Original Roadhouse Grill

9816 Mission Gorge Rd
Santee, CA 92071

Well, to our loyal fan, I want you to know that the Good Bros are not getting soft on our quest to find barbeque. We were on our way to Geno’s but much to our dismay, they decided to close at 8pm. Just our luck, after a hard day’s work we thought that we deserved some good barbeque. So we had to regroup and think fast: A friend said that we should try some ribs at this one place. it wasn’t really known for barbeque but the ribs we worth trying.

The place was Roadhouse Grill - I can think of one thing that was wrong with the name, “grill” that’s not really what we are about. At 8:30pm with not lunch or dinner so far, these are desperate times, and we have to take extreme measures to make sure that we get our nutritional BBQ requirements, so we decided to walk in. The Doors were rocking throughout the place, one of those 15 minute songs hearkening back to an era when musicians could hold a drug-induced trance and still make good music.

“Two for the bar,” the hostess asked. “No, we need a table.” I guess she might be used to the droves of people walking in off of work to have a couple of hours of down time. But we’re the Good Bros. and we mean business. Now if you haven’t been to Roadhouse make sure that you don’t wear your best clothes. As we were told, the place is a sty because of all the peanuts that you can eat and throw on the ground, or at each other. This definitely came in handy as we waited for our St. Louis Ribs and Grilled Shrimp.

Well folks, we gave it a shot. Butlemmetellyawut - the sauce was actually pretty good, a nice tomato-based flavor with some sweet and spicy tones, and a good thick consistency. (Reminiscent of what the Wrangler offered.) One needs as much of this as they can get because the ribs were as dry as a desert and the meat did not have any flavor at all. The chili didn’t seem like they came out of a can but they did have a weird aftertaste. The fresh rolls were warm and sweet, and went well with the even sweeter whipped margarine that they served it with. Yeah, margarine. That’s not the worst of it, the grilled shrimp had a strong pungent gun-powdery smell, like it was shot out of a shotgun to be flash cooked. The dipping sauce wasn’t butter either, it was some kind of lubricant like WD-40.

I guess this all goes with the Americana chain restaurant’s theme. There were classic gas pump replica’s and all kinds of old signage on the wall mixed in with the glowing , neon beer signs. I thought about the poor chaps that sacrificed themselves to make the tables at the joint, what a waste. As we pushed through the doors, Lynard Skynard poured out the speakers and onto the parking out. Our job was done, check this one off the list.

D-