promise of meats smoked for as long as purported, and it has lots of stuff not ordinarily found on rib-joint menus.
Any barbecue place that has dozens of locations in 24 states is suspect to the barbecue fanatic, sort of like eating picante sauce from New York City. And what’s with this business of being listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange? Never mind. It’s called success, and a visit to Dave’s only Colorado restaurant is certainly successful. The lunch-platter special – ribs, chicken or catfish – comes with cornbread, corn on the cob and a choice of coleslaw, beans, fries or potato salad. The portions are beyond generous and the background music is appropriately bluesy. Or light into Dave’s Sampler Platter, overloaded with ribs, chicken wings, chicken tenders, catfish fingers and onion strings. Skip the chicken tenders and ask if they’ll sub out one of their outstanding hot links. Of the desserts, go for the bread pudding or the pecan pie. Service is brisk and cheerful.
5. Brothers BBQ
6449 Leetsdale Drive, 303-322-3289; 2589A S. Lewis Way, Lakewood, 303-989-9595; 565 U.S. 287, Broomfield, 303-635-2424; 9069 E. Arapahoe Road, Greenwood Village, 303-799-9777; 568 Washington St., 720-570-4227. Catering.
I’m giving Brothers BBQ one last chance – mainly because it was the first barbecue joint I heard about when I moved to Colorado from Texas. And since the Capital Hill location was near my home and my office, I became somewhat of a regular. The food was good. Perfectly respectable ribs and sausage, my favorite combo.
After 10 years cruising the Lone Star state, I had, admittedly, a tendency to be snooty about how a rib was treated. But Brothers’ ribs were consistently flavorful with a deep, if not altogether thoroughly smoked, taste.
Lately I’ve seen dramatic inconsistency at my old Colorado fave. A takeout order came with two of the ribs too dry to eat. On another occasion, under-seasoned meat tasted as though it had been started in the oven, then finished in a smoker – worse yet, a gas grill. Desserts do include sweet potato pie, peach cobbler, banana pudding, key lime pie and pecan pie, so the place gets props for that. But as a ‘cue eatery, no fair jacking prices and letting quality slip. It is not too late for Brothers to redeem itself, especially with such good new competition. The quality at Sixth and Washington should be the same as everywhere else.
