Bean’s BBQ, Edinburg, Virginia

Why doesn’t anyone tell me about these things? I’ve been searching high and low for Virginia places that cook exclusively with wood. I hear about Bean’s BBQ, hurry there, and find out that it’s been around for 13 years. Thirteen lost years! 

Edinburg is an upper Shenandoah Valley town incorporated in 1852. It’s home to a little more than 1,000 souls, a number of historic homes, and a string of businesses along US Route 11, most notably Bean’s BBQ. Bean’s is housed in a building initially used as a print shop. That was over 100 years ago. It later became a garage and still later the town fire station. It’s a large open bay with a counter in the back at which you order and pay, and a wood-fired grill in front, right on 11.

I parked, strolled down, and looked at the menu. I wasn’t very hungry, so I only ordered a pork sandwich. Okay, and a bag of Route 11 potato chips in honor of the location. The sandwich was $6.99, and the chips were $2.00. Here’s the sandwich:

That’s a big sandwich, an incredible sandwich for seven bucks. Let’s look inside.

As you can see, there was a whole lot of meat, and the pork had been pulled and then chopped. The meat was very lean, “clean” in the sense that the gristle and excess fat had been removed. Still, it was very moist and tender, and nice and smoky. This is excellent pork. It doesn’t really need any sauce, but a little improves it. I liked Bean’s Original sauce, a traditional Shenandoah tomato based sauce with a good balance, and their very good mustard sauce.

I spoke for a while with Justin Davis, who was cleaning the grill after cooking. I gave Justin his Campaign for Real Barbecue sticker showing that Bean’s cooks True ‘Cue, barbecue heated only with wood and coals.

Justin told me about the 13 years, and said he’d built a large following from DC and Northern Virginia, and even Pennsylvania. On weekends, half of his traffic is comprised of regulars from those areas, and that raised the level of my respect for the culinary tastes of the region. Bean’s serves good barbecue by any standard. You should go there, you need to go there and try some.

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