by Andrew Morrison | There’s a new BBQ joint coming the West End’s way in May. What used to be Main Dining Room – the middling Chinese restaurant at 833 Denman St. (it had something like 10 owners in 12 years) – will soon reopen its doors as Buckstop, a 40 seater with a 2am liquor license. The owners are Ontario industry vets Fiona Grieve (FOH) and David Coatsworth (BOH). Both have plenty of fine dining experience, but with Buckstop being all about BBQ, I reckon there won’t be much white linen hanging around.

Everything is going to be made in-house (preserves, condiments) and a lot of the dishes will see plenty of smoke. The plan is to table a lot of what people would expect from a BBQ pit (racks of ribs, briskets, etc) but to also offer a lot of small share plates so that diners don’t have to commit to the full slab. Expect to see things like barbecued buttermilk calamari, smoked pork rilette crostini, prawn poboy tacos, and smoked gouda grilled cheeses with double smoked bacon. Peckinpah meets Bin 941.

There’s still a ways to go on the interior, but considering how gnarly the place was when they took it over (I saw photos – blech). It’s hard to imagine given the shots above, but they’re very close to being finished. I’ve been told to imagine painted gold ceilings and a big antler chandelier, and that’s a hard thing to do, but not as difficult as making sense of the “door to Narnia” that left embedded in the ceiling panels by a previous tenant (see photo above). Unsolicited contextualization: think Bin 941 if it was bought by Memphis Blues.

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