After telling friends I’d enjoyed an excellent pastrami sandwich and a two-meat plate at Memphis Minnie’s, I was met with some suspicious looks. Yes, the quality of barbecue at the long-running Haight Street joint deteriorated sharply before it closed last September. But a former line cook resurrected it earlier this year. “It’s good again,” I insisted to anyone willing to listen. And it is! Still, I could sense the skepticism.
San Francisco has a right to be wary. This city teems with high-quality meat — at luxe steakhouses, smashburger stands, old-school Italian delis, and hard-partying Korean barbecue spots — but saucy, messy, American-style barbecue? Not so much.
Given the challenge of obtaining a table at House of Prime Rib, it’s clear San Francisco’s lack of slow-smoked meat doesn’t come from a bias against beef. But after talking to some of the city’s best (and only) barbecue masters, I realized we may be doomed to a brisket deficit for the rest of time.
Admittedly, many solid barbecue spots have shuttered over the years, including CatHead’s in SoMa, Kansas City Barbecue near Oracle Park, and Matt Horn’s much-loved empire in the East Bay. Others, including Bernal Heights’ Baby Blues BBQ, have endured but suffer from middling reputations. As one measure of the Bay Area’s position in the pantheon, Yelp’s annual list of America’s Top 100 (opens in new tab) barbecue spots, which was released last week, included several local KBBQ restaurants but none serving Texas-style brisket or Kansas City pork ribs…