Dinosaur Bar-B-Que
Barbecue chain, blues venue, and biker bar.
via Wikipedia: Dinosaur Bar-B-Que · see source
Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is a chain of restaurants, blues venues, and biker bars located mostly in upstate New York, with branches in New York City and formerly in New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, and Maryland. The first location opened in 1988 on Willow Street in downtown Syracuse, in a building that had been the N&H tavern and once housed a Cadillac dealership. Subsequent locations were set in older buildings of historical significance: a former Lehigh Valley Railroad station in Rochester, a former Universal Pictures film storage vault in Buffalo, a former tool & die shop in Brooklyn, a former boxing club where Rubin Carter trained in Newark, and a former Yale Lock Co. factory in Stamford. A cookbook, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que: An American Roadhouse, was published in 2001, and many signature sauces are bottled by Private Label Foods and sold in stores and online.
Quick Facts
- Established
- 1988
- Food type
- Barbecue
- Street address
- 246 West Willow Street
- City
- Syracuse
- County
- Onondaga County
- Country
- United States
- Other locations
- Harlem, Brooklyn, Rochester, Troy, Buffalo
- Other information
- Former locations in Newark
- New Jersey
- Stamford
- Connecticut
- Chicago and Baltimore
Facts from the source article.
History
The Syracuse location was closed for about a week in late November 2006 after a Norovirus outbreak affected hundreds of customers and employees; Onondaga County health inspectors found no fault on the restaurant's part, and how the virus materialized remains unclear. In May 2009, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que was voted America's best barbecue in ABC's Good Morning America poll, with approximately 4000 out of 7500 participants choosing it. Adam Richman, host of the Travel Channel's Man v. Food, visited the Syracuse location on June 8, 2010 (season 3, episode 13), trying the 'Pork-Sket' sandwich—featuring half a pound each of brisket and pulled pork—which first aired on September 1, 2010.
In March 2015, a New York City law firm, Fitapelli & Schaffer, filed a class action lawsuit claiming the chain systematically underpaid its tipped workers; the firm had filed similar suits against T.G.I. Friday's and Chipotle. In May 2022, at the Buffalo location, Freddie Gibbs and 15 other men, including Benny the Butcher, were involved in an altercation stemming from past rap beef. Dinosaur BBQ was a staple at the New York State Fair but was not present at the 2024 fair.
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