Wednesday I drove to Carrollton to meet my part-time colleague and media buddy, Teresa “Taco” Gubbins of PegNews, for lunch. We decided to go to Cobb Switch BBQ. Sure we wanted to eat there, but secretly we were hoping to find former DMN dining critic Dotty Griffith behind the steam table. Dotty is part of Cobb Switch’s team of heavy hitters that includes restaurant veterans Phil and Janet Cobb (Mi Piaci, Salve), Janet’s son Blair Black, and Chris Andrews (Holy Smokes). It would have been so delicious to watch Dotty scooping barbecued beans.
Surprisingly, our overall experience wasn’t delicious. A few standouts—the St. Louis style ribs and the sliced brisket were ruby red, smoky, and tender. The pulled pork was a pile of short crispy pieces of pork—not one over an inch long. Teresa noted “the bacony flavor” which was a good thing, but it was tough to chew, much less swallow. The potato casserole topped with cheddar cheese, bacon, and chives was cold and the thinly sliced potatoes were watery. The Frito pie would have been nice if the Fritos hadn’t been stale (old?), which is weird because we watched them open the bag.
Desserts were disastrous—the key lime pie was too sweet (I liked it more than TG) and the banana butterscotch pudding was a bowl of bland soupy custard with no distinctive flavor of banana or butterscotch.
The interior is fine—they didn’t have to do much to the old space as it was vacated by another barbecue joint. Lots of corrugated tin and wood. However, the booth pads could have been updated—mine was ripped in front and scraped the back of my legs. Phil Cobb was there for a few minutes but didn’t recognize us, but I got the feeling Blair Black and Chris Andrews did—the staff of the self-service restaurant kept coming to the table to see if we needed anything.
Cobb Switch is still in their soft opening phase. The “hard, grand opening” is tentatively scheduled for June 6th. Certainly Chris Andrews can pull this together and I’m sure Dotty will get the pork fixed by then. She makes the best I’ve ever tasted.
