Dick On Food: Skew in on at Joey's
By Eddie Dick
Staff Writer

The development of barbeque as a culinary technique certainly ranks high on the list of human achievements. While barbeque was overlooked in biblical times (bread was erroneously dubbed the “staff of life”), cooking meat over an open flame certainly deserves an exalted place in history. Was it not barbeque that first liberated human beings from a diet consisting solely of vegetables and raw meat? It just so happens that Upland is home to an establishment dedicated to the continuation of this ancient art: Joey’s Bar-B-Q.

Walking through the door at Joey’s Bar-B-Q is like walking into another world. The tackiness contained within its bleak outer walls rivals anything found in Southern California. The interior is clearly not cheap and boasts such luxuries as green wall to wall carpeting and a brick fire place. But touches such as an oil painting of John Wayne and the blatantly fake flowers adorning the tables suggest an atmosphere sprung from the mind of a provincial yokel with cash. Bad new-age country music piped over the sound system and several TVs showing baseball playoff games rounded out the ambiance. While I would never decorate my dorm room in such a style, spending time in the company of a horseshoe collection and assorted fragments of barbed wire was a nice change of pace.

The service at Joey’s Bar-B-Q is prompt and is greatly aided by flag poles that are firmly planted in the backs of wooden cows resting on every table. When service is desired, you simply raise the flag, and a member of the waitstaff will promptly respond. In one carefully timed trial, a waiter responded within 60 seconds..

The menu at Joey’s Bar-B-Q is expansive, with lunches ranging from $5.95 (charburger) to $11.25 (pork ribs), all the way up to the dinners which start at (gasp) $14.00 (catfish) and top out at $25.00 (filet mignon). The pricing of dinner entrées is only the first in a number of sins on the menu. The second and perhaps most egregious of which is the inclusion of vegetarian items on the menu. Barbeque is about meat and getting anything besides meat at Joey’s is a serious mistake. The final problem is the omission of my favorite accompaniment to barbeque, Texas toast. Instead, Joey’s Bar-B-Q has replaced it with run of the mill garlic bread that goes poorly with the sweet and tangy barbeque sauce.

Nearly every barbeque joint on the planet offers ribs, and Joey’s is no exception; the ribs are offered in both beef and pork varieties. The lunch offering of Bar-B-Q Beef Ribs ($8.50) is a hearty portion, grilled and then smothered in Joey’s signature barbeque sauce. True barbeque aficionados will be disappointed to find out that ribs are not smoked for hours, but are simply grilled over a fire. As a result the ribs are rather dry and bland and lack the tenderness and penetrating smoky flavor that is the par excellence in barbeque.

The barbeque sauce covering the ribs (and all other dishes) contains the proper balance of sweetness and spiciness but is too tangy for my taste. The sauce also has a disconcertingly runny texture. Attempts at slathering the sauce over various items resulted mainly in excessive run off.

Joey’s Bar-B-Q also offers a wide selection of barbeque sandwiches. I sampled the Sliced Bar-B-Q Pork Sandwich ($8.50) and was pleasantly surprised by the thick tender slabs of pork found on a rather characterless sandwich roll. While the sandwiches are probably the best items on the menu, I once again found that the meat lacked the penetrating smoky flavor that defines proper barbeque.

The lunch entrees are also offered with assorted side items. The potato salad and cole slaw are of average quality and present no surprises. Sampling the baked beans offered me another foray into a world of disappointment. Not only were they lacking the requisite chunk of pork fat but they seemed to also contain large amounts of the aforementioned barbeque sauce.

While the atmosphere at Joey’s Bar-B-Q scores major points for reaching an entirely new level of tackiness, the food fails to live up to the standards that my Kansan forefathers have set for barbeque.