This summer Ronnie and Lora Trice opened LoLo’s, nicknamed for the better half, near where 3rd and 5th Avenues South diverge. It is a fringe transitional neighborhood with a distinct blue collar feel between its scrap yards and railroad crossings, just verging on the gentrifying influences from Forest Park and Crestwood.
Ronnie’s construction work had slowed, and he comes from a BBQ family, so he recruited the restaurant’s namesake, who was managing a McDonald’s, to make their own venture in the former Green Acres location in Avondale. His father owned The Pit, and Ronnie uses family recipes, including for the sauce, which is dark and rich.
The large BBQ sandwich at $4.85 has the meat already thoroughly mixed with sauce when the sandwich is served. When approached like a wine, the sauce opens with a tang and then moves through a progression of peppery flavors--while keeping a moist thick coating on the palate-up to a bite of hot spice at the finish.
As for the ribs, in the trade-off between tenderness on the one hand and texture and full flavor on the other, LoLo falls on the chewier and more textured side, and anything more delicate would have a hard time standing up to the dark, thick sauce.
You might consider leaving the sauce off the tenderer pulled chicken.
Of course one cannot appropriately consider a BBQ place without considering the sides:
The potato salad, peppery, with subtle notes of dill and herbs,has a slight but distinct vinegar taste, mixed with medium mayo. Despite the fairly thick application of mayo and vinegar, there is a nice firm texture to the potatoes.
The baked beans, by contrast, clearly went through a long slow cooking, tasting of brown sugar or maybe molasses, all starting to meld into an undifferentiated molten melt-in-your-mouth bean brew.
Lolo’s serves some of the best onion rings I ever had, freshly prepared, piping hot, nicely and lightly breaded with no grease and bursting with onion juices. Highly recommended.
For breakfast I tried the Ham Egg & Cheese sandwich. It comes on a burger bun heated on the griddle, on which Ronnie slaps a little mayo for moisture, with two eggs fried on the same big open-faced griddle and topped with a thick, salty almost country ham. The cheese was like a Sysco melted cheese sauce.
My favorite breakfast fare are the omelettes, that come with bacon, sausage or the same salty ham and cheese. They have the same working class feel hot off the griddle. These omelettes are not fluffy. The eggs are not cut with anything and retain a thick texture and are cooked slightly hard over high heat.
Lolo’s is a blue collar place where you can leave with plenty of BBQ or cheese sauce on your face.
Breakfast 6-10 am, Lunch 10-3 Monday-Friday (closed weekends) 4530 3rd Court South 205 595 0690
