Audio By Carbonatix
Keep Westword Free
We’re $3,500 away from our spring campaign goal!
We’re aiming to raise $20,000 by April 26. Your support ensures Westword can continue watching out for you and our community. No paywall. Always accessible. Daily online and weekly in print.
You could hear Jason Sheehan crying back in Philadelphia: The last outpost of Big Papa’s BBQ, the place that inspired his “I Believe” essay on barbecue that became a segment on NPR’s “This I Believe” series, has closed on East Evans Avenue. Back in 2005, in his review of that Big Papa’s location, Sheehan wrote this: “I believe in barbecue. As soul food and comfort food and health food, as a cuisine of both solace and celebration. When I’m feeling good, I want barbecue. And when I’m feeling bad, I just want barbecue more. I believe in barbecue in all its regional derivations, in its ethnic translations, in forms that range from white-tablecloth presentations of cunningly sauced costillas, to Chinese takeout spareribs that stain your fingers red, to the most authentic product of the tar-paper rib shacks in the Deep South.”
See also: Big Papa’s closes its last location, but lives on for true barbecue believers.
Says ScubaSteve:
I fell asleep about a third of the way through reading Jason’s essay. I just woke up. Sorry, Jason. We still love you anyway. I’m always disappointed when a BBQ joint closes, being the BBQ fan that I am.
Fans of barbecue, rise up and be counted: When you want good barbecue in metro Denver, where do you go?
