Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is a

restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...

venue, and

biker bar A biker bar is a bar that is frequented by motorcyclists (bikers). Some are owned or managed by people who are friendly toward motorcyclists.

chain A chain is a serial assembly of connected pieces, called links, typically made of metal, with an overall character similar to that of a rope in that it is flexible and curved in compression but linear, rigid, and load-bearing in tension. ...

located mostly in upstate

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

with branches in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, and formerly in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the ...

and

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...

History

First opened in 1988 on Willow Street in downtown

Syracuse Syracuse may refer to: Places Italy * Syracuse, Sicily, or spelled as ''Siracusa'' * Province of Syracuse United States *Syracuse, New York **East Syracuse, New York ** North Syracuse, New York * Syracuse, Indiana *Syracuse, Kansas *Syracuse, M ...

, the restaurant subsequently opened locations in older buildings of historical significance in several cities. The Syracuse location used to be N&H tavern and once housed a

Cadillac The Cadillac Motor Car Division () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM) that designs and builds luxury vehicles. Its major markets are the United States, Canada, and China. Cadillac models are distributed ...

dealership. The Rochester restaurant is a former

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, ...

station overlooking the

Genesee River The Genesee River is a tributary of Lake Ontario flowing northward through the Twin Tiers of Pennsylvania and New York in the United States. The river provided the original power for the Rochester area's 19th century mills and still provides h ...

. The Buffalo restaurant is a former

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...

film storage vault. The Brooklyn restaurant had been a tool & die shop, and the Newark location was once a boxing club where

Rubin Carter Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (May 6, 1937 – April 20, 2014) was an American-Canadian middleweight boxer, wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for murder, until released following a petition of habeas corpus after almost 20 years in prison. In ...

trained, Stamford was a Yale Lock Co. factory. A cookbook with many of the restaurant's recipes was published titled ''Dinosaur Bar-B-Que: An American Roadhouse'' in 2001. In late November 2006, the Syracuse location was affected by the

Norovirus Norovirus, sometimes referred to as the winter vomiting disease, is the most common cause of gastroenteritis. Infection is characterized by non-bloody diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach pain. Fever or headaches may also occur. Symptoms usually devel ...

and was closed for about a week until cleared to reopen by county health inspectors. Hundreds of customers and employees were affected. It is unclear how the virus materialized.

Onondaga County Onondaga County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 476,516. The county seat is Syracuse. Onondaga County is the core of the Syracuse, NY MSA. History The name ''Onondaga'' derives from ...

health inspectors found no fault on the restaurant's part. In May 2009, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que was voted America's best barbecue in ABC's ''

Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. ...

'' poll. Approximately 4000 out of the 7500 participants in the poll chose Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.

Adam Richman Adam Montgomery Richman is an American actor and television host. He has hosted various dining and eating-challenge programs on the Travel Channel and History Channel. Early life and education Richman, an only child, was born into a Jewish fa ...

, host of the

Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...

's '' Man v. Food'', took the show to Syracuse (

season 3 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In tempera ...

, episode 13) on June 8, 2010. Dinosaur Bar-B-Que was the first stop for Richman, who tried the restaurant's "Pork-Sket" sandwich (which features 1/2 pound each of brisket and pulled pork). It was first broadcast on the Travel Channel on September 1, 2010. In March 2015, a New York City law firm filed a

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

lawsuit against Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, claiming the chain systematically underpaid its tipped workers. The firm, Fitapelli & Schaffer, has filed similar lawsuits for workers at T.G.I. Friday's and

Chipotle A chipotle (, ; ), or ''chilpotle'', is a smoke-dried ripe jalapeño chili pepper used for seasoning. It is a chili used primarily in Mexican and Mexican-inspired cuisines, such as Tex-Mex and Southwestern United States dishes. It comes in dif ...

Restaurants

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que has 6 restaurants currently in operation along with 4 restaurants that have closed down.

Current restaurants

Former restaurants

Gallery

File:Dinosaur Bar B Que W125 St jeh.jpg, West Harlem restaurant Lehigh Valley Railroad Station, Rochester, New York.jpg,

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

location in the former Lehigh Valley Railroad Station

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1988 establishments in New York (state) Barbecue restaurants in the United States Culture of Syracuse, New York Restaurants established in 1988 Restaurants in New York (state) Tourist attractions in Syracuse, New York