The first time I became aware of Fikscue Craft Barbecue, I was walking with my friend Jane and her baby down Park Street on a lovely Saturday. Unexpectedly, we discovered a line of many, many people on the sidewalk. The line consisted of young, somewhat hip people who seemed pretty excited, but were not at all unruly. I asked and Jane explained—all of those people were lined up for a new BBQ place. “Texas-style meets Indonesian cuisine—Fikscue,” she tried to pronounce. I shrugged, guffawed, and said, “no way, no way ever, would I stand in a line that long.” For food? Oh those silly people! Oh those funny foodies with their craft this and imported that, their mixing and blending of flavor genres. Such nonsense. Folks who know me know I’m a burger guy, an any kind of burger guy, end of story.
For weeks and weeks after that, as I’d ride my bike up and down Park Street on Saturday and Sunday—the only days Fikscue was open at the time (now open on Wednesdays as well)—I’d see those lines, sometimes way down the block, often with people sitting in chairs they brought for the queue, and each time I’d shake my head and pedal past.
Then last Sunday something happened.
I was biking to the Salvation Army Thrift Store, my nearly daily jam, and noticed only about five people in line. And while I’d just had a late lunch, I thought, “Oh heck, let me check this out.” I parked and locked my bike, and while waiting for maybe 10 minutes, decided to get only a few of the less expensive items on the menu—chicken leg, sausage, potato salad. I got to the front of the line and gave my order to the friendly cashier, who then asked, “Have you tried our brisket?” Five words, a simple question, seemingly innocent. “No,” I replied, “I had not.” Though I caught a glimpse of the chef cutting the thick dark slab of meat into uniform pieces. I watched the heat rise from their uniquely prepared BBQ classic. Already my knees were weakening.
The cashier signaled to her co-worker, who sliced a small sample—an approximately one-inch square—and placed it in a paper tray. I took it, popped the piece in my mouth and instantly knew that my world had changed forever. I tried my best to chew slowly, to savor this absolutely stunning and unusually flavored morsel, then I turned to the cashier and said to her, “Oh wow, oh my, that was so mean of you. So very mean. Now I can never go back, never be the man I once was, never eschew (sorry) this food, this place that I’d dismissed, as only a Baby Boomer can do.”
She smiled the smile of a victor, looking a little like Steph Curry when he drops one of his nearly impossible shots, that knowing smugness of someone secure in their complete power over you, kindly pitying how weak you are, how feeble and foolish in your efforts to resist. I glanced back and in my head apologized for all my previous disdain, knelt in submission to my new master of munching, pledged my fealty going forward, and started to stagger away. She asked if I wanted a quarter-pound. I paused and said, “Yes please.”
I’d been slayed by a single small section of spiced beef.
I ate my main meal—the chicken was incredible, the link divine, the potato salad a dream—then performed an act of love equal to any ever seen or known in literature, film, or foolish poetry: I took the brisket home to share with my wife. My hope was that this would make up for all my misdeeds—the late anniversary gift, my socks on the floor, the ineffectual way I make the bed. And it did, gloriously, deliciously.
Gene Kahane is the founder of the Foodbank Players, a lifelong teacher, and former Poet Laureate for the City of Alameda. Reach him at [email protected]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Gene-Kahane.
