Beer gardens and Astoria have a long history, and Pig Beach brings a fresh take to an old favorite. With additional locations in Boston and Palm Springs, Pig Beach serves up comfort food at its massive dining hall and sends out a whole lot of delivery orders all over town.

Shane McBride, founding partner at Pig Beach and director of operations, explained how it all began, “Rob [Shawger] was the one who brought everybody together. He was a regular at the restaurant I had been doing competitive barbecue with for twelve years, and we started chatting. Matt [Abdoo] was a chef at Del Posto. We did a pop up in Brooklyn. And that was the birth of Pig Beach.”

If you want to place an order at Pig Beach, McBride said to go with one of their best sellers. “The number one barbecue item is probably a tie between the pulled pork or brisket sandwich,” he said. “Those always lead in sales. Ribs are number three. But number one overall? It’s actually the mac and cheese. We move a ton of it.”

McBride also had some drink suggestions for holidays. “We change the drink menu seasonally,” he explained. “We’re going to have Kentucky coffee, which is bourbon and vanilla, and hot apple cider with apple brandy and elder flower. And we’ll have fireball sangria. It’s really good, believe it or not,” he said with a laugh. “And we’re going to have an espresso martini machine.”

The beer garden itself is huge, coming in at 28,000 square feet. It has dozens of picnic tables inside and out, several bars, over 50 televisions, a jumbotron, games, and so much more.

Image Courtesy Pig Beach

Pig Beach is kid friendly too, so don’t be afraid to bring your children and let them run (a little) wild. “On Saturdays, I call them the stroller patrol,” McBride joked. “You can set your watch by all the families coming in right when we open. Then the twenty-somethings roll in for food and football. And it just evolves and gets livelier as the day goes. By nighttime, we’re packed. There’s really something here for everyone.”

Many Brooklyn residents still mourn the loss of Pig Beach at its original location in their borough. McBride shares their sentiment. “It got rezoned,” he said. “We lost that space. We always knew it would go away eventually.”

Image Courtesy Pig Beach

But, fortunately for us, Brooklyn’s loss is Astoria’s gain. “We wanted to get back what we had, and it was like we could have it in Astoria,” said McBride. “The space was right: that old Studio Square space was such a unique venue. And we’ve loved our time here in Astoria, for sure.”

And while Pig Beach is influencing Astoria, Astoria is also influencing Pig Beach. McBride’s favorite menu item reflect a very important part of who he is. “Favorite? Probably the barbecued lamb. It’s an ode to Greek culture in Astoria,” he explained. “I actually lived in Astoria for fifteen years. For Greek Easter, you always used to see people cook lamb. In fact, we started with pita bread and white sauce. Very tasty stuff.”

35-37 36^th St. / phone: 718.362.6111 / pigbeachnyc.com / Yelp: 4.0