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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.

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Tags: barbecue, North Pinellas County, restaurants