Right on 'Cue

Bebe's Barbecue

by Trey Popp

"HERE," MARK COATES said, holding a chicken wing across the counter. "Take it. It's the best part of the bird. I'm not going to sacrifice it to a sandwich."

It was a slow stretch in the late afternoon at Bebe's, the barbecue joint Coates opened a couple months ago in the Italian Market.

"Mixing it in with breast meat would be disrespecting the chicken," he added in a sotto voce drawl.

Only after wolfing it down in two ecstatic bites did I realize I'd miscalculated. For one, I should have licked it like a lollipop. God, that blackened spice rub! For another, my gluttony must have stricken Coates as something akin to death's-door hunger. A minute later he was handing over a chewy, satanically smoky burnt end of pork-butt bark. That gave my teeth a little more to work on, but this time it must have been my beatified face — across the counter came another pitch-dark piece.

Coates started pulling the chicken breast into what proved amazingly succulent strands, then stopped.

"Guess you'll need something to wash that down," he said, and poured a stream of sweet iced tea — but not oversweet, as is too often the case with Southward genuflections — into a tall white cup.  

And there you have the Achilles' heel of this wonderful new addition to Philadelphia's growing barbecue scene. Coates can’t seem to help himself from tossing freebies over the counter. The next time I came, it was the end of a beef brisket, also blackened with a dry rub and suffused with 12 hours of hickory smoke.

"The first month, I was basically just giving everything away," the former Mississippian told me. "I still haven’t figured out how to price the brisket." He got that right; I'd have gladly paid half again what he rung me up for.  

Bebe's, which Coates named after his grandmother and runs with self-taught cook Tamara Van Winkle, is still evolving in business terms. Not everything on the menu is available every day — the superb brisket has been on and off, the neon biscuit sign doesn’t always portend biscuits, and Coates says the best bet for ribs is toward the end of the week. But even if he served pulled pork sandwiches and collards alone, this would still be my favorite smokehouse.

The pork is moist yet deeply smoky, dressed with a zippy tomato-based vinegar sauce, and piled on a toasted hamburger bun in such a heap that a single pre-airport sandwich kept me going for 16 hours of sleepless and snackless travel. The fresh collards, flavored sublimely with liquid smoke rather than ham hocks, are tender but not at all mushy.

With meat this expertly smoked and hospitality this genuine, Bebe’s is set to become my biggest temptation on a street teeming with them.

(t_popp@citypaper.net)

Bebe's Barbecue | 1017 S. Ninth St., 267-519-8791, bebesbarbecue.com. Tue.-Sat., noon-7 p.m.; Sun., 9 a.m.-2 p.m.; closed Mon. Platters, $12-$24, sandwiches, $5-$6. Call ahead for specials and availability. Cash only.