It really is a “take out and catering” place. It looks like they used to have picknic tables but they don’t anymore. You’re either eating on the hood of your car, or finding a local park. Since it is take out there is no alcohol. If there’s a local bar that is OK with you bringing tasty, tasty ribs, someone should post.
Lack of smoke taste. For a BBQ to have no smoke ring and no smoke taste is disconcerting. I expect a bit of smokey tang, that’s sort of the point.
Good quality meat. Didn’t taste the brisket, which was sold out at 2:30pm on a saturday. Did taste the ribs and pulled pork. Ribs could have been a little more lip-smacking to my taste ( ie fatty ), but the rub was solid, and missteps in anything else were made up in the sauce. Now, a proper BBQ place doesn’t need sauce, and it’s the sign of middling BBQ to be “made up in the sauce”, but all of these meats with their sauce were really tasty.
Sides were also middlin. The Corn bread was just OK, nothing particularly special but nothing wrong with it. The slaw wasn’t heavy with mayo but OTOH didn’t have anything xtra ( lime, peanut, SOMETHING ), the beans were just pintos with no extras ( no “dirt” ).
Final point - glad I went, would stop here if I had been surfing and was famished and had an extra twenty bucks in my pocket, but overall not the BBQ destination I had been lead to believe. The mexican place in the same cluster looks more inviting, and would try that next.
DDD is almost an anti-pattern for me. I remember when the little diner in Emeryville was featured, and it is a fun little place, and open late, but it was never worth more than a few stops. Falafel Drive Inn I’ve also loved the atmosphere, and there is something addictive about the bannana shake combo, but I’ve got a list of falafel places I love better.
