By Paul Reidinger

BARBECUE IN THE Marina? How about cows in Berkeley, or fish on bicycles? How about credible barbecue – barbecue that's better than the offerings of at least one high-profile spot, in a far more likely location, I can think of? Am I joking? Delusional? Wracked with fever? Working up material for April Fools' Day? As Rummy (peerless master of self-answering self-questioners) might say, Not on your life!

Although it is probably a little early to be talking about a Miracle in the Marina (and am I stealing a little thunder there from Gavin? or Arnold? I hope so!), Claypool's BBQ is an astonishing little place – and not just because, though partly because, it's in the Marina, land of the well coiffed, well shod, well-off. Barbecue, even good barbecue, seems a little ... down-home for that sort of crowd.

But perhaps I am being unfair, for while Chestnut Street and its environs are heavy with restaurants, a surprising number of those restaurants are inexpensive places like Fuzio and Hahn's Hibachi, to name a pair just a few steps from Claypool's. One reason these names are familiar is because they are chains, with shops here and there around the city. For the moment, at least, Claypool's is one of a kind, though owner Philip Claypool speaks openly of chaining. But that hasn't happened yet, so let us speak no more of it. We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

Meantime, there is the barbecue, and it is splendid. Claypool smokes his pork for 16 hours, which produces moist, tender shreds of smoky-sweet meat that melts into the spicy-sweet barbecue sauce. Chicken, of course, spends considerably less time in the smoker, as does salmon. But both retain the almost living resilience of texture that tells you they haven't dried out and lost their flavor.

As it happens, my sole criticism of Claypool's cooking does have to do with loss of flavor, or perhaps not loss but masking – a result not of oversmoking but overgarnishing. Although salmon is among the tastiest of fish and smoked salmon doubly so, the distinctive smoky-briny savor of Claypool's salmon gets a bit lost in the shuffle of the smoked salmon sandwich ($6.75), gussied up as it is with a pleasant but numbing abundance of cucumber coins and cream cheese – improbable invaders from some English high-tea cart – and swaddled between the halves of a soft but smothering roll.

It is odd that you can get either the pork or chicken, but not the salmon, as a platter ($7.50), an arrangement that dispenses with the bun and adds more meat. Apart from appealing to Atkins low-carb fanatics, this would be the ideal set-up for the salmon, but the only nonsandwich option for the fish is a salad, which sounds well-meaning but also suggests leafy, vinaigretted clutter.

Moral: stick with pork or chicken, those tried-and-true staples of barbecue. (Claypool also told me he's going to start experimenting with beef brisket.) These hold up equally well in sandwich form (try the double-barreled "Bossman" for $9.95 if you can't decide which you want or you're immensely greedy or just bossy) and as platters, where they share space with tangy, homemade coleslaw and baked beans laced with Jack Daniels whiskey. The last, the owner told us, is a Claypudlian accident, memento of boozier days, that has become a kitchen signature. I found the beans slightly too sweet; more ham hock would help. The Bossman also comes with potato salad, successfully tweaked with paprika and shards of roasted red and orange bell pepper.

There isn't a lot in Claypool's atmospherics to suggest barbecue or, for that matter, the South. The low-ceilinged, street-level space has been painted a muted, Pottery Barn-ish cream tone (official color of the Marina?), and the dark wood of the tables and chairs is handsome but unobtrusive to the point of invisibility. The real anchors of the decor are, apart from the counter where you order, the televisions mounted overhead, for convenience in sports viewing while gobbling barbecue, and the owner himself, who is personable and attentive and ever eager to talk about the esoterica of barbecue and his big plans for Claypool's, which reflect the fact that the smoking is done at a central facility whose output could easily supply a number of shops.

Sounds like the barbecue equivalent of the airlines' beloved hub-and-spoke system. There is a logic to it, and it is the logic of business – economies of scale, "growth," et cetera. Maybe it isn't so strange after all that Claypool's is in the Marina and is surrounded by high-profile, highly successful, low-cost chain restaurants.

Do I sound like I'm carping? I'm not. There are worse possibilities afoot in this city than the spread of good, cheap barbecue with good, peppery, not-too-sweet sauce. And like every other small-business owner, Claypool must take the world, including its biases toward growth and corporatization, as he finds it. But for now, Claypool's BBQ is a modest little one-of-a-kind operation where the food is good, the TV is always on, and the owner is drawlingly available for chat, just in case that game you were dying to watch is being called by some clown with a low Q rating.