One of this city’s great pulled pork sandwiches is at a 70-year-old shack in Glendale

To call Pecos Bill’s a hole in the wall would be generous. The whole barbecue sandwich operation is about six feet wide and 10 feet deep — a shack if ever there was one. But if you’ve visited many of this city’s great restaurants, you know by now that the size of the restaurant has no bearing on its quality.

Pecos Bill’s sits on a quiet strip at the bottom of Victory Boulevard, right as it runs into Griffith Park and then bends around toward the L.A. Zoo and the merry-go-round. There are tables out front, so you can sit and eat there and look at Griffith Park, or you can walk a block and a half and eat Pecos Bill’s excellent sandwiches in it.

When you walk up to order, there’s a sign above the window welcoming guests to Oklahoma City, but it isn’t really clear whether it’s officially OKC-style barbecue or not. Honestly, that’s less important than Pecos Bill’s history in L.A. — the stand has been here for 70 years, owned and operated by the Stenzel family since 1946. It was Bill Stenzel, the eponymous Pecos Bill, who opened the restaurant; ownership passed down through the family and on to his grandson Owen Stenzel, who runs the place with the help of family and a few long-term employees. So set aside your barbecue biases and focus on the real point, which is that the sandwiches are spectacular. Just three ingredients — bread, meat, sauce — in the proper proportions, which is to say sloppy as hell, sauce dripping off the meat, the meat spilling from the bun, the bun squishy and small, wholly insufficient and completely perfect. It is a fun sandwich to eat.

You can choose between beef, pork, ham, and turkey sandwiches, and you should also grab a side, maybe some of the spiced baked beans. The whole thing won’t run you more than $8, and it makes for a hearty midday meal.

The beef and pork may be your best bets, both of which are pulled and tender. The beef is juicy above all else, meaty but not so powerful as to overwhelm the sauce and bun. The pork is not particularly smoky, but has lovely bits of bark.

The food seems to cast a soothing spell over the whole place — from the cooks to the customers, there may not be a happier restaurant in town. As you sit outside wiping sauce from your chin, hands and elbows, and leaning back in the sun, you will discover that that localized happiness is contagious in the very best way.

Pecos Bill’s BBQ, 1551 Victory Blvd., Glendale. Open 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday, “or until the meat runs out,” as the website puts it.

food@latimes.com

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