Summerlin takeout spot Wild Fig BBQ’s reputation is growing

Barbecue joints aren’t like other restaurants. This food is made to be enjoyed together in large groups, possibly at home and preferably in your own backyard—that’s why “dining rooms” at barbecue restaurants feel so homey.

Those familiar expectations have allowed Summerlin-area eatery Wild Fig to flourish, even though it’s not a full-service restaurant. It’s primarily a takeout spot, though there’s a comfy patio with a few tables. But while the menu is stacked with favorites like beef brisket, pulled pork, spareribs, mac and cheese and coleslaw, this quiet-but-mighty kitchen also serves up specialties like house-cured and smoked pastrami, poblano chili and cheese sausage, Mexican corn salad and daily specials that’ll make your head spin.

“Tomorrow is burger day, and we’re doing so many briskets now, we have a lot of trim, so we grind it up for hamburgers. We do kind of a smashburger, Oklahoma-style with grilled onions,” owner Steve Cook says. “Another [burger] we do is fried in beef tallow. We keep increasing the amount of burgers, and we keep selling out.”

So that’s how a barbecue joint becomes a burger joint, at least on certain days. Others, you might find an authentic shepherd’s pie—“That’s a big one for Thanksgiving,” Cook says—or an Asian-style crispy pork belly, or maybe a brisket melt sandwich with horseradish cream or Filipino lumpia.

The specials come from all over because Cook has been in the industry for 45 years. He started what became Wild Fig at this location in 2017, essentially operating a commissary kitchen for the food truck version of beloved local chicken joint Farm Basket. When the extreme heat of Vegas summer dampened appetites for fried chicken, he threw some briskets on the smoker andcharted a new course, creating a catering operation that expanded and will likely need an actual dining room in the coming months or years.

“We all feel it,” Cook says of his team, partners Daniel Schneider and Erica Joyce. “We could better serve a lot more people, and I don’t think we’ll be able to pull that off in this location. It comes down to where we can put it. I’ve got realtors calling me [with locations] but with our smokers, you have to be careful where you place this thing. You don’t want to make bad neighbors.”

Speaking of being neighborly, Wild Fig and its customers have been lending some needed help to Cook’s former neighborhood. Throughout October and likely continuing until Thanksgiving, the business is donating its profits to victims of Hurricane Helene through the Polk County Community Foundation. Cook lived in Greenville, South Carolina before moving to Las Vegas and regularly bicycled through some of the areas hardest hit by the record storm in September.

“We’ve had dozens of customers come in just to donate,” he says.

WILD FIG BBQ 9555 Del Webb Blvd., 702-575-9515, wildfigcatering.com. Wednesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday, 9 a.m.-7 p.m.

For photos and more details visit LasVegasWeekly.com