Good article on Central City BBQ.-- now open

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Central City BBQ (1201 S. Rampart St., 504-558-4276), which opens Thursday (Dec. 22), is a new venture pairing Bechtold with Aaron Burgau, the chef behind the standout Uptown bistro Patois. The new restaurant marks Bechtold’s own return to the barbecue business, though on much different terms from the mom-and-pop format where he made his name.

“It’s not just our four hands anymore,” Bechtold said, in a nod to Emily, who is now general manager at Central City BBQ. “It’s a lot of people involved.”

As Central City BBQ gets rolling, it will be up to the pitmaster to show if the intense focus that distinguished NOLA Smokehouse can translate to the much larger scale of this new restaurant.

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There’s room for 160 people across its dining room and outdoor tables. There’s a full bar with local drafts, lots of brown liquor and wide-screen TVs above. There’s a dedicated events hall in back, which should open early in 2017, and space for a catering operation.

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Instead of one or two smokers, the pitmaster now has a fleet of them. They're lined up like locomotives in a rail yard outside the kitchen, next to a few custom-built hybrid cookers unlike any other in town. The restaurant has a staff of 30 now, and preparing to open Central City BBQ has meant a lot of training to pass on Bechtold's techniques and transmit his expectations. “It’s been hard to give up a little of that control, but then I have to give some of it up for this to work,” said Bechtold. “If I was going to do this again it was going to be with people who could do it big and do it right. I didn’t like being the guy who had to go outside and tell a line of people we’d run out.”

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