Ten minutes before opening on a warm Wednesday morning, a line is already forming in front of Sanders BBQ Supply Co. in Beverly. Snippets of chatter cover likely orders — succulent rib tips, high-gloss peach tea wings — and mild frustration that the place is cashless. Twenty minutes later, seated at a cherry-red table on Sanders’ secluded back patio, chef/owner James Sanders and pitmaster Nick Kleutsch, 31, learn that the line had already swelled to 40 people.

“I was so angry with Nick when he said we should open on Wednesdays,” laughed Sanders, 50, donning a “Smokin’ Meats Clapping Cheeks” T-shirt. “I thought it would take away from the mystique of the place.”

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