Loaded garlic Parmesan fries, crispy pastrami bacon, brisket, topped with St. Louis rib house cheese sauce and chimichurri. (Photo: The Inked Pig Facebook page)


Jimmy Ellis and Andrew Elliott opened The Inked Pig a few months ago in the old Big Bear Cafe in Midtown Gainesville.
Both men are barbecue enthusiasts, Georgia natives and committed to bringing the freshest main dishes and barbecue sides to Gainesville for many years to come.
“We’ve worked together going on 10 years. We met at Chateau Elan back in 2010, we worked together for a short while and went our separate ways…and had recently reconnected when we decided to do this,” Andrew said. “We were going to do catering but the cost of running a kitchen for catering was more than having our own restaurant. We were lucky to have the same vision at the same time.
“It’s been good, crazy ride so far, we are getting busier and the word is getting out.”
The Inked Pig boasts menu items like smoked pork butt, barbacoa smoked beef brisket, sweet tea smoked chicken, a classic BLT with two types of smoked bacon, rosemary lemon mayo and sides including creamy mac and cheese with charred jalapeno, house pickles, crispy shallots and Southwestern style cream corn, among others. For more information go to www.theinkedpig.com.
Inked Pig chef, Jimmy Ellis, is professionally trained and was inspired to start cooking at age 15 by his father.
“I started processing deer and fish, which got me into it,” he said. “My first job was in barbecue when I was in high school, I went to culinary school from there.
“The barbecue at The Inked Pig is a mix, it’s Georgia, Southern barbecue, we do some Texas stuff like a Southwestern style brisket, then we do traditional style pork butt, ribs, St. Louis-style ribs. We feature four sauces that are from different areas; two vinegars, one hot, one regular, Carolina mustard sauce and an Alabama white sauce that we serve with our okra and a chimichurri sauce that we serve with our brisket. We don’t put any sauces on our meats, all the sauces are on the side. You shouldn’t really need sauce. We wanted our meat and our sides to be equally as good, we put a lot of effort into our sides.”

The Inked Pig is located at 893 Main Street in Gainesville. For more:

678-696-5611.