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Feature article
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12 Bones spicing up downtown Kingsport
By Fred Sauceman
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12 Bones Smokehouse
LOCATION: 242 E. Main St., Kingsport
HOURS: Open 11 a.m- 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday
CONTACT: 423-239-RACK or 12BonesSmokehouse.com |
The 12 refers to the number of bones in a rack of ribs, but some customers at 12 Bones Smokehouse in Kingsport say it’s the answer when they’re asked to rate the food on a one to 10 scale.
Every March I judge a barbecue competition at the Western North Carolina Farmers Market in Asheville. When talk turned to restaurant barbecue at the 2007 event, two of my fellow judges, food writer Rick McDaniel and Kansas City Barbeque Society judge Broadus Brannon, had high praise for Asheville’s 12 Bones Smokehouse. And Broadus clued me in that one would soon open in Kingsport.
Jeff Lane of Kingsport and Doug Beatty of Abingdon bought a license agreement to reproduce the popular Asheville eatery’s offerings in the Model City. They secured the old Franklin Printing building, which dates to 1920 — a structure, Jeff says, that has the oldest sprinkler system in Kingsport, from 1948.
They gutted the place, poured new concrete, and hired artist Gary Bortz to paint signs. One of his creations salutes Ward’s Feed Store. Another touts International Stock Food, with a big pig to back up the claim.
Tom Montgomery and his wife Sabra Kelley created 12 Bones, and their Asheville restaurant’s blueberry-chipotle ribs recently won the “Best Bites Challenge” on ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America.” That same award-winning sauce is featured on ribs at Kingsport’s 12 Bones.
Viewers from 30 states nominated dishes for the challenge, which “Good Morning America” describes as a way to find “quintessential American cuisine from holes in the wall to fine dining.” In the “final four,” the 12 Bones ribs beat out Hot Doug’s hot dogs from Chicago; Aunt Jenny’s fried catfish from Ocean Springs, Mississippi; and buttermilk pie from Yesterday’s Café in Rutledge, Georgia.
Eat at 12 Bones long enough, and you’ll eventually taste some 60 different sauces and seasonings for ribs, from the signature brown sugar to pineapple-habanero. Expect apple chow-chow and Caribbean jerk to show up on the chalkboard soon.
All the meats are smoked on site, in a 500-pound cooker. Pork butts are infused with the smoke of cherry and oak for 13 hours. Chicken, turkey, and beef brisket are always on the menu. Brisket is available both sliced and chopped.
When you hear kitchen staff hollering “hog,” they aren’t in a name-calling fight. That’s kitchen code for the Hogzilla, a sandwich of pulled pork, sausage, bacon, and melted pepper Jack cheese.
12 Bones offers four table sauces: sweet; spicy mustard; a light green jalapeño; and a spicy vinaigrette. Kitchen manager Jerry Gott says the sweet sauce is the most popular in Kingsport. He and Jeff have known each other since they were toddlers. Both are graduates of Sullivan North High School.
As we talk barbecue, Jerry draws a small square in the air with his fingers. “That’s the size of the only freezer we have,” he says. “There may be some white kernel corn in it on occasion. We believe in freshness.”
Often barbecue houses concentrate so heavily on the meat that the side dishes are merely second thoughts. Not so at 12 Bones. This is a barbecue joint even a vegetarian could love. Chef Erich Soll’s side dishes make a color wheel of flavor. There are boldly seasoned collard greens, buttery sweet potatoes, cheesy grits with jalapeño peppers, corn pudding with diced poblanos, and a 19th-century take on slaw.
Two of the sides get a turn in the smoker. Smoked mushrooms are served as a side dish salad, and pans of beans are exposed to an hour of cherry and oak smoke. The “spud of the day” may mean a potato mashed with smoked garlic or blended with pepper Jack cheese.
Doug and Jeff are the prime movers behind Kingsport’s successful Friday night concert series on Broad Street, along with Tom Keller, owner of T.K.’s Big Dogs Too!
“Downtown is transforming wildly,” says Jeff.
Credit blueberry-chipotle sauce for a bit of that wildness.
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Food writer Fred Sauceman, author of the book “The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the Mountain South — from Bright Hope to Frog Level,” is senior writer and executive assistant to the president for public affairs at East Tennessee State University. E-mail him at sauceman@etsu.edu.
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