showbiz ribs and bbq king join downtown’s barbeque scene
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Showbiz Ribs, the much-anticipated but long-delayed barbeque house on 6th Street, is set to open Thursday, according to a handmade sign on the door.
With the opening of Showbiz Ribs, 6th Street is fast becoming Downtown’s “Casual Restaurant Row,” with establishments from City National Plaza east to Pershing Square doing brisk lunch-hour business.
The eatery joins some other respected local names in barbeque: Spring Street Smokehouse in Chinatown and BBQ King, returning to Downtown with a new 7th Street takeout location after being displaced from Cesar Chavez and Figueroa to make way for a Palmer development. BBQ King opens today and has another location at 53rd and Vermont in South Los Angeles.
We can’t have too many barbeque options in Downtown. Like the old saying goes, there’s no business like … the ribs business?
-orsini iii site demolition levels bbq king
Showbiz Ribs
520 W 6th Street
Los Angeles CA 90014
Monday-Friday 11:00-9:00pm
Saturday 12:00-9:00pm
Sunday 4:00-9:00pm
showbizribs.com
BBQ King
525 W 7th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90014
213-627-7555
texasbbqking.com
16 comments
Yum, I can’t wait.
I’ve been hitting Spring Street Smokehouse when I need a bbq fix. They have great pork ribs. Spring St has comedy and blues nights. They are well worth checking out.
I’ll try Showbiz this weekend.
Double yum.
They’re going to have some competition pretty soon, though. Did anyone else see on blogdowntown that BBQ King is coming back to town, opening a small take out store on 7th street?
I was so bummed when the Sunset/Figueroa place was torn down….this news made my day yesterday.
LA Lola:
Rich mentioned that BBQ King on 7th in his post.
I was so excited, I missed it. All this BBQ madness…
BBQ King opened today!
I love that we can get Texas-style barbecue from BBQ King and vinegar-based Carolina barbecue from Spring Street Smokehouse, do we know what kind of barbecue Showbiz Ribs will be cooking up? If they serve up Kansas City-style barbecue, we will have a microcosm of the Barbecue Triangle downtown!
Raul: Thanks for the tip!
Celia: I’ve been trying to figure that out, but they’re hard to get ahold of. I guess we’ll figure it out soon enough.
If Showbiz has Kansas City-style BBQ the Holy-trinity of barbeque will have been achieved!
Who downtown has really good Southern-fried chicken? other than my kitchen. lol
I don’t know offhand, but that sounds like something the Pantry would offer.
Otherwise, it’s Korean Fried Chicken at Bonchon in K-Town.
what are the hours of BBQ king?
I tried Showbiz ribs today. The st. louis ribs are very good. A lot better, to my taste, than Spring Street. Meat falls off the bone style.
After all the anti-Orsini grumbling (see linked “displaced” archive), BBQ King now has a central location within walking distance of many mixed use properties … all while Palmer continues to introduce hundreds of new (and affluent) customers to the downtown scene. Huh.
Brian: If it were simply about adding more people Downtown, there’d be no issue. Unfortunately, Palmer’s fortresses will be gracing our neighborhoods for years.
Note that he’s making no attempts to fill his retail spaces — I think he’s got two retail tenants total out of what, six buildings? — a slap in the face to residents.
Tried Showbiz and omg! it is very good.. I had the baby back ribs and they were so incredibly tender. I’m not a fan of the slaw (I like a tangier slaw than that) but the sweet potato fries were good.
Still, the main thing was how incredibly yummy the ribs were and well worth the stop!
I’m so excited the Spring Street smokehouse is soooooo good and authentic I can’t wait for more!
I apologize for straying off topic, but in response to Rich:
I respectfully disagree, as I believe adding more people downtown is exactly what we’re talking about… Restaurants and stores catering chiefly to the 8-6/M-F crowd is an issue of needed demand. More to the point, by Ralphs supermarket’s own estimation in the Downtown News, their uniquely high profits from 9th Street are due in large part to spendthrift USC students, hundreds of whom call one of the nearby “Renaissance Properties” home.
As for the aesthetics of these “fortresses,” while a number of smaller buildings might have been more geographically (and politically) appropriate, the fact remains that these developments have been a productive use of otherwise blighted sites. Furthermore, no one expects Palmer’s retail spaces to be leased until their surrounding areas become more walkable … much like BBQ King’s new and improved location.