Good ol’ Texas BBQ
Eddie Baker first learned how to barbecue ribs in a Texas oilfield, “way out in the boondocks” where there were no stores or restaurants and “we would stand in a location and cook our own food.
“One thing led to another and I haven’t stopped doing it since,” said Baker, owner of Eddie’s Drive-in, located at 695 S. Main Street in Smithfield.
Besides a hefty plate of ribs, the drive-in diner also offers salmon, shrimp, chicken, burgers, shakes and fries. The diner, open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., has been a lunch spot for more than 30 years.
“Our specialty is good food,” Baker said. “Barbecue is just one thing that we do. We think that in order to survive in this business we must give something that the public wants and the public wants good food.”
Welders in the oil fields of Kilgore, Texas, are used to being off remote, he said. Most of them had a small barbecue on the back of their welding trucks
“One day I asked one of the welders ‘how much do you want for that”, Baker said. “He said 50 bucks. So I pulled out 50 bucks and he pulled out his cutting torch. He cut that barbecue right off of the truck. I made me a mount in the back of my pickup for that barbecue and I just started barbecuing.”
The aroma of barbecue encircles the traditional booths, tables and chairs and stools that outline the diner as well as photographs of some of Eddie’s littlest customers.
“I would come out when it was really slow and take pictures of the little kids,” Baker said. “They wound up being put out on the wall. Most come back and find their pictures, it is just kind of a novel little thing that wasn’t planned, it just happened to happen.”
Young Bailey Pitcher often comes to Eddies with her grandpa, Lewis, to polish off her favorite shake, Oreo. Almost daily Lewis Pitcher and friends congregate at Eddie’s Drive-in for a cup of coffee and socializing.
“It is just about the only coffee shop that there is here in town,” Pitcher said. “There are a lot of the local guys that meet in here around 4 o’clock.”
Some regular customers even have their own stools.
“I sit there most of the time,” Frank Schaub, of Benson said. “Me and the wife come and have something to eat once in a while.”
This family centered diner has just about something for everybody.
“All of it is good,” Pitcher said. “They got everything ribs, shrimp, chicken, it really is just like I said, they got about everything.”
At this all inclusive diner, dinner prices range from $4.95 to $21.95. Some of the offerings on the menu include:
All you can eat spare ribs, fries and vegetables for $13.95.
Hamburger and fries: $4.95.
Smoked halibut filet and vegetables: $7.95.
Strawberry shake: $1.85.
Half a barbecued chicken, vegetables, baked potato and salad: $ 9.50.
All the food is “pretty much homemade,” said waitress Chelsey Toolson, while brewing up a container of iced tea.
Homemade food has so many variables, Baker said, that you are constantly accumulating knowledge.
“I am still learning because the learning process never ends,” Baker said. “Every fire is different, every day is different and the barometric pressure is different. I still find things that happen that I never expected.”
-amandawouden@cc.usu.edu