Botched Barbecue in Biloxi

There are many things I know little about. I rarely let that stop me from having an opinion on the matter, and often a strongly held one, and occasionally, even, a wrong one.

But food, as a consumer, I actually know a lot about. I may even be considered a bit of an expert. (at least by me)

I have never run a restaurant, but I have some advice for anyone thinking of opening one. First, unless you are passionate about serving really good food, please do not bother. We already have McDonalds and the olive garden and they serve perfectly acceptable edible food at affordable prices and they are reliably the same, so very trustworthy. To open a shop, of any sort, but especially food, one must reach a threshold of value that rises above Walmart and McDonalds and home depot.

2nd, if you can’t master it, don’t serve it. Possible the best hamburgers in the world are at a place in Pensacola Florida called Blue Dot. They serve two things burgers and ribs, not sides, no chicken, no nothing, no cheese. Single burger, double burger, and burger with BBQ sauce, cash only, buy it or go away. For 50 years, they have done this, and they ALWAYS sell out, in fact, when they sell out, they go home. Their 5.50 burger is so popular, they now only do ribs on Saturdays. I think you can get canned soda and a bag of chips, but they are in the burger business, and they never serve any burger that is not memorable, never. I mean never.

This is not a post about Blue Dot. This is a post about the Barbecue in Biloxi, MS. Biloxi is a great place for po boys and even some upscale seafood places and the best soft shell crab sandwiches are at a place called Lil’ Ray’s which used to back up to a dock on the Gulf until Katrina rearranged the skyline, so now they are at 500 Courthouse Rd in Biloxi, and worth the drive.

But this isn’t about Lil’ Ray’s either.

My youngest son came out as gay about 2 years ago, and as such has begun to learn a bit about the history of the struggle for equality in this country, including, of course Stonewall. Well, near our hotel is a place called Stonewall’s BBQ. We all love BBQ, especially Sonny’s, which has mastered the art I started with. Unfortunately, the nearest Sonny’s is over an hour away in Mobile, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get some authentic deep south BBQ. I warned my son that Stonewall, in southern Mississippi, might not mean what he thought it meant. He looked quizzical. “Stonewall Jackson.” I explained. He was pretty grossed out by the thought. So I went on line and looked at their webpage, while it certainly didn’t have any rainbows on it, it didn’t have rebel flags either. I called and asked where the name came from. The young lady who answered the phone giggled and replied that she had no idea.

While I was at it, I googled BBQ and found a place called Pleasants BBQ. The photo looked a little more “authentic” so I called to make sure they were open. A gentleman answered in a distinctly southern African American voice and assured me they were. So I gave the family the option of picking either, and gave them the thumbnail of what I had discovered. I leaned towards Pleasants because of a bias I have towards black folks over white folks in southern cooking. (maybe that’s a form of racism, if it is, I apologize, but in my experience, black folks tended to do the cooking when good southern food was served, both of my grandmother’s excepted, of course). Anyway, they family voted for Stonewalls, so off we went. When we got out of the car, the wood smoke smell was SO GOOD, you knew we had made the right choice. Of course, when we went inside and the young lady was wearing a Bama hat, I had misgivings. We ordered what we usually order, or as close as we could get, they had no fries, so S got a ? chicken with cheesy potato casserole, I got a pulled pork sandwich and baked beans, C got a ? rack of ribs.

My sandwich was good. The cheesy casserole was actually kinda nasty, the baked beans were disappointing. C ate ? of his ?, S ate one piece of chicken. They both looked as sad as I felt. I suggested as it was still pretty early we should drive over to Pleasants and see if we could not yet salvage the dinner.

The gentleman greeted us at the door, was very friendly and we chatted about the hurricane (MS has been overrun by us FL people, but so far, the locals aren’t hating us too much, yet), we basically reordered the same meals as we had ordered at Stonewalls (BTW, the super pulled pork WAS named the Robert E Lee, so maybe it was for Stonewall Jackson. Because of the name, I ordered the regular instead of the large).

“Mr. Pleasant” served us our meals, S couldn’t finish one piece of chicken, C ate ? of a rib sandwich, I ate my pulled pork sandwich, and picked at the baked beans. S has fried instead of cheesy disaster food, but they were extremely ordinary. C and I preferred the ribs and pulled pork to Stonewalls, but S thought the chicken was much worse. We brought the leftover ribs home and that is what I had for breakfast.

If you are a BBQ place, and you can’t or don’t want to make good sides, DON’T!!!! if either place sold, pulled pork and rib sandwiches, I am sure I would have been writing rave reviews. If you can’t make amazing bread (or source it from a great local baker), with the except for basic white bread or hamburger buns, if you can’t do beans, maybe you shouldn’t open your BBQ place, but if you can’t do beans, and you really want to do BBQ, leave the beans off, same for fries and cheesy stuff and everything else.

If you care enough to get a good recipe, and go to the local market and get fresh ingredients, to learn how to cook and/or train your cooks to consistently make the dish, you can charge a very good price for whatever you cook and people will build a line out your door. I would rather pay 10 dollars for the best burger/sandwich/taco, whatever than $5 for a disappointment. The funny thing is the really good food I have eaten, unless it was in a gourmet, sit down fancy environment is rarely 20% more expensive than crappy versions of the same food.

So, sad to say, there may be some good barbecue in Biloxi, but we did not find any to write home about, and the sides were truly sad.

People, if you have an item that costs you 15 cents to buy and 50 cents to prepare and you sell it for $2, get it right. Or just go to Sonny’s, if you live close to one.

There are many things I know little about. I rarely let that stop me from having an opinion on the matter, and often a strongly held one, and occasionally, even, a wrong one.

But food, as a consumer, I actually know a lot about. I may even be considered a bit of an expert. (at least by me)

I have never run a restaurant, but I have some advice for anyone thinking of opening one. First, unless you are passionate about serving really good food, please do not bother. We already have McDonalds and the olive garden and they serve perfectly acceptable edible food at affordable prices and they are reliably the same, so very trustworthy. To open a shop, of any sort, but especially food, one must reach a threshold of value that rises above Walmart and McDonalds and home depot.

2nd, if you can’t master it, don’t serve it. Possible the best hamburgers in the world are at a place in Pensacola Florida called Blue Dot. They serve two things burgers and ribs, not sides, no chicken, no nothing, no cheese. Single burger, double burger, and burger with BBQ sauce, cash only, buy it or go away. For 50 years, they have done this, and they ALWAYS sell out, in fact, when they sell out, they go home. Their 5.50 burger is so popular, they now only do ribs on Saturdays. I think you can get canned soda and a bag of chips, but they are in the burger business, and they never serve any burger that is not memorable, never. I mean never.

This is not a post about Blue Dot. This is a post about the Barbeque in Biloxi, MS. Biloxi is a great place for po boys and even some upscale seafood places and the best soft shell crab sandwiches are at a place called Lil’ Ray’s which used to back up to a dock on the Gulf until Katrina rearranged the skyline, so now they are at 500 Courthouse Rd in Biloxi, and worth the drive.

But this isn’t about Lil’ Ray’s either.

My youngest son came out as gay about 2 years ago, and as such has begun to learn a bit about the history of the struggle for equality in this country, including, of course Stonewall. Well, near our hotel is a place called Stonewall’s BBQ. We all love BBQ, especially Sonny’s, which has mastered the art I started with. Unfortunately, the nearest Sonny’s is over an hour away in Mobile, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get some authentic deep south BBQ. I warned my son that Stonewall, in southern Mississippi, might not mean what he thought it meant. He looked quizzical. “Stonewall Jackson.” I explained. He was pretty grossed out by the thought. So I went on line and looked at their webpage, while it certainly didn’t have any rainbows on it, it didn’t have rebel flags either. I called and asked where the name came from. The young lady who answered the phone giggled and replied that she had no idea.

While I was at it, I googled BBQ and found a place called Pleasants BBQ. The photo looked a little more “authentic” so I called to make sure they were open. A gentleman answered in a distinctly southern African American voice and assured me they were. So I gave the family the option of picking either, and gave them the thumbnail of what I had discovered. I leaned towards Pleasants because of a bias I have towards black folks over white folks in southern cooking. (maybe that’s a form of racism, if it is, I apologize, but in my experience, black folks tended to do the cooking when good southern food was served, both of my grandmother’s excepted, of course). Anyway, they family voted for Stonewalls, so off we went. When we got out of the car, the wood smoke smell was SO GOOD, you knew we had made the right choice. Of course, when we went inside and the young lady was wearing a Bama hat, I had misgivings. We ordered what we usually order, or as close as we could get, they had no fries, so S got a ? chicken with cheesy potato casserole, I got a pulled pork sandwich and baked beans, C got a ? rack of ribs.

My sandwich was good. The cheesy casserole was actually kinda nasty, the baked beans were disappointing. C ate ? of his ?, S ate one piece of chicken. They both looked as sad as I felt. I suggested as it was still pretty early we should drive over to Pleasants and see if we could not yet salvage the dinner.

The gentleman greeted us at the door, was very friendly and we chatted about the hurricane (MS has been overrun by us FL people, but so far, the locals aren’t hating us too much, yet), we basically reordered the same meals as we had ordered at Stonewalls (BTW, the super pulled pork WAS named the Robert E Lee, so maybe it was for Stonewall Jackson. Because of the name, I ordered the regular instead of the large).

“Mr. Pleasant” served us our meals, S couldn’t finish one piece of chicken, C ate ? of a rib sandwich, I ate my pulled pork sandwich, and picked at the baked beans. S has fried instead of cheesy disaster food, but they were extremely ordinary. C and I preferred the ribs and pulled pork to Stonewalls, but S thought the chicken was much worse. We brought the leftover ribs home and that is what I had for breakfast.

If you are a BBQ place, and you can’t or don’t want to make good sides, DON’T!!!! if either place sold, pulled pork and rib sandwiches, I am sure I would have been writing rave reviews. If you can’t make amazing bread (or source it from a great local baker), with the except for basic white bread or hamburger buns, if you can’t do beans, maybe you shouldn’t open your BBQ place, but if you can’t do beans, and you really want to do BBQ, leave the beans off, same for fries and cheesy stuff and everything else.

If you care enough to get a good recipe, and go to the local market and get fresh ingredients, to learn how to cook and/or train your cooks to consistently make the dish, you can charge a very good price for whatever you cook and people will build a line out your door. I would rather pay 10 dollars for the best burger/sandwich/taco, whatever than $5 for a disappointment. The funny thing is the really good food I have eaten, unless it was in a gourmet, sit down fancy environment is rarely 20% more expensive than crappy versions of the same food.

So, sad to say, there may be some good barbeque in Biloxi, but we did not find any to write home about, and the sides were truly sad. People, if you have an item that costs you 15 cents to buy and 50 cents to prepare and you sell it for $2, get it right. Or just go to Sonny’s, if you live close to one.