On Thursday afternoons, when our eyes start glazing over and visions of the weekend’s dawdling brunches enter our daydreams, we’re comforted knowing that the Formaggio Kitchen team has already started cooking our Saturday lunch. That’s right—two days beforehand, succulent cuts of pork and beef are already being smoked over wood chips. The following day, a twelve-hour slow-cooking process begins.

By Saturday morning those hand-pulled meat shreds are mingling with sauce and spices in giant bubbling pots on the sidewalk. And as the smell of BBQ wafts through the streets of West Cambridge, the hungry hordes creep toward Formaggio like zombies. There’s a line by 11 a.m. when the food’s ready, and it won’t shorten until the hastily scribbled dry-erase-board menu dwindles down to smudges and the meat’s all gone.

We’ve come to expect nothing but the best from this tiny-yet-famous specialty grocer, whose buyers traverse continents to source products directly from farmers and makers. With the world’s highest-quality ingredients at their disposal, chefs here work wonders with rubs and sauces—just watch those thick, pepper-crusted St. Louis pork ribs get smothered in BBQ sauce before being thrown back on the grill. Formaggio’s international expertise shines through, too, especially in the sides: a béchamel- and nutmeg-driven mac ’n’ cheese, sweet cornmeal-studded cornbread cooked in muffin tins, and “lamejun,” an Armenian flatbread.

It’s street food served in to-go containers, reminding us that the most brilliant BBQ sheds exterior frivolities in favor of time and patience. Unlike many of the fancy-pants specialty products inside the store, this food doesn’t beg to be presented on porcelain plates or fancy linens. All you’ll need are some plastic forks. And napkins—lots of them.