There’s never any barbecue like small-town barbecue. Without any pretension and without any pomposity, they’re usually hidden away, doing their saucy thing without the caustic eyes of city-folk who, many times, often feel like their district-approved rib-joints are tops and will vocally—irritatingly—let them know.
More power to you, I guess.
It’s something I thought about many times and was reiterated to me last weekend when I stopped at Cowpokes BBQ, 1106 W. Main in Prague. With a country-friendly frontage featuring steel-cut cowboys and black metal cowgirls, leaning on and line-dancing all across the roof, welcomes the locals on a regular basis; on this day, I found myself doing the two-step right along with them.
The place was somewhat empty, with only a few patrons arguing about guns at a table in the middle of the restaurant. The server, a young kid that remarkably resembled Marc Almond from Soft Cell, showed my friend and me to our table, handing us two oversized cups of ice water and a laminated menu. To be fair though, I didn’t really need it, as their specialties were written on the windows for all to see: hand-pressed burgers and premises-smoked ribs.