K&L Barbecue

5 Cavalier Sq                                       
Hopewell, VA 23860                         
Mon-Fri 11am-9pm                           

Last week I was really feeling some BBQ so I decided to tryout this Hopewell favorite. As you all know I was recently blown away by Saucy’s walkup BBQ in downtown Petersburg and  I wanted to see how this historic landmark fared against the relative new comer.

I started with K & L first and let me begin by warning you, it is NOT open on the weekends and does Not take any form of credit or debit cards so make sure you have cash. Unlike Saucy’s K&L is a typical sit down restaurant and is exactly what comes to mind when you think about a BBQ restaurant. It is decked out with pigs, NASCAR, goofy signs (like “Pigs is Beautiful”) and old license plates all over the wall, kind of like a down home TGI Friday’s. Also unlike Saucy’s they serve a lot more than just BBQ. They serve all sorts of country cookin’ from chicken and dumplins to blackberry cobbler.  I have heard that the chick and dumplins are out of this world but I was there for the BBQ.

I ordered their special, which included a BBQ sandwich (pork or beef and minced or sliced) with or without cold slaw, a side and sweet tea or unsweet tea for diabetics and northerners for $4.95. BBQ is usually quite expensive and I thought that this is a pretty great deal. I of course chose minced pork topped with slaw and a potato cake as my side item. When they say potato cake they are not talking about the think pan fried German type. Their potato cake is pretty much a patty of deep fried mashed potatoes. I know it might not sound delicious but it is.  They also have other standard sides such as green beans, french fries, collard greens and baked beans but the potato cake is by far and away the best.

I was served my meal in a matter of minutes by a very nice waitress who kept my glass perpetually full of sweet tea.  The sandwich was on the small side but had a nice toasted bun and a decent amount of BBQ on it with the perfect amount of cole slaw. The BBQ itself was very finely minced, did not have that much flavor and was not at all smoky. I topped it with K&L’s famous BBQ sauce, a Virginia variation of North Carolina’s vinegar based sauce. I was not in love with the sauce because I prefer a tomato based BBQ sauce but this one was better than a typical NC style sauce. It added a nice flavor and some moister to the dry sandwich which ended up tasted quite good. The potato cake was cooked to perfection with a nice moist inside and a crunchy outershell that held in all of the goodness. To make it just that better, I used it to mop up the cole slaw and BBQ mixture that dripped off my sandwich.

While not as good as Saucy’s,  K&L is a nice standard BBQ restaurant with a down home feel which I will gladly go back to anytime someone suggests it or when I get the hankering for BBQ while in downtown Hopewell.  It was a good meal for a great price; just don’t forget your cash!