Good news for fans of the ribs and pulled pork at Andrew Evans’s Barbecue Joint—you don’t have to trek to Easton or Pasadena anymore to satisfy a craving. After months of negotiations (“You’d think I was building a kitchen for the queen,” Evans says), he recently signed a two-year lease for a barbecue counter at Union Market. He plans to start serving in early December.
Evans says the project is “more akin to a barbecue butcher in the South or Texas than a restaurant.” Customers can buy cut-to-order ribs, pork butt, brisket, and Sriracha-and-beer sausage by the pound, then load up on house-made sauces, rubs, and sides such as collards and cornbread. “No redneck nachos or other goofy things,” he says.
Evans, who graduated from the CIA and once owned the elegant Inn at Easton, plans to get creative with weekend specials, like veal short ribs. We’re looking forward to his pork belly: “Most people braise it to death or make bacon, but I treat it like ribs,” he says. That means brining it, giving it a rub and a turn in the smoker, then finishing it off with a barbecue-sauce glaze.
Evans will smoke the meats in Pasadena, then deliver them to DC while they’re resting. “It’ll be just like what I’d do at a barbecue competition,” he says.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
