TLO Restaurant Review: Railhead Bar-B-Q

9:10 AM EST on January 5, 2021

It was after a few pure examples of absolute human error when we finally made it to the mixed-materials building that solidly holds, now and forever, Railhead Bar-B-Q, 13978 S. Douglas Blvd., somewhere in the aged backwoods of, according to the place’s printed materials, Guthrie.

With the sun setting in the sky in that alarmingly fast winter way, we entered through the heavy metal doors and found a seat somewhere deep in the corner. Completely soulless most of the time we were there, as we put in our order, the television jukebox—big deep TVs for big deep men, I guess—played an auditory circle of 90s country tunes.

After telling my significant other most of my non-heroic stories involving Miller Lite neon signs—maybe I’ll tell you some of them someday—the somewhat blonde waitress brought us out, very piecemeal, our selected dinners: the Combo Dinner ($15.99) and, even more significant, the 8 Piece Fried Chicken ($16.99), which we were told was “even better than Eischen’s.”

Them sounds like fightin’ words to me…if anyone really cared to fight over it, that is.

As we dug into the Combo Dinner—our selected meats being ribs and pulled pork, of course—the meat was full of varying degrees of goodness. While the strands of pulled pork were simply alright despite their Sahara dryness, the hearty ribs were an overflow of meat-based goodness, especially when dipped into Railhead’s variety of homemade sauces, with a squirt of the hottest blend working these tastebuds overtime.

With the requisite barbeque out of the way—and with the small cup of potato salad that was originally missing from the plate—we were finally biting down into the meat I was truly lusting after, the Fried Chicken. Sans feet, neck and beak, of course, Railhead gives the lucky few a large taste by cooking up the whole bird for those that order it.

And, I’ve gotta agree, it really is better than Eischen’s…not that anyone really cares to fight over it.

As we went down on most of that mother clucker—only a pair of crispy breasts left, son—our hands became covered in the thick grease of a thousand chicken pits. As I went to the unisex washroom to wash a good lot of it off, I stared at myself in the mirror, wondering where I went wrong; I noticed a slight piece of chicken that had dribbled down the front of my shirt.

Railhead is the rare barbeque place that happens to make fried chicken the best, I surmised as I took the piece and quietly ate it. Walking back out to the table, a slice of Mama Sue’s blackberry cobbler ($3.99) was waiting for me. And as good as it was, after only a few helpings from the plastic spoon, I had to have another bite of that leftover fried chicken. I just couldn't get enough. Cómpralo ya!