Review of Dickey's Barbecue Pit 200 Crossroads Blvd., Suite 100 (Crossroads Shopping Center, near the Bear Rock Cafe') Cary, NC 27511 (919) 233-5801 By H. Kent Craig ©2008

Considering that I have to very carefully ration all the higher-fat foods including of course barbecue that I now eat because of the bad case of pancreatitis I had back in November that nearly killed me twice while in the hospital, I have to admit I was really looking forward to going to the newly opened local franchise of Dickey's Barbecue Pit at Crossroads Plaza Shopping Center (near Bear Rock Café) in Cary to "go off the wagon" and have real barbeque for the first time since my surgery, based upon scattered gossip I had heard through the grapevine about how good it was. The smell of the place when I first walked in was nice, always a good sign. There weren't but two or three patrons in the place at 12:30PM lunch on a Thursday, not a good sign even for a relatively new place that hasn't built up its following quite yet. I soon found out why. Smithfield Chicken & Barbecue and Smokey Bones are the only corporate or franchise chains ever to figure out how to consistently do 'cue from store-to-store, how to mimic the fastfood redmeat chains and have its fare taste virtually the same no matter which location you go into. The legendary Parker's couldn't do it in the 70's and quickly retreated back to its original location and Jim Gardner couldn't do it either in the 80's. So, with the lack of Texas Pete anywhere to be found including a manager from "up north" who had never heard of Texas Pete at all (sorry, Dude, you're in North Carolina, the homestate of Texas Pete, take a class on local culinary practices) and when I was absolutely hassled when I requested a few more hush puppies other than the four measly ones that had been proffered on my so-called "large" BBQ plate which was less than four ounces of actual meat product, I almost hesitate to call it "barbecue" but since it was cooked swine which has been pulled-shredded by machine I guess I have to, I figured out and asked if this location of Dickey's was a franchise, and yeah, it was, Sigh. Except for, say, trying to franchise restaurants that specialize in, say, boiled camel, nothing is sadder than trying to do barbecue by corporate-franchise-committee. It simply doesn't work, folks. I'm not going to slam them anymore than this, just leaving it at the fact that a specialty regional dish like pork barbeque can not be re-created by a formula hacked out in some long-distanced corporate research kitchen somewhere else besides outside the local knowledge and talent pool. The 'cue itself was served cold, not just room temperature but actually cool to cold like it had been scooped out of a refrigerator in the back and the so-called hushpuppies were so overcooked that I was genuinely afraid of possibly chipping a tooth on them but since they were all I had to cut the flavor of the meat I ate them. The 'cue, perhaps my perception was biased at that point because it wasn't served hot or even warm, was also very dry and very much tasteless . . .when I mentioned this to the manager when I went back up front to try to get more hushpuppies (when I declined to be charged for an extra order of hushpuppies, yes, no kidding, the manager did give me a free order of exactly three more), he said it's served that way deliberately so unfortunate patrons can add their own sauce to their own liking from the three Dickey's brands/kinds of sauces, of which of course Texas Pete wasn't one of them. How could room-temp sauce make cold, dry meat more palatable? Heck if I know unless one absolutely drowns it in said sauce which I wasn't willing to do. So why aren't I relegating them to the one-pig no-comment-because-its-so-bad graveyard? Because as disappointed as I was based on the hype I had heard about them, it still didn't deserve my worst rating. In fact, since I live only a couple of miles away from them I'll probably go back in six months or so to see if they've improved, hopefully they have. It's not terrible 'cue, it's just barely average but it still doesn't deserve the worst-of-the-worst rating. And the one saving grace of eating there and if you go there out of curiosity remember this, is their homemade chocolate pie, perhaps the best I've ever had save my own dearly-deceased Grandmother Craig's, tastes virtually like hers did, like it was made with "real" Hershey's cocoa from scratch and with a real eggwhite soufflé-type topping, made it almost worth going there in the first place.

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