Memphis Fire Barbeque Company

Memphis Fire was a barbecue rub before it was a restaurant. The name rode a spice line — the Jet Set Spice Company — before it hung over a dining room on King's Highway 8 in Winona, and that order of operations still shows in the cooking. Stoney Creek sits along the highway between Hamilton and the Niagara fruit belt, and the smokehouse pulls from both directions. The kitchen runs an Ole Hickory pit, and the brisket, baby back ribs, pulled pork, and jumbo chicken wings that come off it are smoked low and slow rather than rushed to the pass.

The order usually starts with one of three plates. The Beef Brisket Entree is the cleanest read on the beef — a half-pound of hickory-smoked brisket with a choice of the Traditional Smokehouse Sauce or the house Tales of the Silk Road sauce. The Full Rack of Baby Back Ribs runs to two pounds. The Pulled Pork Entree comes with White Apple Slaw and two scratch sides. The house makes its own sauces and dressings, which is why the same brisket reads differently under the Smokehouse sauce than under the Silk Road. Diners who want the whole pit in one sitting order The Memphis Tour — pulled pork, brisket, and baby back ribs together — or The Smoke & Fire Combo for a shorter version. The smoked wings come by the pound, sauced anywhere from Smokehouse Mild to Mo Bay Jerk to the Alabama White, and the brisket turns up again, stacked cold, on The All-American Sandwich under a layer of house-smoked Sneaky Cheese.

What separates the kitchen from a checklist smokehouse is the supporting cast. The sides are made from scratch and treated as more than ballast: Smoked Pit Beans built with bits of beef brisket and smoked for eight hours, Chef Lori's mac and cheese in a tangy aged-cheddar cream sauce over extra-thick noodles, and a warm mini loaf of cornbread served with whipped butter and a maple hot sauce. The Sneaky Cheese Poutine layers fries or tots with house-smoked cheese and a scratch red-wine beef gravy. Even the starters carry the pit — barbecue pork nachos over in-house-fried white corn tortilla chips, and hickory-smoked kettle chips with the family's French onion dip. A kitchen that smokes its own potato chips is telling you where its attention goes.

The dining room leans into the theme without tipping into kitsch — vintage smokehouse cues, a jukebox, and the look of a roadside diner that has been there a while. The menu widens out from the pit, too: burgers and dogs, sliders, a kids' list, and house-made desserts for the table that wants barbecue without everyone ordering a rack. It is the kind of breadth that lets a mixed group settle on one place without anyone having to compromise.

The restaurant opened in Winona in 2010 and has stayed with the family that started it. Food Network Canada's You Gotta Eat Here put a camera on the smokehouse, the kind of notice that carries a roadside kitchen past its own county line. But the operation is still a family one — Steve and Lori Popp grew it out of that earlier rub-and-spice venture, and relatives work the floor and the pit.

Memphis Fire is built to be used more than one way. The dining room and patio take reservations for the slow version — ribs, combo plates, an unhurried meal — while curbside pickup, barbecue by the pound, and family meals handle the nights the food has to travel. For anything larger, the do-it-yourself catering scales from a small gathering to a couple hundred people. The smoker runs Wednesday through Sunday, and on Friday and Saturday the kitchen holds the line an hour later.