Nooner - Pappy Red's Newest Spot

I'm stopping in to write a quick review to my much neglected blog. Plenty more to come, so please revisit!

I just so happened to be in the Peachtree Hills area of town today and decided to stop in for Atlanta's newest ITP barbecue offering - Pappy Red's. I initially heard about this new location from Eat It, Atlanta's post and was already unappetized by perusing his pictures. An oversauced and pre-sauced sandwich is what I saw and sure enough that's what I got when stopping in today.

At least it's not easy to miss!

For those that don't know, Pappy Red's is actually a well-respected and old-school barbeque joint out in Cumming and this is the first of many potential franchise operations. I've actually been to the original location, and frankly, didn't like it back then and would say that the current location stays true to the mothership.

While there are several schools of BBQ (especially in Georgia), PR's seems to subscribe to the Alabama realm of Q. When I think of Alabama barbecue, I think of meat overly pre-sauced, on a soft bun with pickles, and wrapped in wax-paper. Dimitri's BBQ in Homewood Alabama is really the ideal example of this type of Q. Another spot in closer proximity would be Old Hickory House in Dunwoody. To me this style is the sloppy-joe of barbeque.
Back to Pappy's - The pork was dry and the sauce very tomatoey. Compared to other well-known places ITP, the flavors were kind of amateur and simple. While they cook over hickory wood, I found no real presence of smokey flavoring or any real seasoning for that matter. If it was there, the sauce totally masks it. And the dry pork just put the nail in the coffin. It was missing everything I love in a pulled pork sandwich - both fatty and lean bits of meat, some smattering of bark, and a tangy sauce with some additional kick subtly applied so that you can still taste those hours sitting in smoke. I didn't get anything close to that here.
The brunswick stew was also very simple with what almost seemed like ground pork in it. They'd be better off leaving some slightly larger chunks of meat in the stew and altering the flavor a little bit away from their BBQ sauce.

Really I don't see PR's trumping any other spots in the area but they did have a good lunch crowd. I just wish there was some more well-executed barbecue in this area. While I won't be returning, Pappy Red's will do in a pinch if you're really craving some pig.