When we went to the Tri-Cities, I knew that we’d be having some very unique and original barbecue at Ridgewood, but I wanted to try some more traditional pulled pork in the area as well. We arrived at Dixie Barbeque Company, a couple of miles north of downtown Johnson City and on our way back to I-81, in a quiet lull between their lunch and dinner rushes. A gentleman named Alan Howell opened this place in 1990, after spending almost twenty years in a couple of other restaurant jobs. In the 1980s, he owned a burger joint called Richard A’s, but eventually realized that he enjoyed barbecue even more than burgers. Apparently, some of the locals howled in protest when he closed Richard A’s, no matter how good his barbecue is, because while barbecue will always spark friendly disagreement, everybody concurs that the Tri-Cities haven’t had a hamburger as good as the ones that he used to make. Continue reading “Dixie Barbeque Company, Johnson City TN (CLOSED)”
Tag: barbecue
The Original Ridgewood Barbecue, Bluff City TN
Last month, the girlchild went to Knoxville for a week to spend her spring break with some of her other family up there. When it came time to retrieve her, I proposed a fun little two-day trip. We had originally planned to spend a long family weekend in Memphis when she returned, but some unplanned expenses killed that idea. We still needed to pick her up from her trip, but instead of a quick there-and-back day trip, I suggested that we take a little of the money that we didn’t spend and go visit northeastern Tennessee, come back to Knoxville in the evening and stay one night. We’d only driven through the northeastern region in a rush about five years before, on a long trip down I-81 from Baltimore to Asheville on our honeymoon. Continue reading “The Original Ridgewood Barbecue, Bluff City TN”
Goad Barbecue Company, Lawrenceville GA (CLOSED)
Lawrenceville, like Lilburn and Grayson and Snellville and all those other Gwinnett County municipalities, is in a black hole for our blog. Halfway from our house to Athens, I can’t quite get past the mental block that commands me to just drive on to Athens if I want to get some lunch, so the stars really need to line up right for me to visit a restaurant in these neighborhoods. Fortunately, I actually had lunchtime business – real live honest expense report for the mileage business – about six miles further up GA-316 one day a few weeks back, and so I could stop by Goad, a Texas-themed barbecue joint owned by a native of Abilene who’s brought his family’s style of cooking to this small suburban strip mall. His wife, Lisa Nutter Goad, had dropped me a line earlier in the year suggesting that I stop by. I love it when business owners reach out to us, even if the reality of our schedules means we don’t often get to visit. Continue reading “Goad Barbecue Company, Lawrenceville GA (CLOSED)”
R.O.’s Bar-B-Q, Gastonia NC
The whole reason behind our sharing our love of food with you good readers is to celebrate differences and highlight places that just refuse to follow the directives of some corporation five states away from where you’re eating. We love to talk about regional specialties, and things that are important precisely because you can’t get them anywhere else. Continue reading “R.O.’s Bar-B-Q, Gastonia NC”
Sauceman’s BBQ, Charlotte NC
Most of the restaurants that I visited on this trip were older joints. The youngest of them, by many years, was Sauceman’s, which opened in early 2010. This is a restaurant formed by a competition team that surprised me with their tactic. They smoke shoulders, Lexington-style, and serve in the tray option like most of the restaurants in the area do, but they don’t actually offer a Lexington-style sauce to go along with it. They have three: an Eastern NC vinegar-based sauce, a sweet tomato-based sauce like we see a lot of in Georgia, and an Upstate/Piedmont South Carolina mustard-based sauce. Continue reading “Sauceman’s BBQ, Charlotte NC”
Carolina Bar-B-Q, Statesville NC
The next stop on my drive was in the town of Statesville, and it really was a great one. Carolina Bar-B-Q, which Gene and Linda Medlin opened in 1985, was absolutely excellent. I’d rank it second behind Lexington’s Bar-B-Q Center as my favorite barbecue stop on this tour. Continue reading “Carolina Bar-B-Q, Statesville NC”
Deano’s Barbecue, Mocksville NC
With a little time available to me, I made my way southwest out of Winston-Salem on I-40. I made a long stop at a rest area, because since I had been able to rearrange Hill’s and Kermit’s that morning, I was more than an hour ahead of schedule. I spent thirty minutes walking around, pausing to help some fellow travelers at the big map find US-74 – that is not at all the same as I-74, no – and felt great when I got back to the car. Continue reading “Deano’s Barbecue, Mocksville NC”
Marie, Let's Eat! 