Southpaw BBQ, finally set to open tomorrow, had an “Industry Night” soft opening on Monday. I was able to try their pulled pork shoulder that you could throw on a slider and mix with a bunch of sauces, as well as some of their house-made blue cheese chips.
Drink-wise, I snagged a modded whiskey sour with a ginger infusion — really smokey and good — and the Sazerac, which had some sort of toasted lemon twist. The bartenders know what’s up with whiskey, which is always a bonus.
The spot has a long table in front, about 5-6 small tables plus bar seating. You can see right into the kitchen and watch the cooks prep the food, and the exposed brick makes it cozy, plus they have two flat screen TVs to enjoy. If I wasn’t having my birthday at Jack’s tomorrow, I’d be back in there first thing, but I’ll definitely roll back next week and try more barbecue.
am I an asshole for instantly not liking this place based on this posting? this article sounds like it is written by our cheerleader Marin living Marketing director at work and her “big night” out in the Mission or something.
My god… I think I’m turning into.. could it be…. a ” this place was SO much cooler before THESE people got here” person.
I’m not getting the cheerleader thing you are talking about.
Not calling you an asshole… just saying it sounds like a person describing their experience. I’m gonna try this place regardless of the description, but it’s nice to have a drink recommendation to get started with.
Could be, dude. It’s whiskey and BBQ, quite possibly two of the best things in the world.. you’d have to have a hard heart to hate either. There’s still plenty of grit to go around in the Mission.
yes, but I agree with you.
Seems like you have become over-sensitized by exposure to PR, esse!
But maybe I am de-sensitized by living so close to a NEW NEIGHBORHOOD BBQ that I got a liquor license notification in my mailbox. Holy fuck, I’m there already!
Yes. Not liking something one hasn’t tried is a dead giveaway for a closed mind.
I saw this place today & was gonna go there but got a text saying there was plenty of seats at Sunflower so…. Erika lemme know next time you’re there, I COULD USE SOME PULLED PORK SHOULDER
You’re on my list!
you’re on several of mine :X
I passed this place yesterday and it looks nice, but I’m bummed they have those two tvs in there. I hope they keep them off most of the time.
Seriously. why does such an obviously aesthetic oriented restaurant need two enormous TVs? Restaurant owners use TVs as a crutch for sports business, but it ruins the atmosphere for everyone else or serves only to keep then bar staff entertained during lulls. This place is going to blow up, they don’t need to rely on sports bar business, there are sports bars for that.
Hear, Hear!
Not in the Mission, there aren’t. Only Phoenix which gets super packed anytime a sporting event of even remote significance is going on. (And now there’s Dr. Teeth too.)
I don’t think these TVs dominate the overall aesthetic too much, but I do agree it’s nice enough in there that it could have stood on its own.
Kilowatt, 500, Naper Tandy, Mission Bar and Mission Saloon all show lots of sports.
Giordano Bro’s on 16th also is a HUGE Steelers bar on Sundays and a Cal bar in general. Place gets PACKED.
This is actually in response to Erika’s post, but I was just going to mention I went to Giordano Bro’s on Sunday. I went specifically for the amazing pierogies. The pierogies were fantastic, possibly the best I’ve ever had, but even they weren’t worth listening to car and deodorant ads running full blast the full time with only a few people watching them.
Puerto Alegre has 3 TVs, all tuned to different games; it only isn’t a sports bar because the sound is always off and crappy musicians keep wandering in to annoy the patrons with their panhandling.
Sports bars suck. They are full of drunk, fools riotously rooting for sports none of them can actually play due to their beer bellies and smoking habits. I’m in agreement with the rest. Ditch the tv’s.
Expressing amazement at bars having drunks is like expressing amazement at the Catholic Church having child-molesting priests — what would you expect?
Do you hate sports or just sports fans?
Yeah, but are they going to have a plate of food for $1.50 and a seating area where you can dine with hobos and pigeons?
I hope it’s not more overpriced fanfare dressed down as supposed street food. God knows we could use another food truck or gourmet burger restaurant in SF.
I’m just saying, BBQ is not supposed to be expensive. If entrees start pushing past the $10 mark, it better stop calling itself BBQ. Besides, I have never had good BBQ on this coast. Da Pitt specifically included. If I can taste the worcestershire, brown sugar, and ketchup, you are not doing it right. If they were doing something imaginative, like utilizing datil peppers, I would be cool.
Oh man, I love da pitt. Best BBQ in the city, easy.
Except for their sides. Their sides are kinda mediocre. I mean, no greens?! What the fuck is up with that. But definitely the best meat and mad bbq skillz.
Try Gorilla BBQ in Pacifica.
Da Pitt is good in a pinch. Hit and miss sometimes later in the day but when they hit, hells yeah.
Sounds like I need to make a road trip.
I was there for the soft opening and the food and drinks were both pretty glorious. Speaking as an Alabama boy who loves to complain about SF BBQ like it’s my second job, the ribs and grilled okra really made my day.
another yuppie bbq joint in SF. great…
I agree. They lost me at “modded whiskey sour with a ginger infusion”.
BBQ is meant to be eaten with your hands while sitting on a curb or a picnic table. If this place has cloth napkins no f’in way I’m setting foot in it.
Concur.
good news: you don’t have to eat there. complaining about restaurants online is more yuppie than anything on Mission street.
Concur. Especially complaining about restaurants you haven’t even eaten at yet. And don’t tell me it’s too expensive — I’ve seen the crowds at Puerto Alegre.
My complaint, BTW, is that they don’t open until 3PM. If ya aint open for lunch, what good are ya?!
That comment was so meta-yuppie I can hardly stand it.
There’s definitely something to be said for a BBQ smoker hooked up to a truck with a trailer hitch, but barbecue places in the south run the whole gamut, it’s not like they’re exclusively limited to $3 gutbuster pulled pork sandwiches though goddamn I wish we had those out here too.
After applying the standard SF price multiplier, these guys aren’t off-base pricewise for BBQ made by somebody who knows what they’re doing using good ingredients. I’m Georgia born and raised, so I’ve certainly eaten my fair share. Now I just gotta find the time to try these guys out and find out if they’re worth what they’re asking…
You, sir, are alright.
concur, from a Texan. wheres the wax paper wrapped meat that you order by weight? damn sure better have some sweet tea… infusion this and that? get real.
Really? You want cheap-ass, letter-perfect, country-cornpone, white-trash style BBQ (with white bread, no doubt) in the middle of San Francisco (or even California)?! Dream on, sucker. Not on expensive real estate.
i mean, i just dont think it would be so hard to smoke some damn meat without adding all this yuppie bullshit to it!
Not hard at all to do, but damn hard to make money doing it. Got to agree about one thing, though — the one thing that the Occupy movement could do to become an immediate success would be to put a meat smoker in every encampment and offer BBQ at anti-capitalist prices.
Ate there tonight – just stumbled upon it. It feels like a sports bar one might find in downtown Cleveland and they haven’t quite gotten down the ‘people in San Francisco eat at the bar’ so you don’t need to hold our credit card thing. Food was pretty good – the sides were great/the meat was fair and a bit cold; service has a lot of kinks to work out: staff is pretty nice (they all look alike – looks like a family business), but not completely on the ball yet, with paw himself just standing around and staring at his kids working the bar. They need to seriously reorganize the area behind the bar so they don’t have trash cans and prep tables between the bartender area and the seating – servers can’t even reach over the bar. Prices are totally fair. But honestly, I think of the Mission BBQ joints, Baby Blues is way better and a funkier atmosphere.
Since allinasudden we’re all BBQ PHDs, I’ll add my 2 tangential cents: Baby Blues sauce is too wannabe infused w/some latin flava and the brisket is very bland. Gorilla’s BBQ in the little train car on 1 north of Pacifica was nice…we drove across the hiway to the parking lot of the little beach/surf break -Rockaway Beach, maybe?- and ate in the damn car. Awesome. With beer. The Whisky is a good idea though, and that hella gnarly little gristly cafeteria it replaced was super sketchy.
Yeah, not a fan of Baby Blues’ sauce, either.