Decatur is a solid 30-35 minutes from my place on the Westside, so I don’t get there often, and I had not tried Community Q BBQ until a week ago.
That’s a long way to drive for BBQ, so it had to be fairly excellent to warrant another long lunch journey like this one.
I wasn’t super impressed, but restaurant BBQ is fickle. Consistency on any scale is difficult, but I think even more so in this genre. The BBQ has already been cooked/finished, and at the point it comes off the smoker a lifespan has begun counting down in either minutes, hours, or (hopefully not) days. You catch it at the wrong point in this process and it can be dry, mushy, or some other unpleasing adjective. Maybe flacid. Yeah, that’s not too appealing.
Anyways, here ya go:
Liked – the people that work there, the space, the vibe, the large variety of sides, the bark on the brisket, the collards, the sauces, the fact that they sell farm fresh eggs and offer a knife sharpening service
Not super excited about – the brisket fat (a bit rubbery instead of meltingly good fat), black eyed peas, overly sweet tea, and the pork, which I found to be unfortunate. It was dry, no smoke, no bark, not much flavor. You could have told me it was chicken and it’s possible I would have believed you.
If I’m in the area, I’d stop by, but I didn’t find that what I ate would warrant such a long drive. Heirloom is only ten minutes away from me, and so far I’ve only had wonderful experiences there. But I think the fact that they are so small works to their advantage.
