Location:

15505 Olde Highway 80

El Cajon, CA 92021


Menu:

http://www.calicomfortbbq.com/calibbq-menu


Hours:

Monday - Thursday:

CLOSED


Friday

4-:00 pm - 10:00 pm


Saturday

12:00 pm -8:00 pm


Sunday

10:00 am -5:00 pm

If you are interested in being featured on a future episode of East County Eats, please fill out the form below to be contacted by our producer:

http://bit.ly/BlogSubmissionFormECE

Video Transcript:

- Where can you go to enjoy Texas-style BBQ, live music, cold beer, and fun activities with your family? Right here in Flinn Springs, at Grand Ole BBQ. I'm Jennifer Amidon, with Whissel Realty, and this is East County Eats.

- East County Eats is all about showing you the coolest restaurants in and around East County. I'm Kyle Whissel, with Whissel Realty, and this is East County Eats.

- Hey Andy, thanks for having us out today.

- Hey, thanks for having me.

- It's an awesome place, we love it, can you tell me a little bit about Grand Ole BBQ?

- Oh gosh, I don't know, for the people watching, that Grand Ole BBQ in North Park opened three years ago, in about two weeks it will be our third birthday. I just always had a vision to do something bigger, that people can bring their families out to, and here it is.

- Yeah, that sounds awesome. Where did you learn to cook Texas BBQ?

- Well my dad's family is all from the Texas area, and I just grew up really around it, always eating it, always eating that particular style of BBQ. I wanted to duplicate those flavors that I had as a kid, and just trial and error, and making a ton of bad BBQ.

- Alright Andy, tell me about the outside area, the inside area, this place has to much to offer.

- Yeah, we definitely are going to be offering two different experiences. With outdoors, as you can see, it's just going to be, this is where the real family experience happens, of sitting on the lawn, putting down a blanket, watching live music, playing Cornhole, you know, the real outdoor Texas experience. Or, if you want to sit indoors, that's going to be a full-service, you know, 20 beers on tap inside. But like I said full-service, with a waitress, we're going to have a full menu inside, with steaks, and burgers, and chili. Not just steaks, but prime steaks. And, so it's just a different experience. You kind of got the cool, outdoor Texas BBQ vibe out here. And in there, a little bit more kind of a retro, swanky, full-service bar.

- Awesome, well I'm excited to try the food, let's go check it out.

- Cool.

- So Andy we're standing out here in this massive smoke-yard. Can you tell me a little bit about it?

- As far as we know, and I'm pretty sure we are correct, you are in the biggest smoke-yard west of Texas right now. And it's about to get even bigger, we have two more smokers coming in. And these were all made in Texas, and I have the other ones out in North Park, but these are the style I like to use, like I said I kind of grew up seeing these. And really figured out they're the best for cooking brisket.

- So how long do you actually smoke the meats?

- It's different, everything's different, I mean, your average brisket is probably 12 to 14 hours. Your average pork butt is actually the same, 12 to 14 hours. Ribs, are more like six hours. But brisket, it's a variable. Every brisket gets done at a different temperature, in a different time. It's all about feel.

- Right, and what type of wood do you use?

- All white oak, all local white oak. Somewhat local white oak, all from somewhere near here. And it's the closest thing that I can get to what I would be using if I was in Central Texas. So, obviously this is a pork butt. This is a rack of pork ribs, St Louis-cut spare ribs. And this is our brisket, kind of our flagship of the whole restaurant. You know, I'll basically start here. A good pork butt, as a lot of you have probably seen on some cooking shows, is if the bone comes out like that, it's been cooked, it's done. So, that's cool and you can just kind of, do what you want and take a hunk off, and throw it on like that. You know, that's a hunk of pork. We've got some ribs. So you got four nice ribs like that, look those are some pretty ribs actually.

- Yeah that looks really good.

- Here's the pride and joy. Cut into some brisket here. And the most particular thing about brisket too, is the way you cut it. And there's nothing I hate worse than going to a BBQ restaurant and having somebody not cut it right. And you got to separate the fat from the lean. This is called the point, this is called the flat. And then, kind of do that. Then you cut this down this way, and look how juicy that is. It's not, you know, no injections, nothing like that. If you just cook it right it will stay juicy. And then you just slice it this way. And you got a piece of nice brisket right there. And there you got, that's Central Texas BBQ right there.

- Alright you guys, I have this entire spread of a bunch of meat, I'm super excited to try it. I think I'm going to start with the brisket. Looks pretty amazing. Let's cut a little slice off. Dip it in the BBQ sauce, and this is spicy BBQ sauce. Guys it's so good, so much flavor, that spicy BBQ sauce is amazing. I'm going to grab some pickles, some pork, some ribs. You guys have to come check this place out. Totally resurrected from what it used to be. Bring your family out here and come try it out. Thank you so much for watching this episode of East County Eats.