Less than a year after renovating Old City’s Philadelphia Fish & Co. into Q BBQ & Tequila, owners Kevin and Janet Meeker are at it again. The restaurant will change its name to Q BBQ Burgers & Tequila and the menu will now offer over a dozen gourmet burgers, hot dogs, and the option to build your own.

Meal Ticket’s Drew Lazor has a closer look at the revamped menu as well as juicy burger photos by Felicia D.

Q BBQ & Tequila’s new burger menu in pictures [Meal Ticket]

Having discovered that the Old City crowd prefers a late night binge of tacos, ribs and burritos over seafood, Philadelphia Fish & Company took just one week to transform from a 26-year-old neighborhood fixture into a Southern influenced BBQ restaurant. Reborn as Q, it’s a place where the friendly staff and comfortable, bluesy atmosphere reflects the traditional family food served hot off the smoker and full of heart.

Pit master Tom Stewart learned his craft from his grandfather in eastern North Carolina, where real BBQ is a smoked pork butt (shoulder) in a vinegar-based sauce.  And as you travel west to Tennessee and into Missouri, the sauce tends to get sweeter, thicker, and richer with a stronger influence of tomato.  Q offers a selection of three Dixie sauces: Vinegar, a thin sauce made from “spices and love with just a hint of tomato” (though true NC purists may cringe at the thought); Q Sauce, a tomato-based balance of sweet, spice and vinegar; and Sweet, a thick Kansas City-style sauce that lives up to its name.  Perhaps most remarkable is that each of the sauces works well with the others, giving you the ability to customize the flavor to your own preference.

Chicken, pork and beef are each rubbed with their own closely guarded secret spice blends and smoked up to 13 hours at a shot with chunks of fragrant hickory.  Flame-kissed on the grill to finish and pulled by hand (or sliced thin, in the case of the brisket) the meats take on a depth of flavor that can only come with slow cooking.

The pulled pork sandwich is the top selling item on the menu.  A mound of the smokey, tangy meat is topped with cool, refreshing cole slaw, served in non-traditional shreds of cabbage, as opposed to the finely chopped bits you’d find in the Outer Banks. We were impressed by the texture and consistency of the meat, tender and pulled in thicker pieces than we’re accustomed to. The North Carolina vinegar adds just the right amount of sweet and sour playing off the meat nicely.

The brisket sandwich is spicy and smoky, tender to the bite and full of big flavor, though slightly drier than we’d prefer after hours on the smoker.  But the sauces (a mix of Q and Vinegar) saved the day, adding a juicy burst and extra spiciness that perfectly complimented the meat.  Served on a firm but fresh roll, the sandwich held together well and managed the generous serving of meat.

Though it is not a sandwich, we recommend trying one of their 60 tequilas in a flute glass, which mitigates the pungent sharpness and offers a silky, mellow, classy way to do body shots off a drunk chick.

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Q BBQ & Tequila
207 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19106 (Google Map)

Dubbed “the single greatest veggie burger in the known world” in their advertisements, Old City’s National Mechanics delivers a distinctly fresh and flavorful vegetarian sandwich that lives up to the bravado.  Hardly a traditional faux-meat patty, this collection of julienned vegetables is bound together and smothered in jack cheese, served on a fresh Sarcone’s sandwich roll.

The sandwich holds together remarkably well, compressing into a compact and vibrantly flavorful bite.  The recipe is a tightly guarded secret, with a fictionalized backstory dating back to Mayan mathematicians and shamans passing the recipe down through dreams and wild hallucinations.

What we do know is that the vegetable medley is julienned and softened to perfection, still just crisp enough to offer a substantial bite.  We identified carrots, zucchini, squash, mushrooms, broccoli, and red peppers, though we can imagine there are other culinary treasures hiding within.

Be warned, though: one bite of this veggie burger and you will never be able to look at the beige frozen patty the same way again.  We’d almost prefer they rename the sandwich, so as not to ruin it for every other “veggie burger”.

National Mechanics
22 South 3rd St. Philadelphia PA 19106 (Google Map)

The only bet I placed on the Eagles in the last 10 years lost me a couple of cheesesteaks to some Dallas fans. (Would’ve won Texas BBQ.) Enter Campo’s Deli, the award-winning old-school deli / steak / grilled chicken / hoagie shop that has been around over 60 years, still family owned on Market Street in Old City. Campo’s offers a Shipping Menu that should be known as the “Of course the Eagles lost” menu.For about $100 you can settle your wager with:

Two Sandwiches of your choice, Cheese Steaks or Hoagies. Plus each order also contains 2 Tastykakes, 2 Herr’s Chips, 2 Philly soft pretzels, Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews, Condiments, Philadelphia post card. If choosing Cheesesteaks please specify your cheese choice. American, Provolone, Whiz.

So I had to try them out for myself. A pretty serious sandwich guy I know was in line picking up his own hoagie when I got there, so I knew this was the right call.

The Maggie-Old Fashioned Pizza Steak comes with fresh tomato, oregano, provolone and garlic. The rib eye was medium-chopped and reasonably lean, chewy but not rubbery. The tomato, garlic and oregano added a depth of juicy fresh flavor that really enhanced the traditional steak sandwich. The gooey provolone was mild and did not overpower the meat. The bread was a clear win: a chewy fresh Sarcone’s unseeded roll.

There are dozens of sandwiches available, from steaks and grilled chicken, to deli sandwiches, hoagies, burgers, meatball sandwiches and a variety of pork sandwiches.Tell us your Campo’s favorites in the comments.

Get your sandwich on:

Campo’s Deli
214 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19106 (Google Map)