Route 7 Grill, Great Barrington – Fab and Family Friendly
Took a passle of kids and grandkids to this place on a busy Saturday night – couldn’t have been nicer and the food fit all sizes! The short ribs special was outstanding, my husband loved the ribs and baked beans, my littlest grandkid was hooked on the mac and cheese (came in a perfect kid size serving), one son was chowing down on the calamari and the bigger kids were enthralled with the burgers and fries while the dieting daughters did in swordfish. Service was warm and accommodating and we will be going back on our next trip up this way.

www.chowhound.com, October 27, 2007. Submitted by teezeetoo.

My BBQ Fries List
With visits to more than 150 barbecue restaurants in the last few years, I’ve had some really good fries here and there, but as a general rule I avoid fries with barbecue. The way I look at it, the meat is decadent enough, so my preferred accompaniment (most of the time) is collard greens and cole slaw. On New York City trips especially, I’m trying to maximize the number of joints I can hit in one day, so fries would be a rare treat. In my 16 visits to RUB, I still have yet to try the fries, chili cheese or otherwise.

That’s not to say I don’t love fries. At some point in the next couple of months, I’ll be heading to Portland ME to check out a few barbecue restaurants, and one of them just happens to be two doors down from Duck Fat, whose Belgian fries are literally cooked in duck fat. They looked great on the cover of Gourmet magazine a few years ago and I’ve been meaning to try them ever since.

Anyway, the point of all this disclaimer-like meandering is that I haven’t tried the fries at many of the BBQ joints I’ve visited, so keep that in mind as you read this list of my favorites, as I’m sure there are good ones I still haven’t discovered. Sadly, my top two fries so far came at joints that are now closed: Premier Palette (Manchester NH) and Holy Smokes (West Hatfield MA). Both versions allowed you to taste the natural flavors of the potato, with just the right amount of oil and seasoning.

1. Route 7 Grill, Great Barrington MA
That same natural potato flavor as at Holy Smoles and Premier Palette, without being too crisp or too mushy.
2. The Smoke Joint, Brooklyn NY
There's something about the spice seasoning that made them addictive on my one visit there.
3. All Star Sandwich Bar, Cambridge MA
These are always served super hot and very crisp. You can get them with chili, cheese or Inner Beauty hot sauce (I prefer Inner Beauty on the side). I’m pretty sure the fries are the same as at their (older) sister restaurant East Coast Grill.
4. Bailey's Smokehouse, Blauvelt NY
These also come with a potent seasoning. They’re large, crisp and included with every combo in addition to two other sides.
5. Uncle Pete’s Hickory Ribs, Revere MA
Hand-cut and crisp, these take second fiddle only to the onion rings on Pete’s list of sides.

As posted on www.pigtrip.net, April 1, 2008

Review courtesy of Rural Intelligence
This past mother’s day, I was speeding past Route 7 Grill, on my way to Baba Louies for a reliably excellent pizza and salad... when my nine year old pointed out that the place with the cow was OPEN! We’re usually in Great Barrington during the day, and the Grill only does lunch on weekends (at least in the off season). Anyway, we pulled a uie and had a lovely lunch on the back deck, which overlooks a tree farm. The nine year old had baby back ribs, the 14 year old, a burger and I had delicious crab cakes, followed by scallops grilled with their house smoked bacon. The menu is by no means restricted to BBQ. I chatted with the proprietors while my daughters played with their energetic 3 year old son. They are so trying to do the right thing at their restaurant, supporting local farmers wherever possible, hosting a fundraiser to bring organic vegetables into the local schools. I urge everyone to support them (they also have an interesting catering menu) – you’ll be glad you did!

Posted by Noelle from Falls Village, CT on May 20, 2008

Review courtesy of Ted Lorson’s BBQ Blog
Last weekend, we started our trip to upstate New York with a little detour. Rather than taking the highways, we drove Route-44 from Hartford into Litchfield County, then up into Great Barrington, MA for dinner at Route-7 Grill, before continuing on to our stop near Binghamton, NY.

The place was easy enough to find, you guessed it, right on heavily traveled Route 7 in the quaint Berkshires town of Great Barrington. I had learned of the place last year, when the New England Barbeque Society held a road trip there. I was intrigued by the menu when I considered the trip, which struck me as a little more upscale than your regular BBQ joint. For some reason I couldn’t go on the road trip.

My intrigue grew when I saw a review on PigTrip.net which featured a picture of a dinosaur beef rib that looked really good. But from where we live in Norwich, CT, it is a hike, so I didn’t have a chance to get up there until now.

You are greeted by a great hearth fireplace as you enter the restaurant. This picture and the one at the top of the post were stolen from the Route 7 web site. There is also a neat bar area with a curved bar, and a large, open dining room. That’s where we sat.

As I looked over the menu, I saw several things that were trying to talk me out of what I had planned to order here for weeks: the dinosaur beef rib. They offered a chef’s BBQ tasting menu, what could possibly be better than that? They also had a few sampling platters that sounded great. They offer all the BBQ staples, spare and baby back ribs, brisket, pork, chicken.

An interesting note is that the owners have decided to use all locally grown products. Nice touch.

There are also all kinds of other things to eat in addition to BBQ, including locally raised steaks, meatloaf and pasta dishes.

We started with the house smoked chicken wings with BBQ sauce. Several apps caught my eye, including the scallops wrapped in bacon (one of my favorites) and the spiced shrimp. But the wings were great, nice smoke flavor, big, moist, flavorful. Good choice.

I stuck to my guns and got the beef rib. What arrived was one huge rib, with lots of meat and great marbling. It certainly lived up to my expectations. It came with sauce on it, which I probably do without next time. It’s nothing against the sauce really, but more of a personal preference these days for me. Especially in a case like this, where the meat is so flavorful that it stands on its own. Had fries and onion strings as sides, both were great.

Sheila being pregnant, she has not really had a taste for BBQ lately. She ordered the Cobb salad with maple bacon vinaigrette, and liked it a lot. She says everything was super fresh, and she particularly liked the large pieces of cheddar cheese that came in the salad.

She also had a side of macaroni and cheese, which she described as some of the best she has ever had. And Sheila is a connoisseur of good mac and cheese.

We had such a fine meal that I was in a good enough mood to allow the waitress to talk me into a piece of house baked velvet chocolate cake that was really good. It was huge, and I was only able to finish half of it.

Overall, we had a great meal and an enjoyable stop at Route 7 Grill. This place was right up my alley. Great food and service, a good vibe in the place (not to mention clean bathrooms!). If I lived anywhere near Great Barrington we would eat here. A lot.

In fact, we are going to Albany, NY for my niece’s 4th birthday party today, and I have already began lobbying to take a long cut home and visit again on the ride home.

tedlorson.blogspot.com, March 22, 2008

Berkshire Co-op member profile: Lester & Robin Blumenthal
Co-op Members Lester and Robin Blumenthal love the local flavor—literally. Their restaurant, Route 7 Grill in Great Barrington, makes the most of what the Berkshires have to offer by serving a wide array of foods from local farmers and producers, as well as their own kitchen garden. As Lester states on the restaurant’s website (route7grill.com), “I’ve lived in the Berkshires for 12 years and have always hankered for a casual, accessible restaurant and bar with great food that takes advantage of the local bounty—unbeatable produce and lovingly raised livestock and poultry. I’m delighted that we’ve been able to put together a committed, experienced team to make it happen.”

Recently, Lester and Robin took time out from their busy schedules as parents and restauranteurs to answer a few questions about what being a part of the Co-op means to them:

BC: What made you decide to join the Berkshire Co-op Market?

LB: The Co-op stands for community, wholesome foods and hard work. To get those items working in conjunction is a difficult project, but I think the Co-op is well on its way to bringing that to fruition. The notion of knowing where our food originates is extremely important to me, and I think the Co-op does a great job of keeping its customers aware.

Being a member of the Co-op for many years has meant investing in the future of the community, local farming, natural and organic foods, and having more options in our town. The café in the new location has become a place for meetings, language lessons, internet access, and overall nourishment. It’s a great hub of community activity.

BC: What has being a member of the Berkshire Co-op Market meant to you/your family?

LB: It’s a meeting place of like-minded families looking for alternatives to mainstream, processed foods, and offers responsibly made, non-food products. Therefore the Co-op gives us buying power as a community, and lets us purchase at a discount the items we value most directly from the distributor. Again, having the option to purchase other than mainstream products in bulk and at a discount has been invaluable. Also as a meeting place, impromptu work zone (thanks for the free WiFi!) and lunch/snack center, there are many reasons to stop in.

BC: How do you think a business like the Co-op is like your own?

LB: Knowing where your food originates is, again, extremely important to me. High ideals when it comes to procuring the best possible product is a harder job than it may seem. Working with local farmers to bring naturally raised meats [and produce] to our local public is more expensive and difficult than it may seem. I think making the extra effort is important to our current and future health.

BC: What is your favorite product at the Co-op, and why?

LB: Hard to pick one, but…raw, in-bulk almond butter is smooth, rich, delicious, and it’s one of those things I eat and feel nourished while at the same time happy (in that food-experience way), which is for me unbeatable and what I strive for at Route 7 Grill—simple, good and nourishing food should make us feel good!

by Jennifer Foley, Berkshire Co-op Staff

We got a mention as one of “America’s Best ‘Farm To Table’ Restaurants” in Gourmet magazine!
Route 7 Grill is not the kind of restaurant that prints the chef’s name on the menu. It’s a big barn of a place serving barbecue, burgers, and fried chicken—homey, simple stuff. What sets it apart is that most of its meat comes from local farmers, as do most of its vegetables. “This,” says owner Lester Blumenthal, “is the bridge between the small farm and the common guy’s mouth.”

Gourmet, October 2007

We were recently featured in The Boston Globe!
Beginning Excerpt:
Route 7 Grill sits on a quiet stretch of the road for which it’s named, just past the center of Great Barrington in the Housatonic River Valley of the southern Berkshires. It’s a self-consciously bucolic area of stone walls, hay fields, country inns, antique shops, and good rich soil for the many small, sustainable family farms. When Lester Blumenthal bought the place, he tore up the carpet, built a giant granite and bluestone hearth, and wedged a smoker into the kitchen to slow cook grass-fed meat over local hardwoods. By serving familiar and affordable dishes prepared with locally grown ingredients, Blumenthal hopes to replace the typical long-distance-trucking-and-middlemen-based food supply with a system that supports the farmers in his region. So while you might find a burger on the Grill’s menu, almost every element in it came from a neighboring town.

“This isn’t fancy fine dining,” says the restaurateur. “It’s just American comfort food made with real local ingredients.”

Click here to read the full article.

Brisket fans! Oh my this place is good!
I’ve had several meals here so far and it rates as my new favorite restaurant in Great Barrington for an affordable dinner with quality beer on tap. Great brisket and the smoked chicken is amazing. The choice of sides is top notch. The atmosphere is a bit loud with the hardwood floors and flat ceiling but that doesn’t distract from the flavor. Yum.

www.tripadvisor.com, August 24, 2007. Submitted by Monkeywork.

My Top 10 Favorite Beef Ribs
It’s been a while since I posted my list of my top 10 favorite freebies, and I just did a review of a joint whose beef rib was touted as best ever, so here’s my list of my favorite beef ribs in New England and New York. Note that I say “favorite” and not “best,” because your mileage may vary. For whatever reason, it seems like most of the beef rib expertise lies west of the Connecticut River.

1. Holy Smokes, W. Hatfield, MA (closed due to fire)
2. Hill Country, NYC
3. RUB, NYC (Monday and Tuesday nights)
4. Daisy May’s, NYC
5. Route 7 Grill, Great Barrington MA
6. Uncle Pete’s, Revere MA
7. Blue Smoke, NYC
8. Redbones, Somerville MA
9. Danny’s Little Taste of Texas, S. Windsor CT
10. Texas Barbecue Company, Northborough MA

www.pigtrip.net, August 23, 2007

We were recently reviewed on PigTrip.net
Beginning Excerpt:
Route 7 Grill sits deep within the farm country of the Berkshires, with a cornfield across the street and a garden adjacent to the property. The building is clean and spacious, with plenty of tables, wood floors, an outdoor deck and a giant stone fireplace that separates the main dining room from the bar. The décor is minimal in an inviting sort of way.

Click here to read the full article.

I found this place from a review in the Globe and we all went there Saturday night of Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. It was DELICIOUS!
Nerissa, The Nields

Restaurant Rave—Route 7 Grill / Great Barrington, Massachusetts
The Route 7 Grill in Great Barrington was quite literally the very first new restaurant I tried in our area after my husband and I committed to moving here (i.e., after we bought our house, about the biggest commitment I am prepared to make to anything or anyone.) When my son and I flew out here together, without his dad or sister, to look at schools and close on the house, I took him there for dinner our first night. It was early March and a little blustery, and Route 7’s warm fireplace and earnest comfort food hit the spot for us both. We’ve been going back ever since for the pulled pork, burgers (my son’s favorite—he’s six, after all), fries, daily greens, ribs and pretty much everything else on the menu, too.

I have only one quibble, with the biscuits and the cornbread, which should be better than they are: the cornbread is too sweet, and the biscuits too dense. Being almost southern*, I have particular opinions about such things—sugary cornbread is an abomination, and I expect restaurant biscuits to be at least as good as the ones I make at home with only White Lily flour, sweet butter and milk.

Make that two quibbles, the second also routed in my southern quasi-heritage: the pulled pork is dying for a real North Carolina-style vinegar and hot pepper sauce. But it’s good as served, with a sauce that feels more Memphis or Texas in its inspiration, sweet and tomato-ey, mercifully not catsup-y or too thick.

Picayune complaining aside, Route 7 is a delicious, dependable restaurant that gets extra credit for serving nearly all locally-sourced ingredients. They make a point of using meat and vegetables produced within Berkshire and Columbia counties, and now [they're] receiving some big time recognition for their slow food efforts. Today’s Boston Globe featured this great review/article—read it, and check out Route 7.

*I lived in Tennessee as a child and in North Carolina for bits and pieces of my college years, but alas, born in Chicago, I will forever be labeled a Yankee.

http://bountifuleating.blogspot.com/2007/07/restaurant-rave-route-7-grill.html, July 18, 2007. Posted by Paige.

J. and I stumbled upon this sweet place on the Great Barrington / Sheffield line on Route 7 (obviously) on Easter Sunday and were glad to find any decent place open for dinner. Well what we got was way more than decent.
In this incarnation they've been open for about a year and the place has been designed in simple clean lines but with some flair. The stone fireplace is quite beautiful. Beyond that, however, the food that is being served is noteworthy. They get all their meat from small local farms. They even have pig roasts a few times a year and they do some pretty spectacular BBQ as well.

Yesterday we had smoked local turkey with wonderful mashed potatoes as well as brisket with their house-made beans. If those beans had been Rancho beans they would have been better but they were pretty good as they were. They have local Berkshire beers and even local SoCo ice cream.

We ended up having a lovely dinner. Sometimes falling into a place works out. Rarely, but sometimes.

http://mouthfulsfood.com/forums/, April 9, 2007. Submitted by Rose.

Had a delicious lunch yesterday with my mom and son.
The times I’ve been there I’ve had grilled steak (great!!!) but yesterday we all had the pulled pork BBQ sandwich. Your BBQ sauce is the best I’ve ever tasted... and I’m not a fan of BBQ sauce, but I am of yours from now on. Last week I recommended to acquaitances visiting the Berkshires from the midwest to sample your lunch and/or dinner. They had dinner one night and let me know today how great it was! Thought you’d like to know.

E-mailed by Anonymous

I was in last Tuesday night and had the steak and the fresh beets. I got back and my wife was really jealous when I described my dining experience. We read the Globe article again and she can't wait for another chance to come to the Route 7 Grill. Just thought you should know that you have fans all the way from California. Keep up the great work!
E-mailed by Dave Head

I may be the last BBQ fan in the area to have “discovered” Route 7 Grill in Great Barrington, but if there are any more of you out there: Run, don’t walk (driving is OK too) to 999 Main Street, (413) 528-3235. Excellent ‘cue – beef, pork, and chicken – and sides, generous portions, reasonable prices, full bar, spacious layout, friendly staff.
Anonymous, www.otiswoodlands.com

We had the pleasure of dining there last weekend only because the waiting time of some of the usual stops in GB were too long. What a nice find!
Anonymous, www.otiswoodlands.com [in reposonse to above comment]

This new joint in the boonies of Western Massachusetts comes with two recommendations from people I trust within the competition community. One said the beef ribs were the best she’d ever had.
Anonymous, www.pigtrip.net

The Best
I love Route 7 Grill, and go all the time. The food is fantastic; we truly appreciate Lester & staff's dedication to using locally produced and grown food, even meats. They support the community immensely by accepting BerkShares, our local currency. The restaurant itself is beautiful, with an unbelievable crafted stone fireplace (made by the local masonry). The food is always of the highest quality and they serve plenty of it in a dish. Hands down, the place to dine in the Berkshires.

Anonymous, www.chefmoz.org, March 15, 2007.

For a hearty does of Southern comfort food, Route 7 Grill is the place to go.
Stacks of steaming barbecue ribs, succulent smoked chicken & pulled pork or beef brisket accompany beans, greens and cornbread piled so high that if you’re not careful, you might feel like you ought to leave in a wheelbarrow.

Just about everything at Route 7 Grill is locally sourced: pork from Paul Paisley’s farm in Alford, Mass, where the pigs feed on whey left over from the making of Berkshire Blue Cheese; and vegetables from Moon in the Pond Farm in Sheffield and Farm Girl Farm in Egremont, Mass, and other area growers. In late summer, when regional tomatoes ripen, Route 7’s BLT – with bacon smoked on premises and lettuce that was photosynthesizing just hours ago – is heavenly.

“I had friends who were organic farmers, and I wanted to make this kind of food accessible to everyone,” says owner [Lester Blumenthal], who opened the restaurant last summer. He’s certainly done both farmers and fire-pit fans a favor: with homegrown fare like a hamburger of grass-fed beef and a heap of crispy French fries prepared in the purest lard for $8, it’s hard to spend more than $50 on dinner for two, unless, of course, you drink more than your share of Steel Rail Pale Ale from the Berkshire Brewing Company.

Dan Bellow, Berkshire Living Magazine

I've been there once, and really liked it.
My girlfriend had the brisket, which was OK, but not as moist as we like it. It was cut into thin slices, and I kind of prefer bigger hunks. I had the baby back ribs, and they tasted really good. Good smoky flavour, and they had a great texture... It's not the best BBQ I've ever had, but definitely the best I've had in the area.

www.chowhound.com, February 21, 2007. Submitted by Piperdown.

Making everything homemade and from scratch is the secret to good tasting food, a chef once told me. Lester Blumenthal told me the same thing.
Barbecue is his solution. Mostly everything [Route 7 Grill uses] is from local farms – when possible – and organic, meaning you won’t be eating any animal that’s been fed antibiotics or hormones. They even make their own sausage available at their Sunday brunch or skewered as an appetizer.

The baby back ribs and the duck are the most expensive [items on the menu] but well worth it – tender and moist and not overly slathered with sauce. All the rib dishes we tried were good. The hickory-smoked pork chops were delicious, tender and subtly flavored. As long as it can be the barbecue place of choice to enough people, Route 7 Grill should be around a long time.

Berkshire Eagle Food Review (excerpts)

Route 7 Grill, just over the CT border in Sheffield, is the best 'cue I've had in years! The pulled pork is fantastic and so are the pork spare ribs! Prices are great and my kids eat their food up.
www.ctnow.com, August 21, 2006. Submitted by johnny b.