Four 41 South BBQ Co. — Restaurant in Canton

Hello. My name is Danielle and I am a barbecue snob. I’m not proud of it. Because I’m not a hipster, despite what this annoyingly long winded food review may lead you to believe. It was an accident. In high school I drove around one day looking for a job and got hired by a local but nationally known family run barbecue restaurant. After a couple thousand hours spent in front of a pit I found myself in the unenviable position of a smoked meat connoisseur. It’s a curse. For the past twenty years I haven’t been able to enjoy just any old brisket or pulled pork sandwich. I know what makes barbecue good instead of lackluster like all the myriad of offerings I’ve had since. I had been exposed to the real thing. Nothing has been good in comparison. Ever. I’ve been in a food prison of Shawshank proportions.

That is, until earlier this evening, when after a long week and feeling a little bit risky and up for some self loathing, I decided to stop in and grab a take home sandwich from a local barbecue pit that my neighbors had been raving about for years. I had purposefully avoided this place, assuming that if the self promoting, handlebar mustache growing, golf cart driving people who posted on my neighborhood’s HOA page loved it than there was no way in hell I was going to.

And then, it happened. I took one bite of this pulled pork sandwich and started crying like Andy Dufresne in the rain after coming out of the other side of a literal crapshoot. I’ll be damned.

I experienced redemption.

*There is really only one real way to eat a barbecue pork sandwich. And this is it.

1. Take the top bun and throw it away. You eat this sloppy or you don’t eat it at all.
2. Drench the meat in vinegar sauce. Sweet sauce is for sissies, democrats and dishes that start with the words “Mu Shu”.
3. “It puts the slaw on the sandwich.”
4. Normally pickles are optional. These pickles are not.

Bottom Line: The closest you could ever get to enjoying barbecue as much as what is being offered at Four 41 South is if Dave Grohl himself pulled up with his smoker and personally delivered you a freshly pulled sandwich that you then ate while simultaneously being serenaded by a solo rendition of “Times Like These”. The experience I just had eating this sandwich was nothing less than food nirvana (Nirvana? please get it).

If you really want a true testimony of how good this sandwich really was, consider this. I don’t leave reviews often and the first time I wrote this the whole thing got deleted when I randomly lost an internet connection. I went out of my way to rewrite this so it could be submitted. I NEVER do that because I have Parkinson’s. I have now written this novel of an ode to a pork sandwich TWICE while holding a phone in one shaky hand and pressing one button at a time on the keyboard with the other, also shaking. Eat...

Our favorite weekly spot to have either lunch or dinner. We have never been disappointed. The food is amazing. The staff is amazing. The owners are even more amazing. And I can say that they must be clean because I have seen where some people from the health department sit and eat there as well which must say a lot. Plus they enjoy creating new dishes so at times there is something new to try. And it's safe as we have noticed many police officers eat there as well which we love to see. Four 41 is a place that truly will make you feel like part of the family. They have long tables so those who do not know each other might actually start having a conversation instead of being on our phones.

If someone mentions a table might be sticky it might be because someone who was a bit sloppy was eating and as soon as that person or group left, someone sat down quickly because we go more than once on a weekly basis and normally their is someone wiping tables unless they are low on staff like many small businesses these days because it seems people want to get a paycheck but not work so it's difficult to find good help. Plus the other reason can be that they are so busy that people are coming and going with no time to have a person standing just to clean tables. If we sit at a table and it is a bit sticky then we pick up some napkins, wet them a bit and wipe the table ourselves. Not a biggie as we are happy to see them so busy because that means another small business is surviving in todays world. If the garbage can might be full it is once again because they might be low on staff and if you mention it to one of the staff members they will probably apologize and get right on it. These are situations that we believe people need to consider and look at. The restaurant industry is not an easy industry and it also is hard to find good help. They are all polite and work very hard and try their best and are human just like we all are. We enjoy their food so much that they even catered our daughters wedding and rehearsal dinner. I would bring anyone here to have some good bbq. Actually can't wait to try that new...

I've eaten here several times and food is good so that is not in question. BUT on Saturday the 20th of June we went there with 6 people to celebrate father's day with my 84 year old dad. He drove about 1hour 20 minutes from Fayetteville to meet me and my wife and my brother and his wife. Four 41 posted all day on FB and social media with videos etc. "we are READY FOR YOU, come see us". So just to be 100% sure I called them at 3:00 and asked are you open and serving customers inside (Covid questions) and told him we were coming at 4:00 with party of 6:00. He said "YES come on we have you covered". We walked in at 3:57 to see their sign... SORRY OUT OF RIBS, OUT OF BRISKET, OUT OF PORK.!!! While they folks at Four 41 were apologetic they had nothing but sausage and chicken. They were going to start making hamburgers soon and would have french fries at 5:30 after they went out and bought potatoes..!!! I just still can't believe that the owner / manager can't forecast & manage their food shortages better than this. I understand that nobody in the restaurant business wants leftover food / waste/ spoilage but it is part of running a restaurant. So OWNER...come on have some faith! You have a good product. Its father's day weekend and you run out of your top 3 entrees before 4PM?? I just can't get past the disappointment. I've been here before when they ran out of ribs and another time out of brisket. BUT PORK? What is a BBQ restaurant without pork? It is like BK or McD without beef patty or Chick-Fil-A without chicken. I'll leave it at that because you...