Dink’s Pit Bar-B-Que

Dink’s cooks brisket, spare ribs, and pork tenderloin over hickory smoke in an outdoor pit. When plated, the meat is brushed with a marvelous red-orange sauce that has a deep, tangy flavor, but not so much punch that it in any way detracts from the flavor of what it adorns. A hotter version of the sauce is available, and we liked it so much that we dipped our toasted bun in the bowl, bite for bite.

The spare ribs were so good that I left only denuded bones on the plate; the brisket, while slightly dry, had a deep smoke flavor, and was fully revived with a squirt or two of Dink’s sauce. Both are served, curiously, with a single green onion as a garnish on the plate. The menu also lists what’s called a pig dinner – pork loin cooked in smoke 4-6 hours — as well as smoked ham, smoked sausage, and a Dink’s burger.

It’s a big, multi-room establishment, occupied the night we dined by a widely varied clientele of couples and families, a large group of festive square dancers, a table of local ambulance personnel, some guys in overalls, others in pressed slacks and button-down shirts. Décor is cowpoke style, meaning mounted steer horns, pictures of hunters, cowboys, and Indians, and displays of the “Barbed Wire that Fenced the West.”