Driving toward Jesup I was, as always, searching for just the right place for lunch. Google-ing on the way down for South Georgia barbecue restaurants, I ran across a blog post about the Rusty Pig in Glennville, which looked like it might be a good choice. We could actually re-route and drive through Glennville and only add about fifteen minutes to the overall journey. I pulled the address up on Apple Maps and when we got there, saw nothing there resembling a restaurant. Willing to write it off as another “Maps issue”, I found an entry on Yelp, verified the address and entered it in Google maps. This time it led us to a house with a smoker in the driveway. Seriously? If anyone knows where this place might be, please comment and let me know. With that plan abandoned, we headed on toward Ludowici, looking for food. As we pulled into suburban Jesup, I saw the Dairy Ranch on my left and tapped the brakes. This led to a defining comment in my food blogging life:

“It’s not a question of if I’m going to get food poisoning eating with you, it’s just a matter of when.”

I took that as affirmation of my choice, quickly counted the number of pickups in the parking lot and pulled in. When we walked in, it was obvious that this place had been added onto, possibly multiple times. The dining room, plus the room in the back half of the dining room and the bathroom appeared to have been added onto the original Dairy Ranch, which (looking at the picture on the wall) was a rural version of a Dairy Queen, “back in the day.” The menu was on the wall to our left, right next to the window where you placed your order (which had a large sign that they accepted cash and checks only).

The menu was broad – fried chicken and fish, barbecue and burgers. There were also daily specials on a handwritten paper at the counter, with fried fish, chicken fingers or shrimp, served with grits, cole slaw and fries, plus dessert and a drink for $7.75. I decided on two pieces of chicken (white) and a barbecue sandwich, figuring I wasn’t getting a second bite at this apple. The dear one (pictured above) ordered fried shrimp and fries. When our number was called (which was complicated by the fact that we didn’t actually receive a number), the food arrived.

the chicken was served with sides – which I didn’t gather from the menu (fries, a roll and a weird version of cole slaw which appeared to be chopped lettuce covered in a dollop of mayo. I say “appeared” because there was no way I was trying that).

The chicken itself was nothing special – thinly battered and bordering on dry. It reminded me of bad grocery store chicken. The fries were double fried and ,had they been warm, would have been the highlight of the meal. On to the barbecue

this, also, was served with fries. The pork was pulled and the sauce was mustard based. The pork tasted much more like a pork roast from the crock pot than anything cooked in a smoker, and the sauce was added after it was piled onto the bun.

I guess the lesson to be learned here was:

Just because there are a bunch of cars in front of place at lunch doesn’t mean that it is any good.

The highlight of the stop was this MAGNIFICENT sign that was in their parking lot. It was so awesome that I’ve appropriated it for the header of my blog for the near term. Looking at the two comments on Urbanspoon:

1) maybe we should have tried the ice cream; and

2) I was likely right that the fries should have been the highlight.