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| This little piggy has no pants on. This little piggy has gas. |
Being a Gump native, I am required by heritage and societal pressures to eat barbecue at least once a week. Today at lunch, my blue-eyed bride and I dined, again, at Varsity Barbecue, currently located in the parking lot of Burlington Coat Factory, across from Kripy Kreme, on the road that connects Mount Meigs, Alabama to Ann Street. Some call that road the Atlanta Highway, but the road existed before Atlanta did. At Varsity Barbecue, one can see the dreaded Boulevard, still east of your eating position, but just barely.
Varsity Barbecue may still be an unknown quantity to some. It exists in a building constructed to house Ruby Tuesday. Ruby pulled up her red dress and moved to East Chase, the hottest spot in West Shorter. The building underwent a long renovation, including installing a battle-hardened concrete drive-through lane. Suitable chimneys and cooking pits were created, and the place now meets Lewis Grizzard's minimal criteria for a barbecue joint: smoke coming from the roof. On a windy day like today, you can smell the smoke, inside and out, something treasured by Grizzard.
Another note: To the best of my knowledge, despite the name, this operation has nothing to do with The Varsity on North Avenue in downtown Atlanta. I don't know why the name was chosen here. Are there others elsewhere in the world?
Upon entering Varsity Barbecue, many newcomers are confused. There is no hostess or greeter or anything. There is just a stack of tri-fold menus on the dividing wall in front of you. Then, on your left, towards the back, you notice some green-and-orange neon signs that say "Order Here" with appropriate arrows. If you go sit down and wait for someone to take your order at your table, nothing will happen. Grab a tri-fold, and look it over while you wait in line (if there is one). The line (usually, at lunch) can be confusing in that it's one line for two, sometimes three, order-takers. Just stay in single file, and wait for an empty slot. If anyone behind you tries to start separate lines for each order-taker, they deserve the evil eye.
When you place your order, you will be given a plastic number to put on your table. Depending on what you order to drink, you will be given Coke products from their side of the counter, or, if you prefer water or iced tea, you will be given a styrofoam cup of ice and told "the tea is down there to your left". You pour your own tea from a bank of aluminum urns, each cleverly labeled with the usual choices. The tea is located in the aisle that goes to the swinging kitchen door, so beware of that, and errant busboys with full bus pans, immediately behind you. Bad design for the tea station, says I.
The fare is standard Gump barbecue joint food, including pulled pork, beef, or chicken barbecue, ribs, corn on the cob, coleslaw, french fries, baked beans, meat salads, etc. The sauce is your standard Alabama red ketchup-based sauce, and it's good. They have baked potatoes piled with barbecue and other things, in various combinations. One thing that separates this would-be chain (maybe) is the name of the stew. At Varsity, it's "brunswick stew". In real Gump-type places, that stuff is still referred to as "camp stew" (and only in The Gump. Why?).
The place has a comfortable decor consisting of wooden chairs and tables and padded booths. Some booths seat two, some seat four. In the row of two-seater booths, beware of the hanging lights over the tables. One side has lights hanging low enough to bother your skin. The other side of the aisle is more tolerable. When you finally sit down with your plastic number and styrofoam cup, and then look around, you will notice a sports motif. Plastered all over the walls above the wainscoting you will see pictures of most everyone who ever played or coached football for Auburn University or the University of Alabama. There are also smaller areas honoring Troy State and Alabama State. Many flat-screens hang from the ceiling, eternally tuned to ESPN or ESPN2.
The food at Varsity Barbecue is good. The service (bringing the tray that matches your plastic number) is sometimes slow and confused. If they get behind during lunch, you might notice your hunger building. My bride usually orders a baked potato with pork barbecue, with sauce on the side, no cheese, no chives. Today, she got the potato with the pork, but it was covered in too much sauce, and there was cheese in there somewhere, too. No chives, as ordered. The kitchen crew apparently misses some of the nuances of the order in the heat of the moment. In our case, the manager took our order, and when it came like it did, she just ate it anyway. I always get the bowl of brunswick stew. Our server had to go back for crackers and a spoon for me.
Overall, I would give Varsity Barbecue 2 pig squeals out of 4. It's easy, it's good barbecue, and it's reasonably priced. $17.99 for two drinks, one barbecue potato, one bowl of stew, and one fried apple pie for desert. We were full when we left, and I had seen more overhead than I wanted to see about Bret Favre. I'm not excited about the place, but I'll go back.
They have a website http://www.varsitybbq.com/ that's "under construction", as usual for places open less than a year.
