Saw’s BBQ
Photo by Jeff Thompson
0513: Anastasia Nealy/ Saw's BBQ
Anastasia Nealy’s two staples at Saw’s BBQ are customer favorites. “Miss A” starts every workday at 8 a.m. by making at least 10 pans of macaroni and cheese and four pans of banana pudding from her secret recipes.
In the meantime, thick slabs of pork ribs are going on the smoker and will stay there until lunch, and the pork butts that began cooking about this time yesterday start coming off.
And by 11:30 a.m. most days of the week, the line is nearly out the door.
Sure, it’s only about 40 feet from the order counter to Oxmoor Road, but Nealy, Saw’s manager, said a line like that tells passers-by the food inside is worth the wait.
“I think the smaller the club, the bigger the party,” she said.
Saw’s BBQ is a Southern dive in every sense. Its walls are slathered with distractions – scrawl from past patrons and football memorabilia, beer ads and articles from popular publications recommending the restaurant for every item on the menu. The entire Edgewood establishment is cramped into a cave where both the walk-in and beer fridges compete with customer seating. You eat where you order, and it seems like they cook where you eat.
And it’s exactly the way owner Mike Wilson wants it.
“It’s a Southern barbecue place,” Wilson said. “It’s a hole-in-the-wall. We aren’t here to decorate; we’re here to feed you.”
In 2009, Wilson, a native of North Carolina, was working in the test kitchens for Cooking Light magazine and smoking pork butts as a hobby. He had amassed a demand for his meat, which was soaked in sauce, stored in plastic bags and sold to his coworkers. They encouraged him to open a place of his own, and he wasn’t opposed to the idea. He just wanted to be in Edgewood, but at that time, Broadway BBQ was on the block.
Wilson placed a call to Broadway’s owner to tell him, “When you want out, I’m interested.”
Well, he wanted out right then, Wilson said.
“I think I made that call on a Thursday, and by Tuesday I was the owner.”
Wilson changed the name to Saw’s, an acronym for his nickname, Sorry-*** Wilson. He made a menu of only a few items. It included the Stuffed Taters Broadway BBQ was known for, served steaming and spilling over the cantaloupe-size spud, as well as traditional pulled pork and smoked chicken variations. Other popular items are the Saw’s Original Pulled Pork Sandwich and the Smoked Chicken with White BBQ Sauce.
Then, there’s Saw’s Ribs. They’re smoked for six hours and promptly wrapped in foil to lock in moisture. The meat disobeys every direct order to stay attached to the bone. The taste is sweet at first, but they finish on the back of the tongue with a snap of pepper and vinegar.
The Ribs were listed on the Alabama Department of Tourism’s 100 Dishes to Eat before you Die, which was released in 2012. But the State isn’t the only one raving about the restaurant. Saw’s is highly rated everywhere you look: a 25 (of 30) on Google Reviews; a 4.5 on Yelp.com and tripadvisor.com; and 93 percent favored on Urbanspoon.com. Saw’s was also the only Alabama restaurant listed on Urbanspoon’s Most Popular Cheap Eats list.
Miss A said besides the smell of smoked meat that drifts down Broadway every morning, customers love Saw’s consistency. Wilson likes his food to be served the right way every time, and for good reason.
“We’ve grown from word of mouth alone,” Wilson said. “You know, if you have a bad experience at restaurant the first time you visit, you’re probably not going to come back. I only get one shot to put it on the plate.”
In the past two years, Wilson has opened two other Saw’s locations – Saw’s Soul Kitchen in Avondale and Saw’s Juke Joint in Crestline Park. But Wilson said he has no long-term plans for more growth.
“It may take me 10 years, or I may never open another one,” he said. “It’s not about the money; it’s about somebody saying to me this sandwich or this mac and cheese is the best I’ve ever had.”
