Beefing Up Eats in Oglethorpe County

If you ask a resident of Crawford, Georgia, how many red lights his city has, he'll tell you, "Just one."

If you ask a resident of Oglethorpe County in Georgia how many red lights her county has, her answer will be the same. Hint: It's the same light.

For the longest time, that red light had an old car dealership on one side. I drove past it every time I went from Athens to Evans and vice versa when I was in college. It had some antique cars in the showroom and new wheels outside. The dealership closed a couple years back and the beautiful white building sat vacant. Crawford is a rural area — all of Oglethorpe County is, honestly; there's a reason why it only has one stoplight and that's because there's a lot more farmland than anything else — so part of me wasn't overly surprised to see a big, shiny place like that close shop in a tiny city. But I did wonder what would go there next.

I'm never a fan of progress for progress' sake. Small-town Georgia shouldn't be overrun with commercial businesses and fast food franchises [y'all don't even get me started on That One Giant Clothing Store That Opened In Downtown Athens ...], in my humble opinion. But at the same time, that was a gorgeous, historic building. It had potential. And I'm not talking about the "big developer from big city wants to tear it down and build high-rise apartments" potential. I'm talking this place could be anything and draw people to Crawford, people who may learn to appreciate the charms of this little place as more than just the only place in Oglethorpe County with a stoplight.

A former Ford dealership gets new life as Crawford,
Georgia's latest restaurant.

One day a few months back, I scrolled through Facebook and stopped at a picture of a familiar building. That old dealership was getting a makeover as a barbecue place! And even better, it was going to be owned by some of my favorite beef friends in the state, the Gretsch family. Yes, it's the same family that owns the guitar company.

The first day I saw the "coming soon" sign up on the building, I was so excited that I accidentally forgot that I was at a stoplight and I drove right through it. Sorry Oglethorpe PD; that's my bad.

G Brand BBQ (the name coming from the "G" brand the Gretsch family uses to market its Angus beef cattle, under the moniker Gretsch Brothers Angus) opened to the public last week, and y'all know I was there opening day!

I rolled up after work and was a little concerned I wouldn't be able to find a parking spot. Let me tell you, the place used to be a car dealership, but it barely had space for the amount of BBQ fans coming out to eat and to support this new venture for the Gretsches! The building itself is spacious, with plenty of seating on the right-hand side and a large waiting room area and to-go counter on the left. There's nothing fancy. It's Southern, it's homey, there's some pig decorations; it's exactly what I want a barbecue place to be like.

The menu is straightforward: you choose your meat(s) and your side(s). Plates come with two sides, or you can snag favorites a la carte. Meat choices include chicken, St. Louis ribs, babyback ribs, pulled pork and brisket. Sides are stew, beans, coleslaw and applesauce. I got JE a half-pound of pulled pork, which comes with bread in case you want to make a sandwich, and for myself ... I couldn't help but get the brisket sandwich plate.

Pause for reflection ... I met the Gretsch family in about 2012 or '13, not long after I started working as the communications director for Georgia Cattlemen's Association. Now, when you work for Georgia Cattlemen's Association, or you're a GCA member, or you know a GCA member or maybe you just show up for a random membership meeting, you don't eat fish. You sure as heck don't eat chicken. You can maybe get away with pork. But you are 99.999 percent more likely to be eating a hamburger, a steak or brisket for whatever meal is provided. We ate A LOT of beef brisket. So it seemed completely appropriate to indulge in some nostalgia on opening day of G Brand BBQ.

Brisket is the cut of meat that comes from the chest area of a beef animal. Think of it as the beef version of the chicken breast. Because that's a pretty heavily muscled cut of meat, it's best done rubbed down or marinated, then slow-cooked or smoked to get it nice and tender. Then you can chip it or slice it. My sandwich was chipped brisket (a little messy; don't be me and wear a white shirt, as you will regret that life choice) and I could've eaten two, I was so hungry. The meat had that iron-rich flavor of beef and was a little dry, but it had such good taste that was fine by me.

The stew was a tad sweet, thanks to the corn inclusion. I loved its consistency — very even, not overly chunky, but not runny, either. (Wow, that was a lot of commas in that sentence.) It got eaten straight with a spoon, but I bet if there was an option to serve it over rice that would be incredible. Since I'm into spicy food lately a touch of heat wouldn't have been a bad addition.

And the slaw! There are only two places I will now willingly eat slaw, and this made the list. It's crunchy, a little sweet and tastes good on top of a brisket sandwich or mixed with the stew or by itself. I love that it had mayonnaise as the binder, but it wasn't watered down and gross like a lot of Southern slaws tend to be in my mind.

A brisket sandwich, stew and slaw from G Brand BBQ.

Now, I didn't get dessert ... but G Brand also has dessert options, including banana pudding, peach cobbler, cakes and brownies. Some are provided by a local bakeshop called The Crafty Spirit, and I believe the 'nanner puddin' and cobbler are in-house. By the time I got there, it looked like there were only a couple slices of cake left, so that's going to be a return trip treat for sure! And maybe I'll grab some peach cobbler while I'm at it (y'all know how I feel about bananas ...) for, you know, taste-test purposes.

I'm going to be hard-pressed not to stop in on every single dad-burned trip to and from Evans. It's hard for me to say "no" to BBQ, especially when there's so much more on the menu left to try! Like, I am pretty sure the ribs were gone within hours, so they were long-gone by the time I was able to slip out that far down 78. In fact, they were sold out of everything on opening day before 8 p.m!

Between the food and the family who owns it, I think G Brand will be a destination joint for Athens townies, Georgia fans on their way into town and residents of Oglethorpe and Oconee. You should find time to stop in, too. I'm a firm believer in supporting our farmers and entrepreneurs. Patronizing these locally owned, family-run, one-of-a-kind businesses is what keeps them around. And as much as I love me some McDonald's French fries ... there's a whole lot more charm to your meal when you can take a left just after a county's only stoplight and know your brisket sandwich purchase helps keep a family farm afloat to feed the rest of your country.

This Mouth is On Fire

Woo, lawdy — it's not just my mouth, but my tongue and of all things, my ears burn after eating Kelly's. Trust me on this, y'all. That burn that makes you feel like Dracarys just breathed fire straight into your face is so worth the food.

Kelly's Authentic Jamaican Foods, also affectionately called Kelly's Jerk or simply Kelly's, is a true Five Points Athens gem. The last time I ate here was approximately 2010, and at the time I rarely ate anything spicier than mild salsa at Mexican restaurants. I couldn't tell you what I ate, but I distinctly remember sitting in the restaurant area with my coworkers, my eyes watering from the peppery, sweet and hot meat and sides. I couldn't stop eating even though my 21-year-old self could barely handle the heat. Everything was just so flavorful and delicious.

Eight years later, and with a slightly better food vocabulary than "flavorful and delicious," I'm happy to report that Kelly's is still serving up intensely seasoned dry-rubbed meats and complementary sides. Over the intervening time period, I was introduced to and learned to appreciate a variety of different styles of spicy flavors (Sriracha, spicy Latinx and Hispanic foods, sweet-spicy Thai, savory and sweet Indian ...), so my palate welcomed jerk with open tastebuds.

Two jerk pork plates from Kelly's Authentic Jamaican
Foods in Athens, Georgia. Side selections were spicy
squash, rice & beans, mac 'n' cheese and green beans. 

My boyfriend and I ordered a couple of to-go jerk pork plates, which each come with two sides. Though I did not get a chance to ask Mr. Kelly about his recipe secrets, jerk seasoning is typically a spice blend of herbs and ingredients like cumin, allspice, cinnamon (the top three I detect the most prominently in the pork and spicy squash), hot peppers, black pepper and salt. Not that I am anywhere near expert at Jamaican foods, but I feel like jerk seasoning is one of those things that gets guarded as a restaurant or family secret not unlike the recipe for Coca-Cola syrup: there will often be imitators, but there will never be duplicators. Everyone's seasoning has the same basic ingredients, then you swap a few out to suit your tastebuds, then you play with proportions to get the sweet vs. spicy vs. savory ratio that's ideal for your dishes.

When I walked into Kelly's this weekend, I will be completely honest in that I must've looked like a complete idiot — I stared at the beer and soda cooler behind the order counter looking for a menu board until the sweet woman working the register took pity on me and pointed to my left, where a white board spelled out the day's options. I already had my heart set on the jerk pork my boyfriend mentioned (if you've followed Meatetarian Eats for any amount of time, you know I have a special place in my heart for pork dishes). For our four sides, two per plate, I was feeling the spicy squash, mac 'n' cheese, green beans and rice and beans.

Each of these was served in generous portion in Styrofoam to-go containers, with a little extra pork gravy poured over the rice. And you can't leave Kelly's without cornbread. Few know this, but doing so is committing the eighth deadly sin. That's because Kelly's cornbread is more like a sweet honey cake with the consistency of cornbread than it is a Southern-style dry and buttery cornbread. I highly advise you to get a big square of it, put it on your plate and let it sop up the grease and gravy from your meat.

Holy smokes. I don't know if you've ever eaten spicy honey before, but that is what this tastes like. It's tantalizingly sweet and then slowly at first, but then faster, the heat comes on and you're left trying to figure out what peppers got put in your cake. Or well, maybe you're not, but I am.

As for the sides, the spicy squash had more of a sweet heat to it, and the rice and beans had more prominent peppery notes (granted, that may have been from the additional gravy poured over it). The mac 'n' cheese was gooey and savory, and tasted as though perhaps some cumin was added to it. I don't know how y'all feel about mac 'n' cheese, but my absolute pet peeve on this side is when it's served up as noodles doused in cheese so melted that it's more like eating cheesy noodle soup. This had more consistency of a baked mac, and I greatly appreciated that! Another weird Meatetarian quirk is how I am about green beans. I abhor the fancy long beans, wax beans, Italian green beans, etc. Basically, I like my green beans out of a can. I don't think Kelly's green beans came from a can (if they did, I am totes OK with it), but they had the perfect size, moistness and brininess as canned green beans. The flavor was subdued compared to the other sides, but with so much spice on your plate, I think it was a good idea to get something a little more mellow to round the meal out.

I don't think it's entirely far-fetched to wonder if there's some addictive additive inside Kelly's jerk seasoning. Considering how on fire my entire body is at this point (sunburned arm included), it's the only logical explanation for me wanting to drive back over for more.