Roasted meat and red sauce
definitely sticks to your ribs
By Kevin Cowan
Senior Reporter
Ribs arouse a strangely primal sensa
tion. There’s only one way to eat them,
with your fingers.
Roasted hunks of meat and barbecue
sauce drip from your lips. There’s no
clean way to devour the lung cage of
pigs and steers. Yet the ritual is, no
less, a delight.
Dining Review
Two Lincoln restaurants — It’s the
Pits and Grandpa’s Ribs and Secret
Sauce — both claim ribs as their
personal best.
It's the Pits, 4947 Holdrege St., is
kind of a neo-rustic and neon family
dining place. To be blunt, the food is
exquisite. Everything. Its feature, the
“Pit Dinner,” includes smoked ribs or
chicken, Texas Toast, and two "extra
Fixins.”
The meat, “smoked fresh daily”
according to Manager Jeff Bechtolt, is
hefty, tender and properly cooked. The
chicken slides off the hollow bones. No
knife is necessary.
And the fixins. Sometimes the
accompaniment makes the meal. It's
the Pits sports barbecue beans, onion
rings, potato salad, cole slaw... kind of
a picnic without the dirt.
There’s one fixin that deserves a
paragraph all its own. deep fried com
on the cob. A delicacy unique to
Lincoln. To avoid sounding like a Mrs.
Smith’s fried fish package — lightly
battered and all that rot — I'll avoid
description. It’s good. Try it for your
self.
Pit Dinners start at $4.25 for a
quarter chicken and top off at $6.75 for
a third slab of ribs.
The dinners aren't for eveiyone. Let's
face it, as a college student, sometimes
you’ve got four bucks total to eat for a
day. In that case, a $7 dinner is out of
the question. So It’s the Pits accom
modates with an array of beef, pork and
chicken sandwich: $2.29 for a regular
and $2.95 for a large sandwich. Toss in
a refutable drink for 75 cents and
you’ve got a satible meal for under four
dollars.
It’s the Pits is exactly the opposite
of its name. It’s fantastic.
A hard act to follow — good food,
nice atmosphere, free refills — but
Grandpa’s Ribs and Secret Sauce comes
close ... in a different realm.
Grandpa's ribs is strictly a carryout
place.
Terry Rupert, manager of the four
month-old business, said he wants to
avoid the stigma of a hangout. The
customer end of the rib shop promotes
his theory well. Two tables, six chairs,
video gam os and an overpriced pop
machine. Definitely not a sit-down type
place.
But blow off the lack of atmosphere.
You’re there to get ribs. Big ribs that
are drenched in the secret sauce that
Rupert said has been in his family for
more than 100 years. One word of
advice: there’s no clean way to eat
these ribs. If you have a beard, then
shave. And make sure you arm yourself
with a generous supply of napkins.
Grandpa’s prices run from $2.95 for a
barbecue sandwich, to $7.95 for a third
slab of large-end beef ribs. Prices for
small-ends of beef and pork ribs run in
between. Grandpa's ribs also provides
smoked fish lovers with carp and buffalo
fish. Rupert said buffalo fish was "kind
of like carp, but sweeter and with fewer
bones."
Both places have specials coming
within tlie next montfy so if you need
an economic excuse to try them out,
you’ll have your chance.
Put all the rules of proper etiquette
aside, tear the roasted meat from the
darkened bones, and ei\joy with full
amour ribs, the way these two rib shops
make them.
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