Young's Finger Licking BBQ

Young's Finger Licking BBQ is a stand, not a dining room, and it keeps a stand's hours: typically Saturdays, when Mr. Young rolls out multiple barbecue grills right on the well-known sidewalk in Placencia Village and cooks streetside with his wife and family until the meat runs out. If you want ribs off these grills, that is the window. Come on a Tuesday and there is nothing to come for.

The setup is exactly what it looks like. You order at the grills, you get a plate, and you eat where you can find a spot along the sidewalk. The plate arrives with a plastic fork and a napkin and nothing else. No knife. That is deliberate: the meat is meant to come apart in your hands, and the name is just an honest description of what happens next.

What Comes Off the Grills

The choice of meat is ribs, pulled pork, chicken, or sausage. A meal pairs your pick with two sides, chosen from coleslaw, baked beans, or mac and cheese, and rounds it out with bread or a tortilla. It is a full plate built the way a backyard cookout is built, not a tasting menu, and it is priced and portioned to fill you up rather than to photograph.

Reviewers keep singling out the same things: the ribs and the barbecue sauce. Those are the two names that come up again and again in visitor accounts, and the sides and the service draw steady praise right alongside them. If you are ordering here for the first time and want the short version, start where the repeat visitors start, get the ribs, and do not skip the sauce.

Get There Before the Line Runs Out

The catch with a once-a-week grill is supply. Popular items sell out before the weekly line finishes, so the plate you came for may already be spoken for by the time you reach the front. That is why pre-ordering comes up so often in visitor accounts, and it is the single most useful move you can make here. Decide what you want ahead of time, put your name on it, and you sidestep the part where the person in front of you walks off with the last rack of ribs.

Who It's For

By visitor accounts, locals consider this among the best barbecue on the coast, and that tells you who lines up: people who live here and know the routine, plus travelers who happened to be walking the sidewalk on the right day. It suits anyone who would rather stand on the road and eat a serious plate of smoked meat with their hands than sit down for table service. If you want linen and a wine list, this is not the stop. If you want ribs and sauce off a streetside grill in Placencia, this is the one to plan a Saturday around.

Placencia sits on the peninsula in the Stann Creek District, and the sidewalk Young's cooks on is the same one the village is known for. Chasing more smoke nearby? Compare notes with Doyle's Smoke Yaad and Bryse's Beach BBQ, or browse the whole directory by town to plan the rest of the trip.