IF YOU GOWhere: Poppy’s Smokehouse, 2102 Taft Highway, Signal Mountain.Phone: 305-1936.Website: www.poppysq.com.Hours: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday.Price range: $2.79 (Poppydogs)-$26.99 (full rack of ribs plate).Directions: Take Signal Mountain Boulevard up Signal Mountain; follow same road (which becomes Ridgeway Avenue, then Taft Highway or U.S. 127) north to address.
Perched along Taft Highway on Signal Mountain, there’s a little place — not quite a shack, more of a cabin. Gravel parking lot. You might pass right by it if you weren’t paying attention. Folks who have lived here a long time say this place was several restaurants before the latest incarnation.
Seems like the perfect place for barbecue.
With the restaurant given the name of Poppy’s Smokehouse, I hoped to be embraced by the sweet tang of hickory smoke. Considered by most to be the signature of barbecue, it’s a telltale sign good things await. Maybe the wind was blowing the wrong way, but there was nary a whiff of smoke. However, reading Poppy’s website after our visit revealed they use wood pellets to slow-cook their barbecue.
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