Main Street BBQ

1620 Highway Z
Pevely, Mo.
On the Web
On Facebook


The Place:
Just East of I-55 In Pevely. Big sign, you can't miss it.
I saw this on their Facebook page:
FACEBOOK FAN APPRECIATION DAYS!!! Show us this post on your mobile device, or print at home like a coupon and we'll take 10% off any order today and tomorrow. PLUS, we'll give you a FREE bottle of sauce with any order $20 or more (pre tax, pre discount). WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Leave a comment about your favorite Main Street item and three random folks will win t- shirts! 
Unfortunately I saw it after we were there, not before.
Which leads us to today's tech tip:  If you are going out to eat, fancy or simple, check the social media sites before you go. This sort of offer is not unusual for places that are social-media-savvy.
When you step in to MSBBQ you immediately encounter the counter. On the front of it is the menu in big red letters painted on white boards. There are also printed paper menus and some places to sit for a while to figure it out if you're not familiar with the offerings. We'd been there a couple of times before, but not recently, so it took us only a few minutes.
The Food:
I knew they made good meat, very good in most cases, but I was on a mission. I'd looked at the online menu earlier in the week and had decided to step off the comfy smoked meat grid. I ordered a bowl of 'Beef Brisket and pulled pork Chili', with cheese and onions.
Angel asked for the half chicken plate, BBQ style. I reused my brilliant joke about whether she preferred the front half or the back half of the bird. She sided hers with red potato salad and corn, cob-style. Adam ordered the Main Street Special, brisket, with kettle chips and baked beans. We paid up, were handed our cups and I poured my 'fresh brewed' tea. (more on this later). Angel took a taste of the sweet tea then stepped over to the Dr. Pepper. Adam poured, to no one's surprise, Pepsi.
Since the meat is already slow cooked and just needs to be plated, the wait for the food was pretty short. My chili arrived first.They served it with two packages of oyster crackers and two wedges of Texas toast. I don't like oysters so I didn't even open the crackers.*
I stirred the cheese and onions into the nearly overflowing soup. It was chunky, quite chunky. Beans, meat chunks, tomatoes in good quantity. Once I decided it had had enough time to cool a little I took a sip of the broth.
Savory, smoky, meaty.
Usually chili is made with ground beef. I have had it with other proteins though.  Many years ago I was stationed in Northern Japan and was invited to be on the judging panel for a chili contest, sponsored by none other than the base's quite sizable Hispanic Club.
Oh baby, there was some variety there. Deer meat, tofu, fish, foul, pork and beef of all cuts. I recall that as a fact, not as a taste though. The Hispanic club chefs as a rule, were very generous with the various chili peppers, that I remember well. I think I belched and burnt internally for several days afterward.
Since then I've left competitive chili making behind. I prefer a milder mix. I don't mind loosening my sinuses or breaking a little brow sweat, but the idea of making it so hot that it should be registered as a weapon of mass indigestion I simply don't find appetizing. The broth in MSBBQ's chili was just about right in that regard.
Angel's luscious plate arrived. I bore the heavily sauced and slightly charred starboard side of a chicken. Small bowls held the potatoes and the corn, there was also some fancy cut pickles and Texas toast. I tasted a little of the chicken. The meat was very juicy, tender and perfectly cooked. I also stabbed a small bit of potato. It was creamy and I detected a hint of dill, I liked that. I used to take new potatoes and boil them in water along with a head of dill. It gives them a bright, fresh, earthy taste. Angel threw herself into her meal with the usual gusto. Adam pushed his beans around in his bowl then set them aside. He found onion chunks. His  brisket though was 'not bad'. He did discard the bread after a while though, and just savored the meat. I tried it, a little drier than the chicken, but not too much. Brisket is one of the hardest things to get right at a barbecue joint. This tough cut of meat is quite a challenge for anyone, any style. MSBBQ was pretty good. I've not had enough brisket to give it a rating though.
I couldn't finish my chili. There was so much meat and beans that it filled me pretty quick. It was pretty good, not my all-time favorite, but the meat made for interesting and pleasant textures. I'd add more chopped bell pepper and maybe some celery myself. But there was nothing wrong with what they served. Chili is a very subjective thing, very hard to judge one against the other.
Angel was on her fifth or sixth napkin when she complained "I'm out of chicken!" Sure enough there was nothing left but a few scarred bones and some slivers of skin.  I tried some of the skin, it was sweet, wonderfully sweet.
Summary:
The bill for this complete meal was only twenty eight dollars and change, less than ten dollars each. For generous portions of quality cut and cooked meat, this was a bargain. The food service was fast, we did have a guy stop by and check on us, so the service was pretty good. This is not a fine-dining facility so not much service is actually required or expected. This is barbecue, not haughty French cuisine on white linen tablecloths.
The tea. Oh well, even though their signage boasted 'fresh brewed', I could only infer that they meant, at best, 'same-day'. It was cloudy, murky and muddy tasting.  On the PJTea scale I'd give it a -1 to -2. Maybe we'll call it -1.75.  I knew it probably would be.  I saw the coffee pot when we were pouring our drinks, it looked old and over-baked. If coffee isn't poured out and restarted every hour at worst, then the likelihood that the tea will be fresh is very slim.
The food though was pretty darn good. I was quite happy with the risk I took ordering the chili. Their real specialty, the meats, were excellent. This is good since our nearby beloved Bandanna's burned down we've missed slow cooked meat. Main Street barbecue is an excellent alternative, and a worthy competitor.



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*That's a joke. I know oyster crackers contain no actual oysters.

Main Street BBQ

1620 Hwy Z

Pevely, MO

http://www.bbqonmain.com/

Herculaneum Fire Department

I’d spent all day at the Herculaneum  Fire Department taking CERT classes.  You don’t know what that is?  I’ll explain later. At any rate it was an all-day class, and I asked the family to pick place that was nearby or on the way. As it turned out it didn’t really matter, by the time class let out, a little early, Angel was on the road in the other direction from dropping a couple of dogs off. I went on home, she got there about the same time and had to let the remaining dogs out before we could leave. She and Adam had already assumed Main Street BBQ, they didn’t see any reason to change that. So we headed out from home and to within a couple of miles of where I’d already spent the whole day.

The Place:

On Highway Z between I-55 and 61/67. It’s a stand-alone affair that was probably something else before it became what it is now. You walk in and confront a counter, on which you will find a large painted menu. Paper menus area also available. You just pick your choice(s) of meat, add a couple of sides, pay for the order, fill your drinks, then find a table. We did all that.

The Food:

Me: Pulled pork sandwich, red potato salad, baked beans and un-sweet tea.

Angel: 2-meat platter, turkey and brisket, corn cob-ette and coleslaw, she tasted the sweet tea, poured it out and got Diet Coke instead.

Adam: Chicken and Pork platter, baked beans and coleslaw.

Pulled pork, beans, potato salad

We sat and waited, not for all that long. I started telling them about my day in class, they feigned interest.

The food came, served on plates, the sides in small bowls. I flipped my sandwich open, put the dill pickle slices on it, took a bite then fetched some sauce, it was a little dry by itself. Tasty, but dry. Adam picked at his beans, then set them aside. “The beans have stuff in them.” By which he meant diced onions. I tsk’d him and carried on. Angel passed around small pieces of brisket, it was pretty good. She said it was okay, but not nearly as good as the turkey, which she described as "Yum!”

Her corn didn’t fare as well, she said  it was almost tasteless, like it had been soaking in water too long, she ate it all anyhow.

Turkey+Brisket Platter

I soaked my pork in ‘Sweet and Smoky’ sauce, that made a lot of difference. They make their own sauces and they do it well. I found the beans to be a little too sweeter than I usually like them, but not to the point of being not-good. The potato salad, made with red potatoes and skin left on, was awesome. Smooth, creamy and not too much mustard or vinegar.

My sandwich was quite large, the pork, though moist with the added sauce still proved a bit rubbery at times, I was a little disappointed, but even a not-great pulled pork sandwich is better than most things. Adam said he loved his chicken, even more so than Bandana’s, which is a very high compliment. Correction: Adam said his chicken was fine, but he prefers Bandana's. He was slightly less pleased with the pork.

Chicken + Pork Platter

Angel went on and on about her turkey, using words like ‘Great!’

“I love it here.” She cooed. “You can just come in, order some meat and if you feel like it can toss a couple of small sides in with it.” Angel loves meat. At around ten at night she usually snacks on ‘night-meat’ either deli stuff or whatever might be leftover from dinner. No bread, no sides, no toppings or sauces, just cold meat straight from the fridge.  

Summary:

I’d had turkey and scrambled  eggs as an early (6:30 A.M) breakfast before class and the Fire Department treated us to Pizza from a local place in the early afternoon. I only had two slices since it was rather bland (even more so than Domino’s) but that, along with the breakfast was about twice as much as I normally eat on a Saturday. So I dismissed at least most of my criticism, and the lack of motivation to finish my meal, to that. The tab was forty two dollars and change, about the same as Bandana’s, not bad at all for in-house smoked meat. It takes about five minutes to grill a burger, smoking meat takes hours, I expect to pay a little more.

You may note that none of us had French fries this time, which is rare for us, but that’s because Main Street doesn’t serve them anymore. I’d overheard this at the counter but did not hear the explanation. I figured it was because that was the only thing I could recall them ever needing a deep fryer for and it probably just wasn’t worth the mess and maintenance.

It’s still a very good place to grab a smoky meat sandwich despite the little minuses I pointed out. Still highly recommended.

Main Street BBQ

1620 Highway Z

Pevely, Mo.

http://www.bbqonmain.com/

Earlier this year Main Street BBQ in Imperial, Mo. merged with Bobby Tom’s BBQ and moved into its Pevely location.  It’s located just east of the Pevely exit  off interstate 55. A tidy, modern and busy place. I’d heard about it a while back and came across it on the interwebs recently while researching another place. We had our doubts. We are big ‘Bandana’s’ fans and have found few places that compare. On the theory that barbecue, like sex, cheesecake and Glee episodes are even at their worst better than most alternative offerings, we decided to give it a try. 

   We met there, Angel and Adam drove in from home, I from a nearby car dealership where I’d spent the day unloading the Mighty Alero and picking up its reluctant and lackluster replacement.  My mind was still abuzz with interest rates, extended warranties, and family stories from the two very nice sales ladies (one very pregnant with her first child. I LOL'd)  and the lot’s business manager, a very nice, chatty man with several adopted kids and a few rescued dogs. (Yes I gave him one of Angel’s business cards.) Usually I don’t do a lot worth thinking about on Saturday afternoons, but on this busy, anxious day I hadn’t thought much about eating or critiquing, so this review may lack some detail and depth. I’m a single tasker. If my mind’s a-whirring on something it takes a bit of time and effort to shift it into another gear. This isn’t usually a problem really, it just means that I’m generally very, very focused on whatever task may be in front of me. I’ve been known to lose track of time and a few other dimensions as well. People have had entire conversations right in front of me of which I missed completely.  I’ve also missed several of Angel’s hair styles and colorations due to this intense, focused, un-awareness of my surroundings.

Anyway, we met there and stepped in after Angel and Adam gave the new(er) little car a quick glance. It’s the same general shape, color and size as the old one so there really wasn’t much to look at.  We stepped in and found ourselves at the ordering counter. Large boards on the front of the counter listed the offerings, and a pile of glossy, colorful menu sheets were stacked on top of it. I grabbed a couple and we stepped back and pondered.  In pretty short time we stepped up and placed our orders. Angel paid up and we took our plastic tumblers to the tea dispensers, then found ourselves a table in the large seating area. We chatted a bit about the car, the car transaction really, since I rarely do something that big and important without Angel along. She keeps the books for us and is much more in tune with petty little things like budgets, cash on hand, insurance and the name of our bank. It’s a tribute to her really. She does such a good and thorough job with our finances that I simply don’t have to think about them much. I’ve said it before, I won the wife lottery.

The Food:

We sat with our tea, tea and sweet tea.  I was a bit panicked that I didn’t have my trusty little notebook with me.  I ended up making notes on the menu instead, using an ink pen that Angel re-assembled from parts dug out from the distant and dark basement area of her voluminous purse. We didn’t have to wait long, typical of barbecue places almost everything is already cooked before you even get there.

I’d ordered the Main Street Special, a pulled pork sandwich, along with red potato salad and baked beans. Angel’s ½ chicken surprised me, I ‘d assumed (hoped) she'd get the back half of the chicken, that would have been hilarious, instead they’d sliced it lengthwise, so she  ended up with a leg, thigh, wing and breast instead of just its ass-end. For sides she had corn on the cob and coleslaw and they even threw in a couple of half-slices of toast, which had also been cut lengthwise.

Adam’s was called a ‘Bird of Paradise’ sandwich, implying fowl, in his case chicken, though turkey was also available. His was served on a toasted croissant along with bits-o-bacon and cheddar cheese.  It was accompanied by a bag of kettle chips and baked beans. My sandwich was on a hoagie roll and topped with a little slaw and a couple of dill pickle slices. The meat was all sweet and juicy with the house sauce. Angel’s chicken fell off the bone, slow and perfectly cooked. My pork was also tender and smoky, delicious, though the hoagie was a little thicker and heavier than I would have liked.  Adam’s croissant-bun held together nicely and didn’t look near as heavy.

We exchanged slivers of sides and meats and tasted pretty much everything everyone had ordered.

The red potato salad was creamy and piled high. Not too sweet, not too mustard-y, about as good a potato salad as you’ll find anywhere other than by your own gifted hand.  Angel’s coleslaw was light on vinegar and a little sweeter than KFC coleslaw. In her rating system, KFC is the coleslaw gold-standard.  The baked beans were sweet as well, but that’s the way I like them. They were as good as KFC, or ‘Off the Hook’, and much better than most other places. Adam discovered a shard of onion in his and abandoned them, even when I pointed out the many bacon bits. Angel handed him her slaw, the chicken, corn and toast were filling her up.

A young family entered and took the table next to ours. Among them was a young lad about two or three feet tall and however old boys of that height are, maybe three or four. I caught him staring at me so I broke character and acknowledged his existence.  As soon as I did he started rambling on in a slobbery lisp about something completely incomprehensible, but whatever it was , it seemed very exciting and important to him. About all I got out of it were a couple of words which I could not squeeze into a coherent sentence or paragraph. His parents seemed amused at the rambling speech and my dutiful, yet confused attention to it. I decided to repeat back to the tyke, in the form of a question, as much as I thought I understood. “So you ate your horsey?”

He laughed for a mere second, then looked frightened and turned away, I think I made him cry. This is never my intent but it is the most common result of my interactions with children, bank on it, most often someone’s gonna scream or cry.

I only finished half my sandwich since the high stress of a major financial transaction and the separation anxiety that accompanies the abandoning of a well-used vehicle tends to shrink up my belly. I knew they had boxes though. I was the only one that needed one.  Angel’s former chicken half was bare bones, Adam’s croissant-ed sandwich a mere memory.

Summary:

The bill came to only twenty seven bucks and change, this similarity and subsequent comparisons to Bandana’s were natural. We debated it for a while, Adam couldn’t decide which was better, so that should tell you something. Angel commented that Main Street’s meats were moister than Bandana’s, I agreed. The pork at B’s is certainly smoky, tender and tasty, but it is served dry and must be lubed up with a considerable amount of sauce to make it swallow-able after the first few bites.  Main Street’s default sauce is at least as good as any of Bandana’s varieties, the sides were basically the same in both places. So which one is better? I’d have to say neither. They are a bit different, but they are both very, very good.  If you like barbecue and live in or around Jefferson County, stop in and certainly give Main Street a try, you won’t be disappointed.

I didn’t take any poor-quality photos this trip, Main Street’s web site has several good ones though: http://www.bbqonmain.com/photos.html

Hillbilly’s Bar and Grill

Pevely, MO.
Pevely is a town of less than four thousand residents between Festus and Herculaneum on the eastern side of the county. It’s claim to fame was the establishment of Pevely Farms back in the late 1800’s. The farm produced milk and butter and peddled the stuff in St. Louis. Between trains the dairy products were kept cool in the nearby springs. At one time Pevely was touted as the best place in the country to get fresh dairy products. The farm has been converted to a grand golf course and Pevely Dairy which thrived for over a hundred years in St. Louis was bought out by Prairie Farms, then a few years ago the last of the Pevely Dairies were shuttered in favor of more modern facilities. Pevely still boasts the largest flea market in the Mid-West, though I’ve been to it and wasn’t all that impressed. Size isn’t everything.
Nowadays Pevely still has a couple of quarries and other rock/mineral related industries but is mostly a bedroom community like many other Jefferson County towns.

The Place:
On Main Street, which frankly doesn’t seem all that ‘main’. I’d been able to guide us there without problem. I’d looked it up on Mapquest earlier in the week, remembering it to be south of Highway Z and east of the interstate. I assumed that Main Street would be marked, it was, and just within eyeshot of an intersection. I proved myself as useful as Angel’s Tom-Tom, yet again. It was located behind the large Western Auto and across the street from the railroad tracks. It’s a squat, unassuming place with only a small sign to announce itself. We parked in the ubiquitous slush and entered through a plain wooden door. We were in the large bar. A few patrons watched the TV screens and threw back bottles of beer. There was no music and all the TV’s were muted. We stopped and glanced around until someone invited us to the back. There we found the low ceilinged, dark, smoky dining area. A couple of small families were seated at tables, most of the place’s patrons never made it past the bar. It was dark with only sparse recessed lighting, a few neon beer signs to light the room. There was a small stage in one corner, unoccupied for the time being. We were hoping to be done and gone long before the advertised Karaoke event started up.
Against one wall were some large flat screens displays showing bright and crisp video game screens. A Keno screen was mounted overhead.
We were seated by a casually dressed young lady and asked about drinks; tea, tea and coke. She plopped down the menus, thick, heavily laminated things, about six pages deep.
The menu was overwhelming. Not typical bar food, they offered full breakfasts, pizza, sandwiches, burgers, seafood, pastas, and regular dinners. This concerned me at first, a tell-tale indication of a place trying to offer too much, and mastering none.
The tables, chairs and booths were solid, but not at all ornate. The carpet was generic print and worn, the walls were adorned with some flea market’s catch of the day, airplane propellers, raccoon hides, mounted ducks, a metal tractor seat, etc. It was less ‘hillbilly’ and more junk store.
Our drinks arrived in tall heavy glasses, very much like my favorite tea glasses at home. They’re available at the Dollar General for a buck. I could tell that this was an early swing and miss the tea was cloudy. We took a while to choose our dinners since there was so much to choose from.
The Food:
I finally chose the Fish and Chip Feast. It sounded huge. Two different fish fillets, fries, hush puppies, coleslaw, clam strips, and three jumbo shrimp. Angel ordered the Pigs at Sea. Shrimp, breaded, wrapped in bacon. She added a Caesar salad and a baked potato. Adam decided on the Chicken Fried Chicken fillet with mashed potatoes and broccoli soup. The waitress advised against the soup saying that the last people that ordered it said it tasted burnt and they decided not to serve anymore. He switched to the chicken dumpling soup instead.
Looking around I noticed that the condiments on the tables were stuffed into a quaint bathtub-shaped tin bucket. I also noticed that there was a ceiling mounted security camera pointed straight at us. I waved to it though I couldn’t imagine anyone was actually monitoring it. More patrons oozed in, the bar was filling up. This appeared to be a very popular local watering hole, most of the people seemed familiar to each other.
Angel’s salad arrived first. As it passed in front of me I grabbed some of the lettuce, Adam swiped a crouton. It was pretty good. They didn’t use iceberg lettuce, they actually used the greener, denser, fancy stuff. Angel lit into it and said that it was surprisingly good for a neighborhood bar.
The dinners arrived after a few minutes, Angel’s first, six or eight fat shrimp diapered in bacon and spice-blackened and a pretty large foil wrapped potato. Adam’s plate was generous as well, just enough brown gravy and plenty of chicken and mashed potatoes. The soup was overtopped by thick, swollen dumplings. Then my plate arrived, it weighed about seventeen pounds. Not a clear spot on the plate, even the coleslaw (which was the best I’d had in quite a while), served on a sheet of that fancy lettuce overhung the edge of the plate. The three by six inch fillets were stacked one on top of each other, the shrimp and hushpuppies fought for territory together against the overwhelming pile of fries. There was no way I’d be able to finish this in one sitting.
There was also no way this food should have been as good as it was. The kitchen had to be rather small, the staff not exactly overflowing, but everything was in fact excellent. Angel got overwhelmed by the spicy bacon, eight strips as it turned out, and unwrapped the shrimp, doling out the bacon to Adam and me. In turn I turned my entire pile of clam strips, mostly hiding under the fries, over to her, because I do not care for snotfish. She tried to get Adam to try one, but her argument that they were like deep fried rubber bands really wasn’t as convincing as I think she thought it might be. I insisted that they tasted like cauliflower, which she disagreed with but I told her that most things I don’t like tasted like cauliflower or broccoli.
The food was all hot, fresh, crispy and well spiced. Nothing overwhelmed except for the sheer volume. Adam cleaned his plate quickly, Angel almost finished but stopped just short of exploding. I surrendered about halfway through. We asked for a big box and the check.
Summary:
Surprisingly good, surprisingly so for the variety of offerings. The quality and even the plating were outstanding, the staff was efficient and familial. The atmosphere was definitely bar-like, but not in a loud, obnoxious way. It was all in all, quite good. The bill came it under fifty bucks, more than a diner but considerably cheaper than a chain. Quite a good value overall. I’d recommend it with only one caveat. Jefferson County hasn’t passed smoking bans in restaurants (yet), and this place was kind of heavy with the stench. If you are sensitive to smoke and ex-smoke, you might not enjoy it so much.