Gorilla BBQ
OK, so this isn’t jewelry related, but it’s inspiring…
I recently saw an episode of Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-ins & Dives (I love the Food Network and secretly wish I could be a cake decorator) that featured Gorilla BBQ in Pacifica, CA (a small beach town just south of San Francisco). W-e-l-l, it turns out I was invited to an event in Pacifica today and decided that on my way back to SF I had to stop by Gorilla and check it out.
Gorilla BBQ was opened by two native Pacifica guys in 2006 and it’s a free-standing, sort of orange-y-red railroad car right off of the Coast Highway. There’s nowhere to sit inside– everything is to go, although there are a few picnic tables up the hill. I heard one of the co-owners say they smoke 600 pounds a day and since the episode on the Food Network there have been lines of people waiting for them to open and pretty much until they close. They used to be open until 8:00pm and now they’ve marked out their open hours to say they’re open until they sell out. Today they sold out around 3:30 (they open at noon!). I stood in line for over an hour and once I got to the counter, all they had left was the pulled pork (see their menu here). I’m so glad there was something left so that hour wasn’t wasted — there were quite a few people still in line when I left, I hope there was still some BBQ left for them.
There was a lot of chit-chat while waiting in line and some local guys behind me were saying that it’s amazing how different things are now that Gorilla was featured on the Food Network — which reminded me of the whole “Oprah effect”. While we all love our little local favorites and don’t always want to share them with the oustide world, it’s really great to see them succeed. Both of the owners were in the train car working away and I was really happy for them — doing what they love and doing fantastic! I’m definitely going to go back and try the ribs — probably on a weekday.
