Dinosaur Bar-B-Que Gets All Jurassic Park Up in This Piece

Jeff Goldblum is welcome at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. The T-Rex is NOT.

YEEZUS CHRIST, PARK SLOPE. One word: T-Rex...& if I may, please allow me to use a poorly-though-out dinosaur metaphor to tell you...

Early Tuesday night, after an exciting day of drone work, I made my way back to Brooklyn & more specifically, Union St. to fill my face with BBQ & beer. The reason: The Dinosaur Bar-B-Que Premiere Party. That's right, jerks. For one night, I was part of some exclusive club who got to experience the seventh Dinosaur BBQ locale a full twenty-three hours before it opened to the general public on Wednesday.

The opening's been a long time coming. I initially sat down with founder John Stage way back in February of last year, when he first announced plans to bring the then-New Yorkcentric mini chain to a former industrial space near the Park Slope border. He was shooting for an opening some time around the beginning of 2013 but got a bit delayed, dealing with some Sandy damage to the roof & passing the time by opening up Dinosaurs in Newark & Stamford. Then last week, rumors started circulating that he'll be following up an upcoming Buffalo branch with one in Philly. So yeah...expansion. It probably helps that George Soros' investment firm is the majority owner.

...& it helps that Dino has a good thing going. John’s a motorcycle dude who, when I saw him on Tuesday, remembered me after sixteen months as "Shawn…from Fucked Up in Park Slope." Close enough. The staff is pretty much folks from the Harlem locale to start, so they know what they're doing.

The food's just damn good. I won't get into it too much here, as the menu is pretty much the same delicious BBQ fare available at their Harlem locale, which I sampled last year when I talked with John. On top of the regular stuff, Dino Brooklyn gets items like a bunch of Brooklyn beers, a sour cherry "Dino Cola" from Brooklyn Soda Co. & two sandwiches--a souped-up brisket one called "Ode to Domolise" & a fried-green tomato one called the "F.G.T.V." I also sampled their Black-Eyed Peas with Kale for the first time on Tuesday & let me tell you...you fuckers will love that shit.

Also, right about now I wish there was a legit rapper named "Kale," so he could drop a shitty guest verse on a future shitty Black Eyed Peas track.

So how will Dinosaur Bar-B-Que fit into the area? For starters, the second I stepped out of the Union St station, I smelled BBQ smoke wafting down the block. I love that shit but people do like to whine round these parts, so we'll see. The space itself is HUGE. With seating for 180, it's by far the biggest restaurant in the area, especially with the former Fornino space currently sitting idle. I mean, you could fit a zillion Ft Renos inside the place. It just seems vast, with its high, open ceilings, dark wood, exposed brick & crazy signage all over the walls. I'm definitely expecting it to be PACKED on the regs, especially on the weekends. If it isn't, I'll be VERY perplexed. Given the quality of Dino's BBQ, I feel like they kind of deserve to be the neighborhood T-Rex though, and coupled with the space's enormous capacity, I can easily see it becoming a major draw to the just-now-invented nabe of Parkwanus. So yeah...I'm cool with it.

Read way more from Shawn at eatdrinksnack.com and eatdrinktaco.com.