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| - Boy-oh-boy, do I ever feel let down. I actually went out of my way to go to this place one day when I was craving some good-ole-fashioned-BBQ. Claiming to be serving it up in true Southern-style, I thought that there's no way this could go wrong. I've actually been to Texas and all throughout the Southern states on a fairly serious eating vacation, and lemme tell you something, The Drake and their lil' BBQ place owe the great state of Texas and its surrounding neighbours a serious apology...
Drake BBQ has a slew of great reviews all over the Internet. Everyone on Yelp, Twitter, and a bunch of TO food mags have been raving about the authentic, bad-ass Texas and Carolina style BBQ they've had in this place. I've read so many good comments, that I figured I must have gone to the wrong place. Maybe, I thought, there was some other place that just happens to look exactly the same, on the exact same street, with the exact same type of food?
Nope... I was in the right place. It just sucked is all.
Because they have such a loyal following, I'm sure quite a few people are going to dislike what I'm saying here, but in all honesty, if you got served what I did, you'd be disappointed too. My Carolina pulled-pork sandwich was small, dry, and amazingly enough, was completey void of BBQ sauce, which is a fairly important staple in a pulled-pork sandwich. They must have had some BBQ sauce somewhere in there, but if they did, they didn't offer it to me, and it certainly wasn't on my sandwich. My coleslaw was even worse. It was incredibly bland and wasn't much more than shredded cabbage with a slight trace of what I assume was salad dressing. Not to mention that this stuff was expensive! Two of those sandwiches and an itty-bitty coleslaw-plus tip of course-cost over 20 bucks.
Welcome to The Drake BBQ; it's BBQ with a side of pretentiousness. You don't like it? Trust me. If it's the same guy working behind the counter when I was there, then he won't care at all. I asked if we could get some fries with our sandwiches. he just looked at me, shocked, and said, 'I don't want a deep-fryer in this place'. Hey, I'm fine with the guy being pretentious and true to the stuff he's making and how he's making it, especially if it's honest-to-goodness Southern-style BBQ. If he truly was an artisan of the BBQ and the smoker, he can rightfully be as pretentious as he wants as far as I'm concerned. I probably would have answered back with an agreeing 'Yes Sir'! But the true kick-in-the-ass was that the stuff that I ended up taking home in a sad little brown bag was basically less than edible. In fact, I only took a few bites and ended up throwing it out, which is something I never, ever do. Someone went and filled thsi guy's head with the thought that this is actually what good BBQ is all about; someone lied to him.
Besides being about honest and delicious BBQ, the Southern states are all about hospitality and genuine people; people that would never be rude or unwelcoming. They're more likely to invite you in for dinner than they are to turn you away. Drake BBQ was none of those things. The service was rude, inhospitable, and unwelcoming. From the moment I walked in, I felt as though they wanted me the hell outta there. That is, except for the older guy that handed me the bag. He sent me off with a sincere sounding 'thanks for your business', which is something I think businesses don't say enough these days.
Like I said, this was painful for me. I felt ripped off. I felt sad. I felt let down. It was a just a plain bad experience that was nothing close to true Southern BBQ or Southern hospitality. In fact, I don't think I would even give it another go, and whether you've been exposed to true Southern BBQ or not, I'd suggest you don't either, because you'll feel let down either way too.
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