Upscale Dining Deals: Hey, Seattle! Chomp on a ‘Flintstone’-sized beef rib at Jack’s BBQ for about $50

This Upscale Dining Deals feature is our hunt for secret deals that fine-dining restaurants run on slow nights when they need to fill seats.

At some point, for the purpose of scale, a “Flintstone”-sized beef rib was placed next to a toddler at Jack’s BBQ. The boy’s right hand isn’t big enough to cover, let alone pick up, the end of that bone, and that hunk of meat is broader than his chest.

That framed photo hangs in the dining room at the Jack’s BBQ outpost in Amazonland for diners to gawk at and to quell doubters who wonder if that slab is a good deal.

Put another way, that two-pound cut (about $50) can feed two diners. The going rate at high-end steakhouses is around $50 for just a 12-to-14-ounce cut.

The foot-long beef rib (each weighs between 1.5 to 3 pounds) is available in limited quantity, on different days at different locations.

The deal runs on Tuesdays at Jack’s BBQ’s flagship restaurant in Sodo, which explains why I saw patrons hovering around the parking lot at 11 a.m., waiting for doors to open. They sell out by 6 p.m.

If you don’t want to play this race-for-the-last-rib game, set aside a Saturday afternoon when Jack’s BBQ in South Lake Union runs the same deal. Most fans don’t even know Jack’s BBQ recently opened an outpost there.

Smoked for 12 hours in mesquite and cherry wood, and seasoned with just salt and pepper, the hulking meat with fat rendered along the long bone is so tender, you won’t need the accompanied steak knife.

Pitmaster Jack Timmons equates that succulent prime-grade cut to “the richness of a Kobe steak.”

Some go all caveman and just rip shards of meat right off the bone, chasing smoke and fat with pints of Shiner Bock.

Others use the complimentary white bread and fixings (jalapeño, pickles and peppers) to fortify the meal.

May I suggest a third option?

Turn his hunk of meat into tacos. Order some flour tortillas (50 cents each). Drop some burnt ends and surface meat to get that mesquite aroma and salt-and-pepper rub, add some ribbons of juicy meat and rendered fat for richness, follow this with strands of membrane and connective tissue for texture (they’re chewy but tender) and finally top jalapeño and onions to cut into all that salty richness (otherwise that fat-dripping taco won’t go down easy).

Patrons wet it with some barbecue sauce. But when I’m at the South Lake Union restaurant, I request chimichurri sauce (not available at the other two Jack’s outposts).

It’s one of the best tacos I’ve had this year.

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Jack’s BBQ

The beef-rib special starts at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays at its Sodo location and on Saturdays at its South Lake Union location. The deal is not offered at its downtown location in Columbia Tower. The beef rib costs $26 per pound; the cuts fall between 1.5 to over 3 pounds (before cooking).

In Sodo: 3924 Airport Way S. Seattle; 206-467-4038, jacksbbq.com

In South Lake Union: 228 Ninth Ave. N., Seattle; 206-708-7642