On a sunny but, chilly February afternoon, stomach growling for some comfort food I decided to head down to Gastown and try the newly opened Carolina BBQ restaurant, Peckinpah.
This small restaurant is located on the corner of Water street next to ol' Gassy Jack. Upon entering Peckinpah, the rustic decor creates a real feeling of comfort. Heavily wooded furniture and bar with exposed brick walls.
The menu is small as most BBQ restaurant menus are. I already had an idea of what I was there for: some ribs. There were some tempting options like pulled pork sandwich, beef brisket sandwich, corndog and Armadillo eggs (Pulled pork and beef stuffed jalapeno pepper with charred tomato gravy). I decide to stick with my gut and order the beef short ribs. I mean once there's ribs on the brain, there's no turning back. They offer a full and a half order and I go with the half. This item is served with cornbread and a choice of two other fixin's such as creamed corn, fries, beans, coleslaw and southern greens. I chose beans and fries. I noticed when I walked in that the Coke-a-cola was served in a glass bottle so I couldn't resist.
The wait time for the food wasn't too long, about 15 minutes and my meal was served. My eyes lit up seeing the basket filled with BBQ'd goodness. The fries were hand cut and seasoned well along with a small bowl of pork and beans and two pieces of corn bread and of course a good sized beef short rib with a drizzle of BBQ sauce on top. I knew once I saw it that the half order would be more than enough.
On the table is a jar of extra BBQ sauce, and a vinegar based sauce with chilli's for those who like a bit more sauce on there meat. I attack my rib first and the meat is so tender it comes apart so easily. The meat is well seasoned and frankly doesn't need much extra BBQ sauce but, their sauce is also so good I had to put a bit more on. The beans I felt were a little bland but a couple dashes of salt and they would have been great. I also thought the cornbread lacked a little flavour on it's own. Pair it up with bites of the beef and you've got yourself a bite sized piece of heaven.
The whole experience at Peckinpah was great. Friendly service, great people watching and fantastic BBQ. The main dishes such as the beef short rib, buffalo short ribs, pork ribs and beef brisket is a little above average price ranging from $14.50-$16.50 for a half order to $17.50-$27.50 for a full order. But there are sandwiches that are on the better side of average pricing at $9.50 or you could try a homemade corndog at only $6 which is served with your choice of mustard, Dijon mustard or honey mustard.
There is also a take out window that is open until 2am for the late night bar crowd or if you just want your dinner to go.
You can follow Peckinpah on for BBQ updates at
Twitter or become a fan on their page at
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location
At a church, through a gym, down some stairs and behind a pre-school is a unique little piece of Vancouver history that not many people know about. A skinny two lane bowling alley from the late 40’s. 
The whole operation is manual and I'm guessing someone would just sit on the perch and had the task of setting up the pins all night.
Here is a shot of one of the score tables that has local adverts on it. It's hard to tell but, the phone number was only 5 numbers long. Oh, the good old days when you didn't have to dial so many numbers.
