JB's Smokeshack is right on 'que

From the road, the building looked closed. A large white sign with a pink-nosed pig indicated that we were parked in front of JB’s Smokeshack and a homemade wooden sign in the window read “open”, but I still had my doubts. Restaurants like this can go one of two ways; either the food is awful that they’re about to fold, so the company decided not to put any money into redecorating or the food was so good, that the business felt no need to bring in more customers by over decorating the front. Any worries that JB’s was the first of the two quickly dissipated when the first waft of smoky barbeque hit my nostrils. Mouth watering, I and my restaurant hunting companion practically ran through the sighing screen door to meet our meaty fate; the world-renown masterpiece barbeque of JB’s Smokeshack.
The first indication that we were in for a treat should have been the company’s motto painted across the sign in the parking lot, repeated again in another hand painted sign tacked to the side of the building, “The flavor’s in the meat, the sauce is on the side”. However, it took me until I actually saw JB himself cutting a block of cheddar into a bowl of steaming elbow macaroni to realize that this was a barbeque shack a cut or two above the rest.
The layout of JB’s is typical for any barbeque restaurant below the Mason Dixon line; square tables with plastic red gingham tablecloths, Styrofoam buffet plates and utensils, well-loved chairs and extra handfuls of napkins readily available at each seating. The whole building probably seats around 35 people and it’s almost always pretty full. The buffet table across the far wall was steaming with fresh food when we arrived, but only momentarily, because the second a new batch of fresh macaroni and cheese or JB’s signature BBQ beans hit the steamer, they were gone in a whirlwind of flashing serving spoons and plates.
In the six years since JB’s Smokeshack opened, the menu has never changed, and for good reason. JB has perfected his slow cooked hickory smoked pork, using slow-cooking 100 pound smokers that could stop a man in his tracks from fifty yards away. His chicken might possibly be the best I’ve ever tasted. Juicy, delicately crisped skin rubbed with a “secret” blend of well-balanced spices and slow cooked over apple wood so that every bite was like sinking into sweet, smoky bliss.
As for side dishes, JB’s decided when they opened that none of their local vegetables or homemade dishes would be fried and they have stuck to that principle ever since. Instead of French fries and fried okra, JB’s serves their family recipes for chunky potato salad, okra gumbo, butter beans, sweet potatoes, black eyed beans and collard greens, as well as a Chef’s Choice, which changes every day. For desserts, their banana pudding with chunks of banana and still-crispy vanilla wafer was excellent, but the real show stopper was the tray of “Pluff Mud” pudding. As a kid, I would make pluff mud pudding (we called it “dirt cake”) by wrapping a bag of Oreo cookies several times over in a trash bag, stick it under the back wheel of my dad’s car and rolling over it again and again until the Oreos were pulverized into a mound of crumbs that looked suspiciously like Miracle Gro. We would then layer it between folds of vanilla custard and lace the occasional gummy worm into the lower part of the bowl, finishing it off with a final layer of Oreo “dirt” and a fake flower growing out of the center. Although JB’s prepares the dessert in a much more sanitary fashion, the treat brought back many memories and tasted just as good, if not better, than I remembered it.
On top of trying to keep up with the restaurant, JB and his son Billy, with the help of their business partners and wives, Diane and Melissa, also run a hefty catering business. With enough smokers to handle over 700 pounds of meat at one time, the crew at the Smokeshack has yet to cater to face the challenge of having more people than barbeque. “The most amount of people we ever served was at Charleston’s Air Force Base and that was only 400 people,” said Billy as he closed the lid on a whole hog he had been smoking for more than a day. “In fact, we actually have more capacity now than we did for that event.”
If you need any other recommendations as to the quality of JB’s barbeque, look no further than the walls of his restaurant. In frames across the back wall are all of the Smokeshack’s awards, including 2nd place in the 2005 Ladson Prestigious Palmetto Pig Pickin’, 2nd place for Brisket at Boone Hall, 3rd place for Whole Hog at the 2007 SEWE Wildlife Festival and 5th and 9th place for brisket and chicken respectively at the Hickory, NC, Greater Hickory Smoke Barbecue Competition and Festival.
Barbeque fans who have sought out JB’s and people that the Smokeshack has catered to include country music greats Billy Dean, Aaron Tippin, Keith Anderson and Rebecca Lynn Howard, as well as a guestbook that includes signatures from Aaron Lines and Eric Clapton. In fact, the Smokeshack on John’s Island became so popular that JB and Diane opened another JB’s in Goose Creek. The new restaurant has an expanded menu that includes fried food and hamburgers, as well as live bluegrass from Yeehaw Junction every first and third Friday of the month. Run by Billy and Melissa, the restaurant that was once a hobby for JB has become a formidable player in the world of southern barbeque. In fact, don’t be surprised to see his smoked ribs and succulent smoked ‘que skimming by in their competition-grade catering bus, on their way to serve celebrities and gourmands alike in competitions and private parties all across the southeast.


JB’s Smokeshack

3406 Maybank Highway
John’s Island, SC
557-0426
Hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 11am - 8:30pm

521 Redbank Road
Goose Creek, SC
572-3311
Hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 11am - 8:30pm

Printable catering menus and further information on JB’s Smokeshack is available on their website at www.jbssmokeshack.com.