Tourists And Locals Agree: San Francisco Sucks For Barbecue

Step one: fly to Little Rock.  Step two: drive to Hot Springs.  Step three: drive past McClard's and head to Smokin' In Style.  Step four: eat BBQ.

Andrew, have to say your investigative journalism needs polishing as you overlooked several BBQ joints in town that deserve some recognition. For one, you didn't even include Pete's BBQ, in the mission, on Mission St.

Whatever. I like Memphis Minnie's. It's not Arthur Bryant's but I don't live here for the BBQ. And I agree, the burger thing is BS and prob a function of touristsnot leavingdowntown or the Wharf.

Brother's on Geary and Han Il Kwan on Balboa are both delicious. Not the same thing, but still damn good BBQ. 

Johnson's BBQ out on San Bruno Ave. was small and dingy but delicious.  Joe Johnson passed and the place is gone and I'll forever miss both. 

Hyde Away is worth the stop. I think they have some funky hours though.

http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos...

Also, it doesn't help that tourists are eating pulled pork sandwiches at places like Knuckles and Tiernan's. Flavorless dreck and expensive.

It is strange that there is little to no great barbecue in the Bay Area.  I mean we have some of the tastiest pork and beef in the country.  And some of the best chefs.  But somehow, the barbeque around here just doesn't taste right.

Have had a few discussions with friends about this and one suspicion is that the available wood around here just doesn't impart the same taste as the hickory used throughout the south.

If anyone has other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

RIP Brother-in-Law's.

Starvin Marvin's Bay Area BBQ needs to get on it and open a restaurant in SF. That would change everything!!! Best BBQ!!! 

What's with all these shitty "SF versus City X" and "Best bar/food/whatever in the country" stories?

Really? Who cares. Go to Memphis or Austin if you're that needing of bbq. We've got a million other things to keep us satiated and happy.

Everett & Jones in Oakland makes some tasty BBQ

No mention of any Central Coast cities on that list so I can't really trust it.

I third Gorilla. Not exactly in town but worth the trip.

I'm dying to try the weekend BBQ at Creole Kitchen. Everything else there is so good.

Cedar Hill in the Marina is pretty good. Kinda 'classy' and expensive, but it's the Marina. What are you gonna do?

Hyde Away smells good as I cruise by on my motorcycle but I haven't stopped there yet.

Da Pitt is hit or miss, but when it hits it's the closest you get to that skanky roadside shack in Alabama.

Get some Hyde Away. It's pretty good. Pricey, but good.

90s-holdout cartoon pig logo? It's a Mr. Natural-era R. Crumb representation of a pig if anything.

Just like NYC!

I went to RUB in Chelsea and it was really good.

Memphis Minnie's does have good sauce, but the meat is really inconsistent, and it definitely doesn't taste like any barbeque I've had in Memphis. We definitely need to raise the bar for San Francisco barbeque. 

Stick with Rice-a-Roni.

Second Gorilla BBQ and the comment above re Memphis Minnie's. Where I come from, we tend to eat a lot of pit beef but also our fair share of tangy Carolina-style BBQ (not so sweet, not so KC).  MM's is as good as anything I've had except for a shack in Virginia that I'm not telling anyone about.

Also, T+L can suck it.  It's a rag published by American Express and who comes to SF for BBQ anyway?  What we really need is Leon's, which kicked ass (out by the beach, on Sloat) but is gone.

This is the crux of the issue. Why would I go to San Francisco to eat BBQ? I can see why locals would want good BBQ, but if you travel to the city, you ought to eat more local, I think.

Oh my God!! Memories..................I LOVED Leon's and the people that worked there just tickled my fancy.  ; )

Could not agree more. I completely get the point that we have *some* bbq restaurants here, but the standard of that bbq is decidedly awful when compared to the South. 

Unfair comparison. ALL bbq everywhere is awful when compared to the South.

Exactly. Are there blogs in New Orleans, Atlanta, Memphis, etc...that are boo-hooing about their lack of good sourdough bread, mission-style burritos or Chinese food?

On the bright side, almost everything else besides BBQ is great when compared to the South.

I call B S on that.

RIP Flint's.  

+1

I'm going to have to disagree with the wholesale discounting of Memphis Minnie's here.  I keep going back because they plate some of the tastiest BBQ I've had anywhere (certainly beating out anywhere I've tried in Portland, and I lived there for 3 years!), and what is a good BBQ without a good sauce?  I don't need the selection - I go straight for the Beelzebub's sauce every time.  If I could buy it in a store, they'd have a lifelong customer.  Anytime my partner or I get a craving for BBQ, we go straight to Minnie's and don't even think about other options.

While I think the meat is tolerable at MM (decent smoke ring on the brisket and consistent if not standout) and the sides (esp the tangy greens) are delicious, I always thought the sauces  are pretty awful. Whenever I eat here, I prefer to bring my own sauce in (from Rudys in Austin). What they try to pass off as a Texas style one tastes too much like ketchup -- I'd prefer even KC masterpiece on my brisket using their "texas style" stuff.

For pork ribs, I prefer the dry rub ones from Baby Blues.

-mm

If you leave a BBQ joint raving about the sauce, something is seriously wrong.

MM's food tastes like it was smoked three days ago. Not good.

Raving about sauce vs meat?
That's a total ford vs chevy kind of debate. Some people believe the meat should be good but the sauce is what makes the BBQ. 

Other folks believe its all about the quality of the smoke and the rub. You seem to fall in the latter camp.

I like them both but I will still poop on places with sub par sauces (Memphis Minnies) or places with subpar smoked meat (most BBQ in SF).
-mm

"Some people believe the meat should be good but the sauce is what makes the BBQ."

Just my opinion, but I think these people come from places that don't make good bbq. Kind of like folks that put A-1 sauce on their steak.

"what is a good BBQ without a good sauce?" 

We call that most bbq from North Carolina (both eastern and western varietals) and Memphis. Neither of which needs sauce. 

PREACH IT BROTHER! Proper sauce is spelled h-o-t-v-i-n-e-g-a-r.

Why is there a picture of dog food on this article about San Francisco BBQ?

One is derived from the other?

Second that Gorilla BBQ, but it's not exactly "in town"...

I gotta put in a good word for Gorilla BBQ in town, too. The brisket is soooooo good.

On edit: Ah OK, "in town" means Pacifica, not your town. That town. The City town. Not that one.