Review of Barbecue Lodge, Raleigh NC

As of February 2007, after three decades in business, Don Murray's Barbecue on Capitol Blvd. in Raleigh which was one of the three places co-reviewed in this original version of this review, went out of business.
Even though they were far from even close to being one of my favorite local BBQ joints, it's a sad sign of changing palates and diets and times that such a long-established barbecue restaurant with a loyal clientele falls to the boneyard wayside of being just another soon-to-be fading memory of local porcine cultural history.
I've re-written and re-edited to review below to reflect only Barbecue Lodge.

Note: I have upgraded Ole Time Barbecue to a 3-pig rating since this review was first published here; please click here to read their new review published in May of 2006, and thank you!

BBQ Roulette: Barbecue Lodge, Raleigh NC.
by
H. Kent Craig Š2000

Barbecue Lodge
4600 Capital Blvd., Raleigh NC
Phone: 919-872-4755

Barbecue Lodge is a prime example of my mantra that Eastern-NC-Style BBQ is so hard to consistently cook well.

While I've never eaten truly godawful barbeque at the 'Lodge, not like the dogfood you find at Allen & Son in Chapel Hill, I have had pretty bad barbecue more than a time or two there, barbecue so bad that I didn't finish what was on my plate or was left in the pound take-out tub. Then the next time after being served atrocious barbeque (I never write off any place on the basis of one bad experience, unless it's obviously time to call the Health Department), damned if they don't served BBQ so perfectly cooked as to rival Wilber's or Bullock's. Then the next time, and for a time or two after that, they go back to serving "average" barbecue, which I define as inconsistently cooked but not pink or burned though going from light tan to dark brown in cooked color, which may or may not be too old to be fresh, inconsistently chopped or pulled in texture, normally with too many fat globules which are usually undercooked themselves but you can pick around them. Then the time(s) after that, they're again all over the place from bad to very, very good, before settling in on average for a time or two.

So, a place like Barbecue Lodge begs the question: why bother?

If they served just a consistent grade of BBQ, whether that was barely two pigs or a full four-pig in rating quality, I'd be at least a sometimes customer, or more. But stopping in to eat or to get take-out is like throwing your money down on red or black or double zero on the roulette wheel as whether you will "win" and be given at least decent barbeque that night, or not.

So, what do I normally do when I want barbeque that night but don't want to drive to Durham or Goldsboro or someplace over an hour's+ roundtrip? I drive to the nearby Harris-Teeter grocery store at Jones Franklin Road and the Western Blvd./Hillsboro St. split, where a lot of the times (but not always) they have Brookwood Farms BBQ for sale in the meat section, which I've given a four-pig rating at my site here, then stop by Ole Time Barbecue on the return trip from Harris-Teeter coming home to pick up a couple of dozen fresh, hot hushpuppies (which are very good) for us and maybe a pint or quart of cole slaw and Brunswick stew.

Barbecue Lodge is the same way. I can almost make a meal off Barbecue Lodge's consistently superb red potatoes (large potato chunks cooked in a water, ketchup, tiny bit of hot sauce, and spices boiling mixture), but on somedays their BBQ is just so dry, so overcooked, so either full of fat or lacking in it, or so undercooked that no amount of doctoring it up with Texas Pete or their house vinegar sauce can keep it from leaving an unpalatable aftertaste in your mouth.

When the barbeque being served might be a "black" on-day or a "red" off-day or a green double-zero really off day, unless you're with someone who just wants to eat there, why take the chance?

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