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The great North Pinellas County roadside barbecue tour

I am from northern New England, home of pine trees, good seafood and plenty of snow.

Eli's, a Dunedin barbecue institution

What northern New England DOESN’T have is barbecue. And that’s enough to keep me here for the rest of my life. That, and the lack of snow.

When we lived up Maine and got a hankering for barbecue, we had to pile into the car and head south to South Portland, home to the only barbecue restaurant in the entire state of Maine.

(Now, before my old Maine friends get on here and attack me for my incredible lack of modern Maine barbecue awareness, I do have to acknowledge that, in my absence over the past 16 years, there is now something called the “Mainely Grillin’ and Chillin’ Country BBQ State Competition” that takes place in Eliot, Maine in August. Also, a Google search does reveal a few new barbecue restaurants scattered around the state. Wish they were there when we lived there…)

Anyway, there is no lack of barbecue in Florida, or throughout the entire South. Around here, there’s a barbecue joint on every other corner, and we go to most of them.

One thing that I really enjoy, though, are the little roadside pit barbecue places. Usually, these operate out in the open with not much more than a big black smoker and perhaps a couple of picnic tables. The more grandly financed outfits may operate out of a trailer of some kind.

Anyway, there’s enough of them around here that I thought I’d do a little blog tour of North Pinellas County’s outdoor roadside barbecue places. Here are three of them:

Eli’s

Now that I’ve just gotten through describing roadside BBQ joints as not having any permanent real estate, I start off with Eli’s, s which actually does. But here is why I’m including it: It’s a Dunedin institution; it’s only open on Friday and Saturday; and while it does have a small permanent building, only the help can go inside — customers must order through a window, and then have to take the food home or eat it outside on a strange collection of picnic tables and old restaurant booths.

One order of ribs -- to go!

There’s a big ol’ smoker out back that has a name of its own — “Bigfoot.” And it turns out very good barbecue that Eli sells at very good prices — a chopped pork sandwich with beans and cole slaw was just $6 on a recent visit.

The parking lot at Eli’s is often full or nearly so on Friday’s and Saturday’s, the only days that Eli’s is open. And on the day I was there, one customer actually rode in on a riding lawn mower, got his order of ribs and rode out, balancing his white bag of food on his lap.

Willy J’s

Now this is more what I had in mind when I started thinking about actual roadside barbecue. Willy J runs his business out of a trailer which is tarted up to look like a log cabin, and is parked in a gas station parking lot on the east side of Alternate 19 just north of Florida Avenue in Palm Harbor.

The interesting thing about Willy J’s is that the big black cast iron barbecue smoker is actually INSIDE THE TRAILER. It occupies what looks like a porch area at one end of the trailer. If all that smoke and heart bothers the people inside, they don’t let on.

We chatted for a few minutes with Willy J, and he said he wanted the trailer-based business because he wanted to emulate the old roadside barbecue businesses of years gone by. I’d say he’s done it. And, oh yes, the pulled pork sandwich was great. I especially liked the baked beans, which tasted as though they had been simmered in something that contained a large dollop of molasses. Mmmmmmm.

GG’s Rotisserie Pit Bar-B-Q

GG's Rotisserie Pit Bar-B-Q

This is another trailer-based barbecue outfit, only this one is parked in the parking lot of a convenience store on Belcher in Dunedin. GG’s white trailer produces probably the most extensive barbecue menu we’ve seen, with jerk chicken and jerk pork added to the usual chicken, beef, pork and rib offerings. You can also order up green beans and corn as sides in addition to the baked beans, potato salad and cole slaw more commonly offered.

I took home the ribs and chicken combo, which I thought might have been a little expensive until I opened it up; there was enough to feed four. At least. And it was very good, especially the ribs.

Tags: barbecue, North Pinellas County, restaurants

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 30th, 2009 at 12:12 pm and is filed under North Pinellas County, restaurants, things to do. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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