The name “Wingfield” carries some weight in Mobile, because Elbert Wingfield has been a leading purveyor of barbecue in the city for many years. It now also signifies a new venture that continues a barbecue dynasty.

Elbert Wingfield’s Saucy Q restaurant – a family enterprise involving his wife, Jacqueline, and other kin – has been a go-to for good barbecue through several decades and several locations including its longtime home on Government Street just outside downtown.

Earlier this year, small roadside signs began advertising that “Wingfield’s BBQ” was coming soon to a location on Moffett Road. The location, which is inside the I-65 beltline, not far west of Moffett’s junction with Spring Hill Avenue, had been a Saucy Q years before. Between that and the Wingfield name, one could be forgiven for thinking that the new development was just a familiar restaurant reopening an old branch office.

That is not the case.

My eye didn’t make it far down the menu before it became clear that Wingfield’s is its own thing. For a small venue it has a lot of options, starting with breakfast. Breakfast bowls ($3.95-$4.95) give you grits, scrambled eggs and your choice of meat. Sandwiches run just a little more with options including a salmon patty, red hot link or bologna, all on toast or biscuit with egg and cheese. You get even more options, including fried fish, on the breakfast platters featuring grits, eggs, hashbrowns and toast or biscuit, all for $7.95 to $9.95. There are also breakfast burritos, fried chicken and waffles ($10.95 with wings or tenders) and breakfast specials such as the Crazy Plate ($8.95), which puts eggs, cheese, bacon, patty sausage and smoked sausage in between two fluffy pancakes topped with syrup.

But this was a lunch visit and it was time to focus. I asked the waitress about the Philly cheese steak loaded potato and she made a face. I asked if that face meant I was on the right track or the wrong one, and she said it was the right one and she ought to know, being from Philly. I pulled the trigger, while my dining companion went for something more conventional.

Now. I cannot make any credible claim to judge the authenticity of a Philly cheesesteak. I’m aware the question has caused bitter internecine war even within the City of Brotherly Love, and I know that expectations might be low for a sandwich served 1,100 miles from the Liberty Bell. Fact is, “down here” a Philly cheesesteak generally signifies nothing more specific than a beef hoagie smothered in some kind of cheese.

But that’s not what they serve at Wingfield’s. From the first bite this big Philly-topped baked potato ($12.95) exploded with the flavor of peppers, onions and savory seasoning. The “wow” factor was there, and in a big way. I can’t recommend it highly enough, and if the baked potato isn’t your thing, you can also get a dose of Philly atop fries, in a conventional sandwich or in a fried roll form factor akin to an egg roll.

Meanwhile, my companion had thought long and hard about what to order on his first trip to Wingfield’s. He’d settled on a dish that can be a challenge for many chefs: the brisket sandwich.

Since somebody else was paying, and the waitress recommended it, he opted for the optional extra serving of coleslaw atop the sandwich. As for his sides he chose collard greens and, based on the counsel of the waitress, the jambalaya.

The sandwich was piled high with chopped beef brisket that had a very pleasant smoky flavor. And the waitress was right about the slaw adding a nice crunchy counterpoint. Collards are a bit of a passion for this semi-retired professional eater and he reported that Wingfield’s version is very good and true to their deeply Southern roots. A dash of pepper sauce was all they needed. The jambalaya was shot through lots of tender chicken and smoky chicken, nestled in a tomato-based sauce that was as good as advertised.

The sandwich was served with a bit of house-made barbecue sauce on the side. It was slightly thin but not lacking in flavor. It added a nice layer of savor to the beefy goodness of the sandwich.

Later, I returned to get the whole story on Wingfield’s, and I was only a little surprised to find out it’s a love story: The restaurant is the creation of Darnell Wingfield, one of Elbert’s sons, and Darnell’s wife Odessa.

Both regularly refer to Saucy Q as their “foundation.” Darnell worked there as a cook, she as a waitress and a cook. Darnell’s brother Jarrett runs the show there now, with Elbert and Jacqueline still in the picture.

Odessa came to Mobile around 2008, when the Moffett Road store was operating as a Saucy Q. “Me and him met at this location. He proposed to me at the back door of this location,” she said. “So it’s a lot of little sentimental memories here. Who’d have thought we’d open our own place in this same location?”

Darnell had long had a different vision. “I always had dreams of franchising Saucy Q,” he said. “That’s always been my dream.” But when the old Moffett Road location became available again, he and Odessa saw a different path: A way to extend the Wingfield dynasty a little bit, to pay tribute to his father’s work – “We thought, ‘Let’s give him his flowers while he’s still alive’” — but also to do their own thing. They opened in early June.

Turns out Odessa is the one driving the big menu. “That’s the wifey,” said Darnell. “I was scared.”

“We do other things besides the barbecue,” she said. “I grew up in New Jersey, where I grew up going to diners and bodegas and corner stores where they had good food, sandwiches and stuff.” They both liked the idea of putting on a big breakfast, which is something Saucy Q has done.

A few other notes on the menu: Popular items include a bacon cheeseburger with a patty that’s smoked on the pit ($10.95.) Bologna is also on the lunch/dinner menu, a fact that makes my heart sing. Or maybe it’s just my arteries. Anyway, for $7.95 you get two basic fried-baloney-on-white-bread sandwiches and two sides, a killer deal. If you’re looking to feed two to four people, the “Wingfield’s BBQ Sampler” gives you portions of ribs, chicken, pulled pork, beef brisket and sausage, plus two sides, for $29.95.

What’s going to stick with me is not the food, good as it is. When I asked the Wingfields what they considered their strength, I was asking about the menu. But that’s not the way they took it, at all.

“I think each other,” said Odessa. “We’ve worked with each other for so many years. We wake up together, we come to work together, we leave together, we go home together. I think we just get our strength from each other.”

“God first of all,” said Darnell. “We do get a lot of strength from each other. We do get a lot of strength from our parents and our customers.”

Saucy Q regulars have been supportive, said Darnell, as have his parents.

And that counts for a lot, he said. Wingfield’s might be part of a Mobile dynasty, but opening it has required him to step up and tackle the business side of things, as well as the kitchen side.

“When I open the door, it’s my own thing,” he said. “I don’t think it’s really kicked in all the way yet.”

Wingfield’s BBQ is at 3211 Moffett Road in Mobile. For menus and other information, visit www.wingfieldsbbq.com. For updates, visit the restaurant’s Facebook page.

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