Chavis Bar-B-Que: Get your Grove on

I was telling my co-workers how to get to Chavis Bar-B-Que last Friday, and it went something like this: “Take Highway #1 past the old flea market, then make a right when you see the new flea market.”

Gervais says, any time you get to incorporate the words “flea market” or “Waffle House” into your driving directions, you get bonus Southerner points. But anyway, that’s where Chavis Bar-B-Que is – behind the Barnyard Flea Market, just past Skate Station USA, in Oak Grove. Factoid: Oak Grove is a “census designated place” in Lexington County with a population of 8,183 at the 2000 Census.

The buffet at Chavis doesn’t look big, but it packs a huge wallop. There’s chopped pork, fried chicken, lima beans, green beans, barbecue baked beans, hush puppies, macaroni and cheese, cole slaw, potato salad, pork rinds and even fried chicken livers. Chavis is in the buckle of the Mustard Belt, so don’t go in with any delusions of getting vinegar- tomato-, or ketchup-based pork. This here’s the real deal.

For dessert, I always get a piping hot helping of peach cobbler, with a little vanilla soft serve on top. But there’s also banana pudding, a favorite of Gervais Jr., with eight teeth in his whole head.

Chavis offers the barbecue buffet on Thursday and Friday from 11:00 AM to 2:30 PM, then again from 4:30 PM to 9:00 PM. On Saturdays, you can get your ‘cue fix from 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM. Also, on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings Chavis offers country cookin’ and seafood, respectively, but no barbecue. Talk about a diversified enterprise.

The folks at Chavis Bar-B-Que are real nice, but they don’t take sass or credit cards. So along with your appetite bring some cash. Maybe even a little extra – after all, there’s a flea market right down the road.