My son live in the SF Bay Area, and he tells me all the time that they don’t have good Southern style Bbq there. He dreams of opening up a spot, and “dressing” things up so the hoity toity types would frequent it, but I tell him that’s not genuine. If you want southern, you’ve got to do southern. It’s not fancy. It IS good!
Now once upon a time there was a place called Flint's on Shattuck Avenue on Oakland.
Tell your son to try Roadside BBQ in San Rafael. My brother in law and I stayed nearby to go see some family a year ago. We found this place and tried their sampler which was brisket, sausage, chicken and ribs. I have been smoking meats in Texas for over 30 years and my BIL has been smoking meats in Kansas for the same amount of time. We ate all of it. Good stuff.