The Red Flag You Should Never Ignore At A BBQ Joint
Barbecue is famous for its incredible tenderness, powerfully meaty flavor, and rich smoky taste. All of these things are enabled by a knowledgeable pitmaster using a quality smoker.
Even if you can't see a smoker, you should certainly be able to smell one. They're designed to burn just hot enough to produce huge clouds while maintaining a low enough temperature to slow-cook large slabs of meat. If you go to a barbecue joint that seems to lack that smoky smell, they're either smoking the meat elsewhere and bringing it back, compromising the food's freshness, or even worse, not smoking the meat at all.
Smoking is vital to creating barbecue. The low and slow heat draws flavor from bones, breaks down connective tissues, and melts fat into the meat. The smoke itself creates signature smoke rings, those pink layers you see close to the surface of barbecued meats, and is a pillar of flavor. You should see significant amounts of smoke to know that the restaurant is in fact smoking and not just grilling their meat. While there are other red flags suggesting you should leave a restaurant immediately, there is none greater than not being able to smell at least a little smoke.
Other BBQ red flags to avoid
While there are many styles of barbecue, each with its own merits, the best joints specialize. Barbecue is both labor and skill-intensive, so it takes years to master the craft. Without that specialization, pitmasters split their time over multiple disciplines, creating masters of none.
The best barbecue restaurants also tend to have simple, straightforward menus. If a restaurant doesn't offer standards like pulled pork, either spare or baby back ribs, and brisket, stay away. These meats are comparatively simple to make and let a restaurant show off its fundamentals. Freshness is a major indicator of restaurant quality as well. This is especially true of ribs, which must be made fresh daily or they'll dry out and lose flavor. To keep things fresh, they may occasionally sell out of certain items. However, this is just a hazard of the business and is, in fact, a good indicator that they're offering fresh food.
Finally, the sauce. Barbecue sauce is dead simple to make and the best restaurants mix their own. But like soy sauce on sushi, it should never overwhelm the meat and become all you can taste. Always avoid any restaurant that relies too heavily on its sauces for flavor, as this is just compensation for improperly cooked or seasoned meat.