Bennett Brown III is hardly new to barbecue or the South. His father is the former chief executive officer of what was once known in these parts as C&S Bank (now Bank of America), and Brown purportedly started roasting before he was knee high to a pig snout.

His catering company, LowCountry Barbecue, has been preparing ribs, pulled pork and potato salad for major Atlanta corporations since 1986. After more than 20 years, the company has opened a flagship restaurant in Suwanee called LowCountry Barbecue Outpost.

Becky Stein/SPECIAL (ENLARGE)
Everything from pulled pork, chicken and pulled top round get the pit treatment.
Becky Stein/SPECIAL (ENLARGE)
It's not just the barbecue that satisfies. The veggie platter of mac-n-cheese, corn and collards with Brunswick stew can be a filling feast as well.
Becky Stein/SPECIAL (ENLARGE)
The St. Louis-style spare ribs (with fried okra and chicken perlo) are a highlight at LowCountry Barbecue Outpost
Becky Stein/SPECIAL (ENLARGE)
Diners Jessica Phillips (from left), Belinda Weekley, Ann Diamond, Becki Kinder and Belinda Long dig in among the rough pine and slick menus. -------------------- Photos by BECKY STEIN / Special
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And spare ribs, St. Louis-style, are the best thing on this slick, ready-for-my-franchise-Mr.-DeMille menu. Spare ribs seem harder and harder to find these days on restaurant menus. Cut from the inside of the pig's belly (where bacon comes from), they take some special care to prepare, and rarely fall from the bone the way baby back ribs do. Instead, they're usually marinated, then cooked on an open pit with lots of basting and give a little tug before giving way. LowCountry's are sopped in a vinegary sauce with lots of charred meat, and come from the pit tender and caramelized — just right for finger-licking and lip-smacking.

Unlike the glorious messiness of the ribs, the restaurant is almost too pristine. A 'cue joint should possess a certain grunge factor; it makes me feel like the owners are more interested in smoking the meat than in picking out curtains. Rough pine, slick menus and colors that look like something out of the Pottery Barn catalog give very little character to Outpost's surroundings — hardly the one-of-a-kind ambience a good 'cue joint needs.

Oddly enough, one of the menu items with the most character is the pimento cheese. Served with carrot sticks, celery and groovy Mediterranean flatbread crackers, it's a little chunky and a little creamy, with loads of pimento and smoky flavor. I might've eaten my weight in it if it weren't for the fried okra, which was just as enjoyable — dredged in cornmeal and lightly fried, it was like tossing popcorn into my mouth, only better.

The pulled pork is perhaps the most disappointing thing to eat here. It tends to be dry, with little flavor from the pit, and needs lots of the catering company's signature Carolina-style vinegar-based sauce to doctor it up. Pulled top round of beef fairs only a little better, but the barbecue chicken is right on: sopped with sauce it goes down easy with a swig of cold beer.

The meats in the Brunswick stew are mushy to the point of having been puréed, it seems, though bits of carrot and corn along with lots of tomato flavor save it from total ruin. Chicken perlo (or perloo, depending on whom you talk to), a Low Country specialty of rice, chicken and sometimes sausage (though like Brunswick and frogmore stews lends itself to many interpretations) is too dry, though it offers a rich, comforting flavor. If you're wondering how perloo and 'cue end up as tablemates, the answer lies with the Brown family, which hails from South Carolina.

Along with all the pretty-as-a-postcard surroundings comes a young staff that bends over backward to fetch for just about anything you might want.

LowCountry Barbecue Outpost aims to please, and on many levels does. But there's a little too much of a sense here of barbecue as commodity as opposed to barbecue as the gospel it should be.