For openers, if you think the best barbecue is usually found in the worst art of town, in a place with bars on the windows and just enough grease on the table to write your initials, then this isn't it.
And if you also think that the place you'd look for ' good 'Cue (note capitalization) would not be in a gas station, then you'd also be wrong.At least this time.
Turns out a barbecue joint squeezed into the corner of a service station (sounds better than gas station) can turn out some pretty good 'Cue. And for a guy who has spent a lifetime in pursuit of the Perfect Barbecue (read more than seven dozen Yelp reviews from across the country), that turned out to be a pleasant surprise.
The place is Butts To Go and my hunch is that it's a family run enterprise. You know it's authentic by the number and various sizes of the smokers outside. Once inside, you know it's authentic because the people there, likely a mom, her daughter and her husband, seem to be just genuinely nice people who will tell you how much money you could save if you opt for the special (more food for less money).
We opted for pork and brisket sandwiches, chips, potato salad, beans and tea. And weren't disappointed on any count and surprised when the Texaco Maître De came by our one of only three tables and offered up some incredibly delicious smoked wings. Crisp, moist and full flavor.
From the bottom up: the tea is not homemade, but ten neither or the sauces.
At our visit we had our choice of several, the best of which was the famed Dreamland sauce (thin with slight taste of vinegar and a bit of a kick) and something called Hog Heaven sauced from Sylacauga, Alabama - likely a little known barbecue sanctuary somewhere in a heavily wooded area not visible from the air or highway, but where they put out one of heckuva great barbecue sauce. If you're into sauce (in a manner of speaking) look for this one in the store or one a shelf near the checkout counter at BTG.
The brisket was chopped maybe an inch or so thick on a fresh bun, the pork was in strips - both moist, both teeing up real flavor, and both bargains, and all the more so as part of Butts' special
The potato salad was good, the beans, obviously homemade and better than average, the ribs not yet ready. Next time.
Other Yelp reviews suggests that for most folks, Butts To Go is must that, a place you go when you went your 'Cue to go home with you... but if you've on the highway, or you'd just prefer, they do have all of three small tables where you can sit down next to a great selection of junk food on one wall and the drink cooler on the other. I doubt that tipping can get you preferred seating. Finding a seat is the challenge.
Drinks? You fill your own cup and refills are on the house.
Butts To Go is worth finding if you're anywhere near... Good, very good barbecue at reasonable prices serviced up by some nice folks.
The Brown Shoe Gourmet puts four stars on the barbecue at the Texaco Star. read more