A Few Good Teeth

To get to Gert’s from downtown Seattle, drive south on Rainier
Avenue past the Oh Boy! Oberto Factory Outlet, past Emmanuel’s Rug and
Upholstery Cleaners, past the Iglesia La Luz Del Mundo church with the
woman loitering out front wearing a T-shirt that says “Broke Is the New
Black.” Look for a pay lot with a silver truck with a heart-shaped logo
that reads “Gert’s: Flavor for Your Soul.” Don’t park there, or you’ll
risk a ticket. Park for free at the Bank of America next door.

Last Saturday was Gert’s official opening, after a few weeks of
tweaking recipes and getting used to the truck. (On the day of their
unofficial opening, they had a grease fire.) “None of us claim we’re
fluent in the restaurant business,” says Rodney Jones, Gert’s business
manager, sweating lightly in the midday heat. “That’d be a joke. We
just love serving great food to good people.”

Jones is tall, bald, and bespectacled. He opened the business with
his two nephews, Walter and Donnell Jackson, who named the business
after their mother. “She could really cook,” Jones says. “My nephew
Donnell was the second-biggest music producer in the day, after
Mix-A-Lot. He had a hiphop group called PD2.” When Donnell came home
from touring, the family would reunite around Gertrude’s table. “We
joked about buying her a restaurant,” Jones says. “But in early 2002,
she passed away.” After years of prodding from friends, Jones and his
nephews decided to open shop, first with a catering business and now
the truck on Rainier Avenue.

Most barbecue lovers are picky and fiercely partisan. (And if they
aren’t, what’s wrong with them?) Some prefer Kansas City–style,
with its tangy sauces and burnt ends. Some swear by Memphis-style, with
its dry rubs and sweet red sauces. I grew up on the vinegary barbecue
around Tidewater, Virginia, where tomato sauces are scarce and the
coleslaw is finely chopped and mandatory. The obligatory first
question: What style of barbecue does Gert’s serve?

“Seattle-style!” Jones proclaims. “Everybody says, ‘I got
Memphis-style, I got Texas-style.’ We’re from here, we’re proud of
being from here, and our barbecue is from here. Some like the dry rubs;
we like the wet marinade. We never boil the meat—that’s
blasphemy. We assume people have a few good teeth or good dentures to
chew the food.”

Everybody in line on opening day has good teeth. The first official
customer is Nick Feldman, a journalism student at the University of
Washington. He orders a “soul bowl” ($7)—layers of potato salad,
meat, and green bean casserole. Jones pushes the steaming paper

carton toward him, calling out, “Enjoy, homie!” The second
official customer is Loren, a bearded man in a T-shirt and flip-flops
who (a) had a paper route for the Seattle P-I as a kid, (b) had
a paper route for the Seattle Times as an adult, (c) recently
took a barbecue tour of the United States, and (d) ordered three pork
sliders with a side of green bean casserole ($9). “They’re really
good,” he says. “Smoky sweet.”

The third customer is me. “Let me recommend the soul bowl,” Jones
says. “Maybe you’re watching your carbs.” He pauses, reconsiders. “You
really need to get a sampler—that’s what time it is.” For the
next hour, Jones and Donnell take over my stomach and refuse to let me
pay.

The feast begins with the pork soul bowl: a layer of creamy, pickley
potato salad atop a steaming layer of succulent, perfectly smoked pork
atop a layer of the almost-already-
famous green bean casserole.
All of the early reviews on Yelp give Gert’s a full five-star rating,
and all of them call out the “GBC” (listed on the original Gert’s menu
as “green bean crack”). Each bean is a wonderwork of structural
integrity and flavor. They hold their shape, but explode between your
teeth in a burst of beany essence: not crunchy, not mushy, not mealy.
The GBC is to the mouth what velvet is to the fingers.

After a few forkfuls, the layers fuse into a rich porridge. “When my
mom served food, I mixed it all together,” Donnell explains. “That was
the inspiration for the soul bowl.”

Next up: smoky rice with shrimp, tilapia, and a blend of at least
four cheeses ($6). The gentlemen of Gert’s have divined a perfect spice
ratio: just enough to tickle the tongue without burning it. But the
smokiness is overpowering, smothering the flavor of the fish.

Round three: ribs. While I wait, Donnell tells a story about being
11 and repeatedly abandoning his friends for his mother’s kitchen and
its good smells. Donnell wanted to learn how to cook like Gertrude, but
his mother was having none of it. “Donny, everybody else is outside
playing,” she admonished him. “Mama,” he answered, “your food is so
good, and I want to learn how to make it so if my wife ever gets mad
and tells me, ‘I’m not cooking for you anymore,’ I can say, ‘Fine! I
cook better for myself!'” He claps his hands and laughs. “So she
started teaching me.”

Brian Larkins, the burly chef in the truck, slides me a container of
short-chopped ribs ($8 with a side). (He and Donnell met while working
as longshoremen, and they’ve got the biceps to prove it.) “You still
eating?” Larkins smiles. Barely. The ribs are bone-gnawingly
tasty—nothing fancy, just exactly the way ribs should
taste—but I’ve hit the wall.

“There’s two types of fulls,” Donnell observes. “There’s normal full
and Thanksgiving full. You know you should stop, but the food
tastes so good you just have to keep on going. You eat here, you get
the second kind of full. It’s the unhealthiest, but it’s the best!
Because you feel good!”

He’s bragging, but he’s earned it. I am Thanksgiving full.