Time for a "Pit" Stop

The aroma of smoked meat smacks you in the face before you even step in the door.

Inside offers no reprieve as plates of food containing macaroni and cheese, sandwiches and even seafood dishes fill the air with their scent.

It’s Beachwood’s newest restaurant, The Pit, located off Central Parkway in the former space of Ly’s Thai Gourmet. The diverse menu offers an array of options, from typical barbecue fare like coleslaw and baked beans to specialty items like lobster martinis. But the star of this show is clearly the kitchen smoker, one that restaurant owner Caesar Burkes searched across several states to find.

“I toured plants for years before I found one of these I liked,” said Burkes, nodding toward the smoker and smiling. “We even smoke the chicken wings.”

The smoker is more than six feet tall and looks like a mid-century refrigerator with space for seven metal racks inside. It holds as much as 600 pounds of meat, cooking it all “low and slow,” as Burkes says, meaning a low temperature for a long time, just like his family taught him to do.

He first learned the art of barbecue from his grandfather, who had a restaurant in Birmingham, AL, where the ribs were always tender and delicious, Burkes said. Burkes grew up in that restaurant, the Atomic Café, and said that’s where he learned how to smoke the meat just right. That means cooking the pulled pork 14 hours and using a hand rub on the ribs with his own secret blend of spices and then mopping with barbecue sauce.

“It’s Alabama style,” the 69-year-old said, still with a Southern drawl. “Can’t nobody beat me cooking. I do it with passion. You got to have passion and I put mine in the kitchen.”

Opening a barbecue joint is something Burkes always wanted to do. He tried his hand at one in 2005 called Caesar’s in Warrensville Heights that he opened with his daughter, but the spot never quite took off and closed after eight months.

By that time Burkes had already been retired for about six years, as the owner of nine McDonald’s franchises. He said he opened The Pit in November, partly out of love and partly out of necessity after watching the savings he accrued throughout his life start to take a hit.

“After spending money like I had me a job, I decided I better buy me a job,” he said.

After a slow beginning, he said business has started to take off. On one Sunday afternoon earlier this month, the restaurant was already busy with more than a dozen guests enjoying a barbecue buffet that takes place every Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.

Carmella and Vincent Weaver, of Shaker Heights, were visiting the restaurant for the third time that Sunday and said the buffet was “spectacular.”

“It tastes like someone made it at home and brought it here,” Carmella said, laughing. Both enjoyed the ribs and chicken wings, but said the sides are what made the meal.

“That’s some good mac ‘n’ cheese,” Vincent Weaver said.

Burkes, who lives in Beachwood, said he has big plans for the restaurant, including renovating the outside, which still has the Asian-style rooftop left over from its days as a Thai restaurant.