Unity
Executive Chef
A motorcycling friend from northern MD asked me where would be a good place for a day ride to eat some barbecue. I replied:
So help me out, please: Do you know any worthy Q restaurants in VA, WV, MD, PA, like roughly a 150-200 mile radius from Washington DC? I'll appreciate any tips you can give me.
--John
We haven't found much of special merit around here. The franchises, Red Hot and Blue and Famous Dave's, will get you through hard times. Looking north first, Roadfood.com has a place called Clem's Barbecue west of State College PA, where 220 and 322 join. Looks potentially memorable. There's Chubby's at the intersection of Old Frederick Rd and U.S. 15 (Emmitsburg MD), which didn't speak to me the one time we stopped there -- a lot of pork in their servings, though. There was some chat on the board a while back about Bear Creek Old Pit BBQ in Callaway MD, over toward the Bay. I intend to try that sometime. Roadfood features Hocutt's Carolina Barbecue in Glen Dale WV, but that's clear over on the Ohio River. Mike E likes a place called Doc's BarBQ in Paris VA but I haven't tried it. (He also likes Willard's BBQ by the Dulles Expo Center; I'm less fond of it.) There's Allman's in Fredericksburg, but it tends recently to be so-so or less. I haven't been to Dixie Bones in Woodbridge, which Chris L says is pretty good. We have been wanting to try a highly touted place in Williamsburg called Pierce's Pitt Bar-B-Q (don't know why "Pitt"), but Williamsburg is a good haul from the fringes of PA, maybe 4 hrs or so, and there aren't any special roads in between. Roadfood.com suggests Doumar's, but that's even farther, in Norfolk. It is the birthplace of the ice cream cone, though, so it might be worth a pilgrimage on that basis alone.
The only semi-serious questing we've been involved in has been in NC, but I've been thinking it'd be fun to do a VA or Mid-Atlantic tour, if only to be able to answer your question better. I'll ask for some recommendations on the barbecue board and see if anybody knows about good places I haven't found yet.
So help me out, please: Do you know any worthy Q restaurants in VA, WV, MD, PA, like roughly a 150-200 mile radius from Washington DC? I'll appreciate any tips you can give me.
--John