Lakewood’s Proper Pig gets you your ’cue quickly

Good value for Texas-style smoked meats, but be wary of dryness

You’ve probably at least heard of The Proper Pig.

The Northeast Ohio barbecue operation began as a food truck bringing their take on Texas-style barbecue, characterized by meat that is seasoned and smoked for hours, to various events at Northeast Ohio.

I’m relatively certain I ate one of their sandwiches — I believe The Proper Slopper — during a visit to the Cleveland Flea a summer or two ago.

The business also was featured briefly on CNBC’s “Cleveland Hustles,” a competition show where entrepreneurs competed for investment backing to help open up a store in Cleveland’s Gordon Square district on the West Side.

Long story short, owners Ted Dupaski and Shane Vidovic went in another direction — slightly further west — and opened a brick-andmortar spot in Lakewood, at Detroit and Bonnieview avenues, almost exactly one year ago.

Vidovic and Dupaski also are fast approaching the opening of a second location, in Mentor at 9582 Diamond Centre Drive. It’s slated to start smoking in mid-May and, unlike the Lakewood store, will be open seven days a week for lunch and dinner.

I’d had it in my mind to visit the Lakewood spot at some point when I was watching my carbohydrate intake, and that was the case on a recent Saturday when I met a friend for a late lunch.

When I entered the eatery, my buddy Dave was waiting for me on a stool at one end of a long, narrow table running through much of the restaurant. While that table clearly is meant to be shared by groups of diners, The Proper Pig has a few other tables allowing for a slightly more private experience, but not mainly, as the place is not large.

And while quite simple and unassuming, the decor is appealing. Strings of lights and a couple of fans hang from the ceiling, and the floor is made of an attractive wood, as is one of the walls. On one wall is a flat-screen TV, while on the opposite wall, apparently painted on the wood, is an American flag, giving the familiar patriotic symbol a cool weathered look. Other touches include a few wooden barrels made into small tables and the almostobligatory leg lamp in one of the front windows.

Look, The Proper Pig isn’t a place you go to soak up the atmosphere; you’re there to get your grub on in an efficient manner, and on this count the place certainly succeeds.

You order from a counter after taking in the menu choices from the large chalkboard above and behind it and then the food is sliced and served.

The Proper Pig offers meats by the pound — Pulled Pork ($8), Smoked Turkey Breast ($9) and Beef Brisket ($10), as well as Texas Hot Link Sausage ($4 per link) and, of course, Ribs ($13 half slab/$21 full slab). Sandwiches with the pork, brisket or turkey are available for almost exactly the same prices as the halfpound orders.

More exciting — and meatier than those sandwiches — are two Texas Sized Sandwiches: The Lake Erie Crusher ($11), the hot sausage topped with pulled pork, BBQ sauce and coleslaw; and the aforementioned Proper Slopper ($12), which brings together brisket, pulled pork, sauces, maple bacon BBQ sauce and coleslaw.

What? No room for turkey in that bad boy?

Wanting to avoid bread and other carbs, I went with the biggest of The Proper Pig’s combo platters, all of which are served with a couple of slices of white bread, pickle slices and onion. For a pretty reasonable $22, you get your choice of four meats and three sides. (Smaller and cheaper choices: two meats and one side for $12 or three meats and two sides for $16.) While you’re free to double or triple up on one type of meat, I was there to sample, so I opted for brisket, turkey, pulled pork and sausage. Lastly, you can add on a few ribs for $6, so that’s what I did.

Honestly I didn’t care about sides — and certainly didn’t need three. Wanting to taste the CLE Potato Salad, I got one order of that and two of the Smokehouse Beans, which seemed the most diet-friendly but probably weren’t. Other choices are coleslaw and chips.

I nudged Dave toward a sandwich so we had some variety, and he ordered the Slopper.

Not long at all after ordering from the very friendly employees and paying for our food, I was presented with a huge paper-covered cookie sheet on which my feast sat, all the components nicely given their own little space.

So here is my major complaint from this lunch: All of the meat was a just little dry for my liking. It wasn’t by any means bad or unservable — truly — but it felt like we might have been better off dining at noon than at 1:30 or so. Or maybe it’s just an unavoidable byproduct of all the hours in the smoker — 12 to 16 for the pork and brisket, five to six for the turkey and ribs — but I would have preferred everything just a bit more moist and tender.

Dave had the same thought about the meat populating his mighty sandwich.

Again, this hardly stopped us from enjoying — and pretty much devouring the food. The flavor of the meats was very solid, no doubt helped by the hourslong smoking process.

While perhaps not my favorite of the meats, the turkey seemed like the most unusual offering, so I enjoyed it quite a bit. As with all the other meats aside from the sausage, however, I needed a good bit of the BBQ sauce sitting on the table to enjoy it, because of the dryness.

And here’s my smaller complaint: I really like a choice of sauces when I hit a barbecue joint. This sweet tomato-based sauce, held in these attractive glass bottles, was good but, like the food on the whole, not mind-blowing.

To be fair, as Dupaski pointed out in a follow-up phone call, the sauce isn’t the star of Texas barbecue.

“We recommend eating it without the sauce, but we do have that here if you want to add some.”

I also want to mention the flavor of the hot sausage was outstanding. I love spicy food, but I didn’t expect it to be one of my favorite parts of the meal at a place also specializing in brisket and pulled pork.

Oh, and the sides? Eh. The potato salad had a mildly interesting flavor but a texture for which I didn’t care, while the beans, were, well what you’d expect beans at a BBQ place to be.

I enjoyed The Proper Pig and certainly will visit the Mentor location at some point in the near future. While my lunch there wasn’t, for me, barbecue nirvana, Vidovic and Dupaski are clearly doing something right being able to go from a food truck to two restaurants in a few short years.

Reviews are based on one anonymous visit to a restaurant.