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Sonny's Real Pit Barbecue
350 North Peters Road
983-5240

by Connie Seuer

Around here, barbecue is a thing that gets into a person's psyche, secured by the tenterhooks of olfactory memory. People find the recipe that's right for them and they stick with it, staying true to it like the best of marriages. Folks share their favorite 'cue with only their closest friends and perchance acquaintances either trusted or in need of impressing. But the "recipe," it must be noted, is not a simple squirt of sauce or a blend of spices. Sure the caliber of the meats and the tastes take priority, but the recipe of a barbecue is a total package—the hours of operation, the seasonal specialties, the age of a place, the personalities that make the barbecue an experience.

Heinrich's loyalty is entrusted to a joint in the flats of Cookeville that's been plating pulled pork, curly fries, and poolroom slaw for longer than he knows. It's his barbecue, and it is this recipe that is his measuring stick for all other barbecue adventures.

The barbecue purveyor in my hometown has no protected space in my heart. Although the barbecue was fine, it was spiritless. Plus the small counter and storefront where you ordered always had a strange, best-if-not-thought-of-too-hard smell. So for me, I'm still searching for the place, the recipe, to call my own.

This search recently found me at Sonny's Real Pit Barbecue, off Cedar Bluff, which, oddly enough, covers much of its wall space in a hodgepodge of sepia-toned pictures of downtown Knoxville. Self-advertisements blend with these pictures, along with wall-art formed by vinyl 45s and 8-tracks. Yes, 8-tracks. Perusing the menu, I couldn't help but wonder what Trans Am floorboard had been raided of its requisite Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, and Boston cartridges.

No sooner had our overalls hit the booth than Heinrich ordered up a basket of vidalia onion rings ($1.99). Our server was like lightning, at the ready to note our full lunch request. Heinrich took the cost-effective, well-paved route of The Big Deal! ($4.99), a combo meal of barbecue pork (sliced or pulled) served on garlic toast with barbecue beans or French fries and a bottomless tea or soft drink. As much as I wanted to try the straight-out barbecue, I couldn't resist my carnal urge to gnaw on some ribs. I landed a half-slab of baby backs and attempted a "healthy" order of sides by substituting the standard cole slaw for barbecue beans and forgoing fries for a baked sweet potato.

The onion rings arrived as quickly as we'd ordered 'em. The best part—the onions were thick and substantial. So many rings I find are but thin slivers of onion. Sonny's style kept the onion crisp and present. The breading, though, was heavier than necessary and made the fried pleasures a palpable sin.

Heinrich's Big Deal was the real steal. He's a big guy, and on this day, he was a big hungry guy. The pulled pork sandwich was large enough to sate his Saturday appetite and give him ample square footage to test out each of Sonny's different sauces on virgin pork. Each table bears four varieties of sauce: regular, sweet, hot, and sizzlin' sweet (a premix of the hot sauce and the sweet sauce). Regular turned out to be just that, plain and predictable barbecue sauce. Hot was a bit spicy but nothing to fear. Sizzlin' sweet tempted him, but it was more complicated than he desired. It was the sweet sauce that, surprisingly, stole his heart. Obviously, one's choice of sauce is a very personal decision, and Sonny's does a good job of offering options for all likes.

The garlic toast, serving as the starch matrix for the barbecue assembly, kept tugging attention away from the barbecue. Heinrich coped by creating an open face sandwich to avoid being overpowered by the bread's seasoning. His fries (these are the crimped, pinking shear style fries) were unremarkable. They provided the salty, starchy crunch that he wanted but they were not the signature of the Deal. That honor was held by the pulled pork—just as it should be.

I consumed the half slab of ribs without shame, finger-licking and mess-making with pride. There's something primal and right about chewing food from the bone every now and again. I won't deny it. On their edges, Sonny's ribs offered spots of crisped glaze as well as smoky, sauce-rich landings. Close to the bone, they maintained their honest meat flavor with a rewarding tenderness. The barbecue baked beans, spiked with chunks of pork, were sweeter than I prefer, but the beans to pork ratio was good, as was the gravy to beans balance. My sweet potato, a simply good sort of vegetable, could have been great had it not been overbaked. It's treatment left it mushy. Alas, no beta carotene for me. Instead I finished the basket of onion rings. Again, just as it should be, the barbecued ribs were the main attraction. There's a reason they call the other things sides.

I'll confess—I don't believe that Sonny's will be my barbecue joint. It is a chain, after all, and although it does a great barbecue, the recipe isn't complete. Indeed, my search will continue, but it's awful nice to know Sonny's can give a good plate of 'cue while I'm lookin'.