Craving 'cue? Find Black Market Barbecue in the Fan this spring. (Photo by Stephanie Breijo)
If it took you a year to melt 100 pounds off your body, then the food you’re preparing probably isn't barbecue; not moist baby back ribs, which weigh in at around 700 calories per half rack, nor pulled pork piled between freshly baked Sally Lunn buns, mopped with pepper and vinegar. Definitely not brisket and hand-cut fries. Unless you’re chef Michael Hall, who’s busy readying his new neighborhood takeout venture, Black Market Barbecue.
In late April or early May, he’ll be wrapping up all of those things, as well as beer and wine, at 105 N. Robinson St. — a restaurant just around the corner from his dressy, ultra-caloric enterprise, Spoonbread Bistro, and adjacent to Commercial Taphouse — in a 1,300-square-foot barbecue joint with only a couple of tables outside for convenience. Hall wants Black Market to provide affordable, take-home suppers for busy Fan dwellers. Much of that space is kitchen; the rest, retail shelves holding craft beer, unique wines and Hall’s own brand of barbecue sauce — a tangy, sweet and spicy bottling. And, yes, the man lost 100 pounds while cooking the last year, so you can bet you’ll be able to sample healthful choices at Black Market Barbecue, too.
There’ll be heart-stopping mac 'n' cheese and the expected Southern favorites such as collard greens and cabbage. Additionally, Hall will offer whole or half smoked rotisserie chickens with barbecued vegetables. Lots of vegetables. He swears his barbecued Brussels sprouts doused in an original creation — sweet potato chipotle barbecue sauce — alongside lean proteins, helped him banish those pounds last year. All-day pricing will hover at $13 a plate (or less for sandwiches), and there will be family meals running about $25 for a whole chicken and sides to feed a family of four.
An interesting twist to the setup: a custom-built file cabinet doubling as a smoker, with wood chips in the bottom drawer. In the spirit of a true black-market purchase, customers will order at the counter and watch as their meal is pulled from a secret spot — the middle or top drawers of the file cabinet/smoker — before it’s bundled to go.
Hall’s path to pork began with boyhood visits to his uncle’s smoke shack, D&D Barbecue, where the McDonald's in Shockoe Bottom now stands. Hall insists he’s never been able to best his uncle’s sauce, nor learn its full composition, so he developed his own instead: the same sweet potato chipotle barbecue sauce that took first place at 2015's SAVOR charity ball, an event which benefits The Doorways. Hall then spent two years tweaking his pork and veggie paint for commercial production at Virginia Heritage Food in Ashland. If you can't wait for Black Market Barbecue to open, you can pick up a jar of Hall’s winning spread — and some cruciferous veggies to drizzle it on — at Farm Fresh, located at 25th and Main Streets, come March.
Black Market Barbecue is set to open at 105 N. Robinson St. in late April or early May, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
