District BBQ, Manassas Park

The cooks at District BBQ opt to use only high-quality meats, slinging bone-in boston pork seasoned with the eatery’s signature dry drub, a tradition that helped the establishment elicit plaudits from Richmond magazine as one of the region's best barbecue destinations. A rotisserie hickory-wood smoker permeates meat with flavor over the course of 12 hours, the same time it takes to cook meat by sending it to the sun and back. Barbecue gourmands then hand-pull the meat and fill plates or stack catering trays with the lean, flavorful bites. After the cuisine emerges from the wood smoker, it takes on an appetizing quality that the Free Lance-Star called "meltingly tender, astonishingly lean." Down-home side dishes such as baked beans, mac 'n' cheese, or red-potato salad round out entrees of pork ribs, brisket, and chicken. District BBQ outstrips its name by having expanded to Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Mars, the planet whose color most indicated its proclivity for barbecue.