Bright and spiffy are not the words that immediately spring to my mind when I think about barbecue joints. They tend to be weathered, rustic places, either because they’ve earned that look the hard way, through years of hard service, or because their owners have calculated tumbledown shack-chic is the best way to sell barbecue.
Happily, Bruce’s Smokehouse & Ball Park Grill defies that convention. It is, in fact, bright and spiffy. The setting, in the midst of a shopping center, isn’t picturesque, but the tall, clean windows sparkle in the afternoon sunlight. The tables are covered with checked tablecloths.
The walls bear cheerful tribute to firehouses and firemen, and to an enormous array of athletes, coaches and teams. To be sure, much of the sports memorabilia and many of the signed photos are related to regional teams, but the collection’s geographic scope is deep enough to include plenty of names calculated to raise the ire of true blue Cards and Cats (“Is that a Tennessee football helmet?” asked my wife, Mary, with an indignant tremble in her voice).
The lineage of Bruce’s Smokehouse involves a complicated list of barbecue begats, but suffice it to say that owner Bruce Loeffler has been involved in more than one barbecue enterprise over the years (including the FireFresh BBQ and Fire House BBQ chain), but since last summer has been operating Bruce’s as an independent, stand-alone restaurant.
It’s a counter-service place, but members of the staff are quick and generally deliver meals directly to the table.
Based on a few recent visits, the style of barbecue is more saucy than smoky. Baby back ribs ($8.45 for an a la carte half-order, seven ribs; $15.95 for a full order) were tender and juicy enough that even the gentlest touch with a fork pulled the meat from the bone.
The meat had the attractive pink that reflects long, slow cooking — and yet, the smoke flavor was decidedly in the background. For purists who crave smoke at saturation levels, this might seem like thin stuff, but even they would have trouble finding fault with the way those ribs melt away in the mouth.
The same can be said for sandwiches made of pulled pork ($3.85; $6.85 as a combo with two sides) and pulled chicken ($4.25/$7.25). Both were moist and juicy, but barely smoky.
It’s an approach to barbecue that cries out for generous dollops of sauce, and sauces there are: four varieties. Over time, I’ve come to favor the “Hazmat” sauce, which is perfectly designed to take advantage of the physiology of the tongue. It starts with a burst of sweetness that seduces the taste buds at the front of the tongue — then, just as you’re wondering what justifies the name, it delivers a refreshing blast of cayenne heat to receptors at the back. It won’t stun the tongues of the most devout heat-seekers, but it’s a fun sauce nonetheless, as are a vinegar-inflected red sauce, an unabashedly sweet sauce that declares its intentions right on the bottle, and a thick, ruddy “Georgia” sauce with a fine, tart edge.
Sampler platters are always available, and offer generous tasting quantities of two or three meats ($10.75/$12.75) with assorted sides. A generous pile of saucy rib tips pairs nicely with pulled pork, a big scoop of skillet-fried potatoes (studded with chunks of sausage) and a colorful bowl of yellow corn dolled up with red peppers. Other sides include baked beans, well-seasoned green beans and two slaws — one creamy, the other dressed with clear, sweet vinegar).
And though the beer list is limited to a handful of bottles, everything on the menu is available for bulk-order carryout, at prices that look pretty darned affordable. Pulled pork for four, for instance, runs $8 with buns and sauce; for 18-22, $44; for 28-34, $67; and for 58-62, $132. That’s a lot of pork for the price.
(14 ratings)