Just a quick trip report now that I'm back home.
John Mull's Road Kill Grill was featured on
Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives with Guy Fieri in May 2012. I'm told there aren't a lot of great barbecue joints in Vegas, but I thought it would be fun to check-out this place while in town, as it's basically an outdoor restaurant in the parking lot across from
John Mull's Meats and Deer Processing.
I met my friends Adam and Annie at The Venetian on the Las Vegas Strip, and we took a cab for the 20 minute ride northeast to John Mull's. It's way off the beaten path, located in a commercial/residential neighborhood, out where the real people live and eat in Las Vegas.
When the cab pulled into the gravel parking lot just after 2:00pm on a Saturday, there was a long line of people waiting to order. Good sign, I thought. Someone is doing something right here.
We hopped out of the cab and were greeted almost immediately by TVWBB member JSteffen. It was awesome to meet him, and I really appreciated his making the effort to turn out and spend part of his Saturday having lunch with us.
The place is basically organized into two parts. There's a block building housing the meat market along the back side of the lot...not much to look at, no windows, very little signage, with a non-descript entrance door. And in front of that, there's the outdoor restaurant and picnic table area with a big tent overhead to provide shade. There's also some sort of permanent structure with a wide overhanging roof with a few more tables around it and a couple of flat screen TVs for watching the game.
The food prep area consists of two big steel grills/smokers sitting alongside an elevated, U-shaped serving area with steam trays for hot foods and iced serving areas for slaw, potato salad, and soft drinks in cans. You get in line to place your order, then continue in line to pay at the register, then on to the serving area where your order is assembled into a Styrofoam box.
All the usual suspects were there...brisket, spareribs, rib tips, pulled pork, hot links, 1/4 chicken, and pulled chicken. Meats are served as single meat dinners, 2- and 3-meat combos, and sandwiches. Sides include potato and mac salads, coleslaw, baked beans, mac & cheese, and green beans. Dessert consists of peach and apple cobblers. Beverages are soft drinks and water, no alcohol. A small selection of t-shirts, caps, aprons, and bandanas are available as souvenirs.
As for the food, nothing I had was spectacular. I tried the brisket and pulled pork. The brisket was very thinly sliced, most likely with a meat slicer. Of course, that made it very tender, but also hard to judge how tender it would have been if sliced thickly. It was kept warm and moist in a deep pan full of broth. Either it was alright or I was starving, because I ate all the brisket. The pulled pork was somewhat oversauced and the texture was OK. It came with a soft roll tossed on top of the meat and smashed by the Styrofoam lid that I used to make a small sandwich. I ate about half the pork.
In hindsight, I'm not sure why I didn't think to order the ribs, those might have been the best thing there and I didn't even try them. I had the baked beans and mac & cheese...nothing special there.
JSteffen and I agreed that we could make BBQ that easily surpassed what we'd eaten here. However, I always acknowledge the difficulty of making decent barbecue at this scale and in an open parking lot, no less. I would not want to have that task.
After lunch, we went across the parking lot to the meat market and checked that out. It's not much to look from the outside or from the inside, for that matter...no glass case with meat inside. You place your order from a printed price list, the meat cutter brings out the meat and cuts it to order, places it in a lug that is carried up to the front counter, where it's weighed, priced, wrapped, and you pay. JSteffen ordered a slab of spareribs to cook at home the next day, trimmed to St. Louis style and rib tips. Looks like the meat market might be the strong suit of this place, as they offer a big selection of custom cuts.
Anyway, if you're looking for a funky BBQ experience and/or you like to try places featured on Triple D, give John Mull's Road Kill Grill a try.
