Award-winning, Bay Area-based Everett and Jones Barbecue announced last spring it would be opening in Sacramento.

As the months passed, the restaurant was still under construction, and barbeque aficionados in Sacramento continued to wait.

The wait ended on Oct. 16 and the eighth store in the chain of Everett and Jones finally opened at the Southgate Plaza shopping center

The menu selection is limited, but the quality within it is not. The restaurant focuses on basics like pork ribs, beef brisket, hot links and barbequed chicken. The hot links and ribs are what separate this barbeque restaurant from all the rest.

The links, a creation of the restaurant in Oakland, are seasoned on the inside and smoked to perfection. They have a unique taste and texture not found in other hot links. The ribs are smoked using oak wood, and the cooking begins each day at 8 a.m. The result is ribs with soft, tender meat that falls easily off the bone and tastes great even without sauce.

Topping it off is the restaurant&s homemade &Super Q& barbecue sauce, available in mild and hot. Both sauces are excellent, although the hot sauce will definitely set mouths ablaze. Side dishes include potato salad, baked beans, corn-on-the-cob, coleslaw and corn bread.

The prices may be expensive, with a large order of ribs and two sides costing $11.95, but the portions are large and the quality is exceptional.

What makes the barbecue taste so good is a family secret that restaurant owner Mary Everett is unwilling to reveal.

&It&s a secret I&ll never tell,& she said. &Everybody (guesses) all kinds of stuff.&

At the Sacramento restaurant, pictures of family, friends and celebrities adorn the walls and give a sense of community and intimacy that is uncommon at many restaurants. Among the photos are pictures of Mary Everett posing with various football and basketball athletes, including actor Morgan Freeman.

Other striking details about the restaurant include the various jerseys, athlete portraits and other sports memorabilia that decorate the walls and ceilings. Everett, herself a San Francisco 49ers fan, got the inspiration for the design from a jersey that her son gave her.

&I&ve always been a sports fanatic; my kids played baseball, basketball, football & And so my son had bought me a jersey, and I said, &Oh, that&s what I&m gonna do to the restaurant,& & Everett said.

The restaurant has a very clean appearance, complemented by the burgundy-painted walls, polished wood floors and pillars, green potted plants and fresh flowers at every table.

The decision to open a new restaurant in Sacramento came largely from the responses of customers. Customers who ate regularly at Everett&s Berkeley location suggested she should build another restaurant in Sacramento, since they were moving from the Bay Area to the Sacramento area.

After three years of looking for the right location for the restaurant, Everett settled on an old pizza restaurant, closed for over 12 years.

The first Everett and Jones opened in Oakland in 1973. Single mother Dororthy Everett founded and operated the restaurant with help from her eight daughters, son and son-in-law. New locations opened around the Bay Area over the next few years, as the barbecue recieved praise, including three more restaurants in Oakland, one in Hayward and another in Berkeley.

In 1982 Dorothy divided ownership of the stores amongst her daughters.

With the different locations come different themes and influences. While Mary chose sports for her motif here, another of her sisters chose antiques to decorate her eatery, and the surrounding jazz, soul and blues music joints influence the restaurant at Jack London Square in Oakland.

So far, the restaurant has been doing well, and customer reaction has been positive, Everett said.

However, one local celebrity athlete is missing from the photos on the wall that Everett has been eagerly waiting for.

&I&m waiting on Chris Webber to get here to eat, &cause I told him that I was going to open up a restaurant and he was happy, but he hasn&t come in here yet,& she said.

It was Webber himself who said a few years back that there were no good barbecue restaurants in the Sacramento area, according to an article in The Sacramento Observer. Perhaps Everett and Jones will finally fill his needs.

Everett and Jones is located at 7271 Franklin Blvd. in Sacramento and can be reached at 916-427-7935.