Wanna fight over some ribs?! Meet me at Rick’s Roadhouse.

The older I get, the more I realize the influence living in Wyoming, North Florida, and Southern Georgia had on me in my youth. Maybe that’s why I was so happy to finally find good BBQ in New England.

And despite the stiffly poured Jack n’ Coke I just drank, I’m not mistaken. Oh sure, I may have felt at home listening to George Thorogood and Johnny Cash on the jukebox surrounded by walls adorned with colorful lacey bras hanging from steer horns, a jackalope, John Deere signs, a Big Buck Safari video game and an impressive bar wall of Bourbon and Whiskey that kept my mouth watering throughout my interview with Ted Newcomb, but I’m not fooled. Ted is the Vice President of Operations for the Chow Fun Food Group and more importantly the current overseer of Rick’s Roadhouse located in the former location of where (to southern ex-pats’ good fortune) the Big Fish closed its doors– 370 Richmond St, Providence.

You see, before I even called Ted I had tried THE RIBS. On one of the few sunny days this month, in this godforsaken land of no-sunshine and too much rain they call Rhode Island (demonstrated in nearly every story HP Lovecraft ever told) I reluctantly dined at Rick’s Roadhouse after reading a recent post on StephanieDoes.com.

Reaction: Oooohhh! THE RIBS are good! And so are the greens! And the coleslaw! And the mac n’ cheese! And the chili! And the Long Island Ice Tea! Could it be?!

Imagine how I cringed when the first question I asked Ted was answered with “we did a lot of R&D to come up with our BBQ sauce and the meat rubs.” Arrrghhhh! Any native-born southerner probably would have walked away from the interview before it even got started, but I had already had THE RIBS. They were so goooood. And I guess I’ve grown accustomed to these soulless North Easterners who turn everything into science (R&D) even when the South knows that only God makes good BBQ. And, let’s face it, as I type this I’m sitting in my historic urban dwelling listening to Willie Nelson at my desk while a pedigree cat (not a dog) named Mrrrl (after Merle Haggard) sits on my lap…yeah, I’m assimilated.

You can try to ignore the obvious overt attempts at redneck in this New England roadhouse, but it won’t matter. If you like southern cuisine, they’re going to get you and they’re going to keep you coming back for more.

The menu includes 28-day aged steaks, crispy catfish, bayou crab cakes, burgers, wings, camp fire s’mores and all kinds of BBQ– Carolina Pulled Pork, Texas Beef Brisket and Slow Smoked BBQ Chicken. Hell, I’m hungry again just looking at my take-home menu. But then again, I recognize that they’re playing with my olfactory memory. Yeah, they even smoke the menus for 2 hours, so every time you walk by it stuck on your fridge or open it in the restaurant your stomach growls. Pure evil–I bet John Elkhay plays the fiddle.

Their menu isn’t up on their website yet, but why bother looking anyway–take my word for it, Yankees, go git sum this weekend y’all and tell’em I sent ya!

Rick’s Roadhouse
370 Richmond Street
Providence, RI
401-272-PORK

P.S.    Do me a favor– request the fried okra!
P.P.S. Ted tells me they’ll have a mechanical bull soon. Yeeehaw!