The Best Bbq in La Mesa & East County

Also worth your time in La Mesa & East County

These didn't make our citywide bbq ranking, but they're real local options worth knowing about when you're already in La Mesa & East County.

• Phil's BBQ

  Santee

  Order: Broiled baby back ribs

  The East County outpost of San Diego's best-known barbecue name, with a parking lot big enough to absorb the line that forms at 5pm.

bbq in La Mesa & East County, specifically

East County barbecue serves a different crowd than the coastal restaurant scene — larger portions, lower prices, more families, and a heavier emphasis on beef than the pork-first Southern template. La Mesa's village and the surrounding Grossmont corridor is the center of it, and it's genuinely worth the drive inland from the coast.

Which one to pick

Bad to the Bone is the pick when the meat is the point: beef ribs done properly, which almost nowhere in the county attempts. Cali Comfort is the better room for a group with mixed priorities — a sports-bar hybrid where the smoker is still taken seriously, so the tri-tip sandwich and burnt ends hold up while everyone else watches a game.

Before you go

Barbecue sells out rather than closes. Beef ribs in particular are a limited daily count at both — call ahead or arrive before 6pm on a weekend if that's what you came for.