Best ribs in Louisville

See, the advantage of running in the morning rather than on my lunch hour is that I sometimes treat myself to lunch. This, instead of running, sweating, and hoping not to get my ass kicked by a goose. Lucky for me, a couple blocks from work is the place with the best barbecue in town -- Picnicaterers BBQ & Catering. This is a no-frills joint, but with food this good, who needs embroidered napkins and a wine list?

You see, the arrow in the Google Street View picture above points to where the guy -- owner, cook, and sole employee as far as I can tell -- parks his white van and his gigantic double oil barrel grill. You walk up and look into the grill, right there on the street, and see all the lovely, grilled delights smoking softly in the summer heat. The heavy, meaty smells take you to someplace deep in your genetic memory where your ancestors huddled, shivering in strips of fur and hide, around a camp fire and charred pieces of their day's hunt on sticks. Always at this joint, there's excellent music playing. Today, setting the atmosphere, it was some thick and meaty blues, but on other days its been reggae, dub, funk, soul, and Motown -- always the heaviest sounds.

On the grill today, dude had chicken, pork ribs, beef short ribs [my favorite], rib tips, and smoked sausage. Also, he keeps his baked beans on the grill in a pan, thick chunks of pork swimming therein. He keeps the other side items and the bread in that funny looking building on the corner, but I usually just stick with beans so I can get to eatin' ASAP.

Two of the best slabs of barbecue in the city + baked beans + bottle of water = $7.00.

This, my friends, is enough to keep me waking up before sunrise to run before work.