Daddy D's Southern Barbecue

Daddy D's Southern-Style Barbecue is located inside a Shell gas station convenience store at the corner of NE Fourth Plain Road and Auto Mall Drive in Vancouver, Washington.

Yup, you read that right. A top-notch BBQ spot is located inside a gas station convenience store. There are signs and a company truck around, so it's still pretty easy to spot.

Daddy D's has a space in the back corner of the convenience store. There, you'll likely meet Daddy D (Donnie Vercher) himself working the counter.

The business is completely family-run, with pictures of the family hung proudly on the wall for all to see. Daddy D's is an extremely large family from Louisiana: Daddy D is the youngest of 11 siblings, and he now has nine children of his own.

Daddy D's has all the usual BBQ awesomeness: ribs, pulled pork, chicken, brisket, and sausage. All the sides are homemade, and everything is made right there in the kitchen or out back in the smoker.

They make their own secret spices/rubs and BBQ sauce.

Being the panda glutton that I am, and wanting to get as complete of a Daddy D's BBQ experience as possible, I got the Three-Meat Combo Plate ($15.99), picking ribs, brisket, and pulled pork. The combo plate also includes two sides (I got baked beans and cole slaw), and two slices of soft white bread.

Holy crap. These guys don't mess around with the portion size. I'd guess about three pounds of food here. If you can eat the entire plate in one sitting, you rock that much more.

I first attacked the ribs, which are smothered in their homemade BBQ sauce and smoked at 225 degrees over sweet cherry wood. Delicious, tender, a little tangy, and coming off the bone nicely. And wow, the ribs were large as heck.

The chopped brisket -- smoked for 13 hours -- was also tender and moist. Some sauce on the meat which didn't take away from the smoky, meaty goodness.

My personal favorite was the pulled pork. The pork is smoked for nine hours, seasoned with hand rub. The finished product also gets some BBQ sauce. Again juicy, tender, smoky -- and I'm sure happy and sleepy (food coma) carved their way into the fray.

In a way, I wanted more BBQ sauce on my proteins, although perhaps that would take away from the great BBQ itself.

Even the sides were awesome. Baked beans really packed a ton of flavor -- gotta hand it to the rib tips there too. Their cole slaw gets a light helping of mayo, but has a slight sweet tang to balance everything. This might be one of my favorite cole slaws, folks.

Desserts will likely be attacked next time. You can get Sweet Potato Pie or 7-Up Pound Cake ($3 slices or $20 whole pies available).

Daddy D's has a rewards card. Come back often = 11th meal is free.

Daddy D's is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11-7. You can go to their website here.

After reading many rave reviews about this place, I'm finally glad I went. This spot is awesome. 8.75/10