Jack Sinodinos and family are heating up the corner of East F Street and South First Avenue every Thursday night from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
That’s when the family-owned Cahoots Corner Café expands its daytime menu for customers, serving up barbecue items every Thursday. Earlier this summer, the family began utilizing the business parking area to fire up Dino’s barbecue and offer the community a great option for summer dining.
“Dino was my grandfather,” Sinodinos said. “That was the name of our restaurant in Fremont.”
According to the business partner, several of the family members made a trip to Tennessee in late spring and became inspired by large presence of barbecue.
“We’ve had this thing for years,” he said of the large barbecue smoker, which now occupies a corner of the Cahoots parking lot full time. “When we got back we thought we should do barbecue and thought let’s do it Thursdays. It was very spur of the moment and it’s evolving as we go.”
Cahoot’s Corner Café, the restaurant, is open daily from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. Each Thursday as the lunch business begins to wind down, the family gets to work transitioning the parking lot for the dinnertime barbecue enthusiast.
Dino’s barbecue is set center stage, easy ups emerge for shade and banquet tables are erected to accommodate the customers, as well as the staff. Outdoor tables and chairs have been set up for the ‘dine-in’ customer as well in the past few weeks. Many people stop by for ‘take out’ and enjoy the barbecue dinner at home.
A self-described long term barbecue enthusiast, Sinodinos described the menu as traditional barbecue, noting the ribs as the most popular item.
“Everything is from us and made from scratch,” he said. “We create our rubs, we make the beans, the salads, all of it.”
The barbecue menu offers customers a variety of items ranging from ribs, tri-tip, chicken and pork in the way of meat and linguica baked beans, bacon mac and cheese, as well as salads.
“One day for now is good enough,” the grill master said of the Thursday barbecue, noting that they often sell out before the 8 p.m. closing time. “This is family staffed and we’re all pretty family oriented. It’s a lot of work, but we’re enjoying it.”
Cahoots Corner Café is at 110 E. F St., Oakdale. In addition to the traditional restaurant and Thursday barbecue they also offer Cahoots Bar-B-Que Catering. For information on these services call 209-531-6251 or e-mail Cahootscatering@gmail.com.
