The food takes a back seat to the atmosphere at North Main and Hard Eight

A pitmaster tends the smoker at Hard Eight BBQ in Coppell. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse)

North Main BBQ has lots of fans. We know that. Ever since the very first Posse tour five years ago, readers have told us that we need to get to the Euless joint, which is only open Friday through Sunday.

Tardy but determined, we finally made it during our Mid-Cities mini-tour.

North Main was our second stop, sandwiched between Eddie Deen Crossroads Smokehouse in Arlington and Hard Eight BBQ in Coppell. It was nice, relaxed tour, covering 60 miles in 3 1/2 hours.

After we ordered at North Main and as we were sitting down, a server who discovered we were the BBQ Posse came over and chewed us out.

"We've been open 33 years and you're just now getting here?" he said.

We pleaded guilty. He went and got owners Ray and Hubert Green, son and father, and we had a nice talk while we waited for our food.

In the beginning, the Greens' main business was trucking. You can see the sign -- Green's Trucking -- on the building behind the barbecue joint. Cooking barbecue started as a way for all the subcontractors they worked with to get together and review the week's progress.

"Redneck networking," Ray said.

The sign at North Main BBQ in Euless say it all. (Photo ©Daniel Goncalves/Fotobia.com)

As word got out, people started showing up to buy barbecue, ribs, onions and sauces at first. And the Greens started selling. Open initially only from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Fridays, they would sell a couple of hundred pounds of ribs a week.

"You had to call in an order by Wednesday to get it Friday," Hubert said.

Eventually, they expanded into the current building and opened a real joint.

Now boasting "The Best Barbecue Anywhere" and with some "World International" rib championship banners to support the claim, the place cooks about 4,500 pounds of meat a week, Ray said.

That's 1,800 pounds of brisket, 1,800 pounds of ribs, 400 pounds of chicken, 300 pounds of sausage and 200 pounds of pork butts.

"In Texas, barbecue is a food group," he said.

Along with the main production smokers, which are gas-fired with hickory wood added for flavor, the joint also has one of the most unusual rigs we've ever seen: an anatomically correct armadillo. Put wood in the mouth and smoke comes out the tail.

BBQ competition trophies line the wall at Main Street. (Photo ©Daniel Goncalves/Fotobia.com) 

What about the food?

We ordered brisket, ribs, chicken breast, sausage and pulled pork.

"I don't think there were any parts of those meats better than the first place," Posse member Jim Rossman said, comparing North Main and Crossroads Smokehouse.

Other Posse members agreed, with one reservation.

The rib I ate was cooked perfectly. The meat needed only a slight tug to get off the bone. But it could have used more smoke flavor and more kick in the rub.

Ribs & brisket at Main Street BBQ. (Photo ©Daniel Goncalves)

Our next stop was Hard Eight, which finished second to Hutchins BBQ in McKinney in the recent readers poll by The Dallas Morning News. Hard Eight is a huge place, like Kreuz Market in Lockhart.

Some of us had been to the Hard Eight in Stephenville, Jewel's favorite bbq joint. But we had not been to the Coppell location.

The setups are similar. The pits are located at the entrance. This allows barbecue to become performance art. As diners get ready to order, they can watch workers shovel hot coals from the burning station into the cooking pits.

For briskets, Hard Eight seals the meat at high temperature on direct heat, then wraps in foil and finishes at much lower heat. Total cooking time can be about 12 hours, a pit tender in a cowboy hat said.

We ordered brisket, ribs, sausage and a specialty item: bacon-wrapped chicken with jalapeño.

Meats on display at Hard Eight BBQ. (Photo by Michael Meadows)

"This sausage is not bad," said Michael Meadows, president of the Dallas Zoological Society, on his first tour with the Posse.

After a few moments, Meadows modified his stance.

"I would move that to outstanding," he said. "I like the jalapeño kick. That's probably why I'm not a big fan of the sausage at Pecan Lodge."

He thinks the sausage at Pecan Lodge, considered by many to be the best joint in North Texas, is a little tame.

Overall, the Posse didn't give the food at Hard Eight high marks.

"The beans are the best thing here," said Georges Badoux, an accomplished chef and custom tour guide making his first trip with the Posse.

Georges got no argument from Posse regulars.

North Main BBQ, 406 N Main St, Euless, 817-267-7821. Open Fri-Sat 11am-9pm, Sun 11am-4pm.

Hard Eight BBQ, 688 Freeport Pkwy, Coppell, 972-471-5462. Open Mon-Thurs 10:30am-9pm, Fri-Sat 10:30am-10pm, Sun 10:30am-6pm.

Watching over the pit room at Hard Eight. (Photo ©Daniel Goncalves/Fotobia.com)

Diners on a Saturday afternoon at Hard Eight BBQ in Coppell. (Photo ©Daniel Goncalves/Fotobia.com)

Hard Eight also has a huge outdoor seating area for barbecue diners. (Photo ©Daniel Goncalves/Fotobia.com)

Arlington's Crossroads Smokehouse stands out during the Posse's Mid-Cities mini-tour

Brisket is sliced at Eddie Deen Crossroads Smokehouse in Arlington.  (Photo ©Daniel Goncalves/Fotobia.com) 

It has been a few months since the Posse went on a barbecue tour. So, it was nice to get back on the trail again this past weekend, if only briefly.

We ate at three joints during a 60-mile, 3 1/2-hour mini-tour through the Mid-Cities between Dallas and Fort Worth.

Over the course of the tour, a couple of Posse members made cameo appearances, but our main group numbered 8, including some newcomers: Michael Meadows, president of the Dallas Zoological Society; Mark Vamos, who holds an endowed chair in business journalism at SMU; and Georges Badoux, an accomplished chef and custom tour guide.

The itinerary for our mini-tour, developed by Jim Rossman, included Eddie Deen Crossroads Smokehouse in Arlington, North Main BBQ in Euless and Hard Eight BBQ in Coppell.

Hard Eight, a chain of three joints, finished a close runner-up to Hutchins BBQ in The Dallas Morning News' recent barbecue poll of reader favorites.

Surprisingly, Crossroads was the standout on the day of our tour. The chicken breast, brisket and sausage were good, the ribs flavorful if a bit mushy, and the homemade bread terrific.

"That bread's great," Meadows said. "Can you imagine making a barbecue sandwich out of it?"

"I just did," Posse member David Woo said.

On tours, the Posse usually avoids side dishes and only eats meat.

"This is big," co-founder Chris Wilkins said. "This place has bread so good the Posse has to eat it."

One reservation. Tour goers agreed that the barbecue at Crossroads and the other places we visited would have benefited from more smoke flavor and spice rubs with more pizzazz.

Crossroads is a big joint located in a strip center across the street from AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. When we stopped Saturday, workers hadn't yet finished installing the letters of the sponsor's name on the near side of the stadium roof. The sign read:

 "A  T  T     T A D I U  "

General Manager Dawn Brooks said Crossroads had been closed for a while, re-opened less than a year ago and now plans to launch night time service -- until 8 p.m.  -- at the end of March.

Our sampler platters of fatty brisket, ribs, chicken and sausage.  (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse)

She said the place has hosted as many as 3,000 for a tailgate party. There is an outdoor area with tables and a small bandstand behind the restaurant.

Eddie Deen, of course, is the caterer who runs Eddie Deen's Ranch near the Dallas Convention Center. The main staging area for the catering business is in Terrell.

Brooks said the brisket, ribs and chicken we ate were cooked in Terrell and driven to Arlington, an hour away. The sausage was cooked at the Arlington location.

Deen uses Oyler wood-fired pits and Southern Pride smokers, Brooks said, both common brands for large volume operations. Southern Pride's commercial smokers are mainly fired by gas, with some wood used for smoke flavor on their ribs and chicken. Briskets are cooked with all wood on the Oylers.

Meadows, who likes sausage with a little kick, said Crossroads' sausage had "a nice finish." Vamos, the SMU professor, called it "zippy."

Long time readers know everything is usually fair game on this blog. If, for instance, a Posse member confided that his first trip to Louie Mueller's in Taylor was much like his first trip to Wrigley Field when he was overcome by emotion and cried, it just might be published.

But with Vamos, who also reportedly cooks good barbecue, we have some restrictions. Since he does restaurant reviews for The News, we can name him and quote him, but we can't show him in a recognizable photo.

Food critics cherish their anonymity.

For the Posse, anonymity is almost impossible. We show up with so many people, cameras blazing, that it's hard to avoid attention.

Soon after we ordered and found a table at our next stop, North Main, a server came over and let us have it:

"We've been open 33 years and you're just now getting here?" he said.

Technically, it was a question, but it really was an accusation.

Guilty as charged, we said. Show us what you got.

We'll write more about North Main in a future post.

Eddie Deen Crossroads Smokehouse, 1004 N Collins St, Arlington, 817-795-6900. Open Mon-Sat 11am-3pm or until the meat runs out. (Note: Crossroads will be adding evening hours beginning April 15, 2014)

Dining room and counter at Eddie Deen Crossroads Smokehouse. (Photo by Michael Meadows)

An unusual smoker and some BBQ bling at North Main in Euless

North Main BBQ owner Ray Green and his infamous armadillo smoker. (Photo ©Daniel Goncalves/Fotobia.com)

Over the years, the Posse has run into some unusual smokers on the barbecue trail, such as Big Baby, used by pitmaster Jeremiah "Baby J" McKenzie.

Saturday we saw another: A 2,200-pound armadillo at North Main BBQ in Euless.

Logs go in the mouth and smoke comes out the tail. This smoker is anatomically correct, right down to its brass balls, says owner Ray Green.

"We made him for the Texas Sesquicentennial so he's in his 28th year," Green said. March 2, Texas Independence Day, is its "unofficial" birthday.

Green said he has hauled the smoker to special events around the country and it always attracts attention.

"We were going through Los Angeles on I-10 by the Staples Center and nobody would pass us until they took a picture," he said. "We were a rolling roadblock."

In a quick, 60-mile tour Saturday, The Posse ate at North Main, Eddie Deen Crossroads Smokehouse in Arlington and Hard Eight BBQ in Coppell. We'll write about the food in later posts.

If you go to North Main, be sure to ask Ray to show you the chain -- made of many miniature gold pigs with diamonds for eyes -- he wears around his neck.

"This is my 401(k)," Green joked.

"Barbecue bling."

North Main BBQ, 406 N Main St, Euless, 817-267-7821. Open Fri-Sat 11am-9pm, Sun 11am-4pm.

Ray Green shows his barbecue bling. (Photo ©Daniel Goncalves/Fotobia.com)