Such is Faison’s hope for Sweet Cheeks, set to make its debut next month near Fenway Park close to the intersection of Boylston and Brookline streets. It will join a smattering of other barbecue spots, including Blue Ribbon BBQ and Redbones, in a region not exactly known for asking diners to strap on a bib, get good and messy, and then lick their fingers clean.
She wants people to get it, to get that barbecue will fit in Boston because it’s good and because Bostonians appreciate simplicity and unusual (for New England) things.
The restaurant, which will feature pork, beef, and chicken in the form of brisket, ribs, steaks, sandwiches, wings, and more, as well as mounds of slaw and sides including Faison’s mom’s homemade mac ’n’ cheese, has been fashioned after legendary places she visited as a child.
“There was the brisket in Franklin, Texas, the beef ribs at Black’s, the pork ribs at Salt Lick, the chicken at Meshack’s in Dallas,’’ she says, her eyes lighting up and voice sharpening with the fervor of Benjamin Buford “Bubba’’ Blue, the affable soldier in the film “Forrest Gump,’’ whose entire civilian life revolved around the many ways to prepare shrimp.
And, like Bubba, Faison has Army ties.
Her father was a career soldier. She was born on a US military base in Germany. And Texas, with all those barbecue joints? It was just a joyful, if brief, stop on a long, growing-up tour that took her from Germany to Lawton, Okla.; Monterey, Calif.; Crete, Greece; back to Lawton; Wichita Falls, Texas; Santa Rosa and Berkeley, Calif.; Boston; Las Vegas; Nantucket; New Orleans; Los Angeles; San Francisco; and finally back to Boston.
“We were all over the place,’’ Faison says. “And when you move around so much it can be difficult to find out who you are.’’
It wasn’t until she turned 18 and left home that she learned more about herself. On a personal level she had known she was lesbian for years, and though the idea of coming out to her family, her family with the strong military history, initially spooked her, when she did come out in her late teens, they were gracious and accepting, she says.
