The woodsy aroma tantalizes before you even walk in the door at Jack's Bar-B-Q Smokehouse. For just a second, you forget that you're on busy Oakland Park Boulevard, not some Georgia or Tennessee country road.

Jack's is located in a former Taco Bell turned ice cream parlor in Wilton Manors, where you can eat in (at 11 tables), take out or drive through. Food is served on paper plates with plastic utensils.

But such informalities are insignificant to barbecue fans. The draw here is a taste of the South: deep-fried catfish, pulled pork, spare ribs, baby backs, slabs of chicken, smoked sausage and sliced beef with all the fixin's. The meat is cooked over smoker stoked with oak and hickory logs.

The man behind the grill is Jack Mays, who worked with relatives at Tom Jenkins Bar-B-Q in Fort Lauderdale and opened this place two years ago with partners Jim Cole and Tom Thornton. Mays' sauce has a hint of sweetness from molasses, but it's also tangy. Fans like it slathered on, but you can request it on the side.

The staff is patient while patrons scan the menu placards above the cash register. Options include sandwiches, meal and sandwich combos, sides and desserts plus large-group packages.

The catfish fillets are a generous serving of moist, flavorful fish in a thick, surprisingly ungreasy cornmeal breading. The chicken is a bit dry but the baby backs are beefy and tender, as is the pulled pork.

Among the sides, my Southern companions cheered the down-home collard greens, savory baked beans with shreds of pork and the chunk of corn bread.

For dessert there's sweet potato pie, which would be even better served warm, and delicious hot peach or apple cobbler, a taste of home -- wherever that may be.