Head to These Beloved BBQ Spots This Memorial Day and Dig In

One thing barbecue lovers seem to always agree on is that they can't agree on where to find the best barbecue. To be clear, what we're talking about isn't grilling over direct heat on the outdoor appliance commonly known as a barbecue — it's long, slow smoking, in a smoker or pit, over indirect heat, infusing the meat or poultry being cooked with a rich, smoky, savory flavor, with or without a hint of spice.

That's the kind of barbecue (or BBQ) that people get passionate about, expressing their personal preferences and regional inclinations with oft-surprising vigor.

To determine the best BBQ spots in America, 24/7 Tempo consulted reviews and ratings published by scores of city, regional, and state websites, extrapolating a shortlist of the most acclaimed establishments, and then using editorial discretion to make our final choices. Several of the places on this list have more than one location, but we have not included chains, though some of them can be quite good (Dinosaur Bar-B-Q, Smokey Bones, and Dickey's Barbecue Pit are among our favorites).

Given the strong feelings people have about barbecue, it's almost inevitable that readers will disagree with some of these choices or bemoan some omissions — but one thing is guaranteed: At any of the BBQ spots listed here, you will eat very well.

This post was updated May 21, 2025 to reflect additional information.

• Location: Murphysboro, Illinois

Southwestern Illinois is another area well-known for its barbecue restaurants, and the state legislature has officially named this city "the barbecue capital of Illinois." Pitmaster Mike Mills launched this original version of 17th Street BBQ in 1985, and his daughter, Amy Mills, has carried on his legacy. Baby back ribs are the 17th Street signature, and the sauces are highly regarded.

• Location: Northport and Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Originally known simply as Archibald's, this Alabama favorite was opened by George and Betty Archibald in 1962 in Northport, a suburb of Tuscaloosa. Their grandson, Woodrow Washington III, opened a second location in the city in 2002. Slabs of ribs, pork butt, and chicken are among the menu items, and there are also "jumbo hot wings" and (the menu specifies) farm-raised catfish and whiting.

• Location: Kansas City, Missouri

Achieving nationwide notoriety after Calvin Trillin announced (tongue in cheek) in an article for Playboy that it was "the single best restaurant in the world," Arthur Bryant's traces its history back to a barbecue stand opened by KC 'cue pioneer Henry Perry in 1908. One of his employees, Charlie Bryant, bought Perry's operation, which had grown by then, in 1940, and his brother, Arthur, took charge six years later, moving it to its present site in 1949. Beef, ham, turkey, sausage, both pulled and sliced pork, and burnt ends are sold in sandwiches or by the pound.

• Location: Los Angeles and Santa Monica, California

TV personality, pitmaster, and restaurateur Kevin Bludso was born in Compton but spent summers as a youngster in Corsicana, Texas, helping his grandmother at her barbecue stand. He opened his first place in Compton in 2008, but it closed in 2016 after a dispute with the landlord, and he now has two newer locations. His menu runs the gamut — brisket, pulled pork, pork and beef ribs, hot links, chicken, and even jackfruit. BBQ places seldom offer appetizers, but Bludso serves queso with chips, fried okra, hush puppies, and smoked jumbo wings to get things started.

• Location: Memphis, Tennessee

In a song called "Memphis in the Meantime," which imagines leaving Nashville for that city, John Hiatt sings "At least we can get a decent meal / Down at the Rendezvous." Its many fans would say that the meals here are a lot more than decent. Ribs are the main thing, dry-rubbed and smoked, but the pork shoulder, brisket, and lamb riblets, among other things, aren't bad either.

• Location: Llano, Austin, College Station, Fort Worth, and New Braunfels, Texas

George Cooper launched his barbecue place in Mason in 1953. His son Tommy opened a branch in Llano in 1962. (The Mason restaurant is still in business, under different owners, as Cooper's Original Pit Bar-B-Q.) After Tommy's demise in 1979, an employee named Kenneth Laird assumed control, running Cooper's until 1986, when Terry Wootan bought it. He has since expanded into other Texas locations. The place bills itself as "Home of the Big Chop" — that being an oversized pork chop. All the other traditional barbecue meats are served, too, in addition to pork loin, prime rib, goat, and beef jerky.

• Location: Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Charles Martin opened Dink's in 1982, later selling it to Jim Curd, whose family remains in charge. According to the restaurant website, the original "famous pit" — still used — was built with the help of an unnamed "long-time Texas barbecue pioneer." Hickory-smoked meats form the heart of the menu, and the signature side dish is fried onion strings.

• Location: West Allis, Wisconsin

Mark and Judy Timber acquired Double B's, an old-style bar and restaurant, in 2015 and developed it into a Memphis-style smokehouse, later moving it to a larger building next door. In addition to the expected barbecue meats, the menu lists a kielbasa plate (this is Wisconsin, after all), smoked bacon balls (hickory-smoked meatballs wrapped in bacon and deep-fried), and "hog wings" (smoked pork shanks tossed in BBQ sauce).

• Location: Oakland and Antioch, California

This East Bay classic was opened by Dorothy Everett and her family in 1973 (Jones was the married name of one of Everett's daughters), and it has since earned a reputation as one of California's best purveyors of 'cue. The sausage is made in-house, there's smoked chicken as well as other meats, and the house BBQ sauce is famous.

• Location: Brooklyn, New York

Proprietor Joe Carroll, who opened this place (the name is German for "fat pig") in 2007, once described the style as being "one part Central Texas and one part New York deli. Though at one point he served smoked beef tongue pastrami and still offers sauerkraut and half-sour pickles among the sides, the Lone Star State seems to be the dominate influence. The restaurant offers they'd-eat-it-in-Texas brisket, as well as such meats as pork belly, pulled pork, pork ribs, and spicy sausage.

• Location: Austin, Texas

Aaron Franklin's experience with barbecue was mostly through backyard cookouts, so it's likely that nobody was more surprised than he was when he started selling BBQ out of a trailer in 2009 and suddenly found himself a Texas culinary celebrity, with hungry would-be customers standing in line for hours for a serving of his brisket (which often sold out). He has since opened a restaurant, penned a bestselling book about barbecue, won a James Beard Best Chef Award, and welcomed everyone from Jimmy Kimmel to Barack Obama. Brisket remains his calling card, though pork, ribs, turkey, and sausage are also on the menu.

• Location: Kansas City, Missouri

This five-location operation, probably the second-best-known 'cue place in town after Arthur Bryant's (see above), began in 1946 when George W. Gates opened a place called Gates Ol' Kentucky. Eventually renamed for it evolved into a KC essential. The menu offers ribs, sausage, mutton, chicken, and more, and burnt ends — a local specialty — are served on a hoagie.

• Location: Greenville and Simpsonville, South Carolina

The first location of this popular BBQ stop opened in 1991 in Greenville. Not surprisingly, proprietors Tiger O'Rourke and Bo Wilder specialize in barbecue South Carolina style — i.e., mostly pork and mostly chopped, though there are also ribs and Lowcountry hash (pork with potatoes). Southern Living magazine has called Henry's the best barbecue joint in the state.

• Location: New York City and Washington, D.C.

If you think midtown Manhattan or the nation's capital are unlikely places to find real Texas-style barbecue, these operations will set you straight. Opened in 2007 by Marc and Kristen Glosserman (Marc's grandfather was the mayor of Lockhart, the Hill Country town that calls itself the barbecue capital of Texas), the restaurant serves meats smoked over post oak imported from you-know-where. Brisket above all but also dry-aged beef shoulder, pulled pork, spare ribs, turkey breast, chicken, and sausages are all sold by weight and served with tortillas. Sweet potato Bourbon mash and Texas red chili are among the sides.

• Location: Kansas City, Olathe, and Leawood, Kansas

In 1990, Jeff and Joy Stehney formed a competition barbecue team and started racking up victories. They met Joe Don Davidson, owner of Oklahoma Joe's Smoker Company, and went into business with him in 1995, first with a catering company and then with Oklahoma Joe's, a BBQ place in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The partners subsequently opened a restaurant in a former gas station in Kansas City, Kansas. After Davidson retired in 1997, the Oklahoma establishment closed and the Stehneys concentrated on Kansas, eventually adding two other locations and an event space. Pulled pork is the specialty, but there's also brisket, ham, and turkey, as well as hearty sandwiches —like the Z-Man, made with brisket, provolone, and onion rings on a Kaiser roll.

• Location: Marianna, Arkansas

Most probably the oldest Black-owned restaurant of any kind in America, this establishment, opened more than a century ago and dubbed an American Classic by the James Beard Foundation, is still run by members of the founding Jones family. There's not much choice here: The place smokes pork shoulders, period, over hickory and oak, and serves the pulled meat on Wonder Bread, with slaw on the side. Warning: Jones opens at 7 a.m., and closes when the pork runs out — which may well be before noon.

• Location: Lockhart, Texas

This historic barbecue place in the Hill Country town considered to be the state's BBQ capital began as a meat market opened by Jesse Swearingen in 1875. In 1900, he sold it to Charles Kreuz Sr., who renamed it. Kreuzes owned it until 1948, when Edgar Schmidt, a butcher who had worked at the market for years, took it over. Various Schmidt descendants have owned it to this day. It moved to a new location in 1999, however, with the old place being taken over by another member of the family and opened as Smitty's Market. Beef rules here, with brisket, ribs, prime rib, and clod available. There's also pork, though, and the house-made sausages enjoy a well-deserved popularity.

• Location: Chicago

Mississippian Leon Finney Sr. launched this place in 1940. His enterprise grew to four locations, before closing in 2011, four years after his death. His son Leon Jr. reopened one of the restaurants in 2017. Ribs and above all rib tips — the house specialty — are the only barbecue on the menu. They're cooked in a so-called aquarium smoker, a device (indigenous to Chicago) that looks like an elongated fish tank, and the tips are drenched in BBQ sauce and spooned over fries. The rest of the menu is made up of hot links and fried chicken, shrimp, catfish, and perch.

• Location: Taylor, Texas

According to its website, Louie Mueller is "The best BBQ restaurant in Texas (which means the best in the world)." Mueller himself opened the place in 1949. He was succeeded in 1974 by his son Bobby, who in turn passed the place along to his own son Wayne in 2007. There are sandwiches, but most people order their meat — brisket, of course, but also beef ribs, spare ribs, pork loin, chicken, and. house-made sausage — by the pound, served on butcher paper, or else opt for chopped beef or pulled pork by the half-pint, pint, or quart container.

• Location: Purcellville, Virginia

In 2011, Brian and Kirsten Jenkins, Nick Calabrese, and Mike Jewell set up shop as a food truck situated at Corcoran Vineyards in Waterford. Today, while they still sell their 'cue around the region from their mobile unit, their full-scale restaurant opened in 2014. In addition to the classic options, barbecue pastrami is on the menu, and around the holidays cured, smoked ham and turkey are available.

• Location: Owensboro, Kentucky

Moonlite was opened in the heart of Bourbon country in 1949, and bought by former distillery workers Catherine and Pappy Bosley in 1963. What was once a 30-seat roadside eatery is now a 350-seat restaurant with its own meat processing plant. Members of the Bosley family are still in charge. The menu includes chicken, pork, beef, and mutton, among other things, and there is a daily buffet full of meats and vegetables, salads, and desserts.

• Location: St. Louis and St. Peters, Missouri

Mike Emerson lit the fires here in 2008, naming the place in honor of his late brother, Jim "Pappy" Emerson, and Emersons still run it. Memphis-style ribs, dry-rubbed and smoked over cherry and apple wood — and repeatedly named as some of the best in America — are the focus here. Platters and sandwiches of pulled pork, chicken, turkey breast, brisket, hot links, and burnt ends are served as well, and Pappy's also offers a salad, Frito pie, or baked potato topped with a choice of meats.

• Location: Detroit

Slabs of ribs, rib sandwiches, pulled pork, and beef ribs, as well as smoked chicken and chicken wings are on the menu at this well-loved Motor City barbecue place, opened by Edward "Terry" Parks in 1964. (His grandchildren run it today.) Sides include traditional accompaniments like potato salad, coleslaw, and baked beans, but there are also jalapeño poppers and battered and fried mushrooms on the menu.

• Location: Hemingway, South Carolina

Roosevelt "Rosie" and Ella Jane Scott moved from Philadelphia to this community near Myrtle Beach in 1972 and opened a variety store and barbecue place, where they smoked whole hogs for pulled pork. Their son Rodney started working here as a preteen and became a famed pitmaster himself — among other things earning a James Beard Best Chef Award — before splitting from his family and striking off on his own. Meanwhile, his parents continued to run this place, offering their signature half-pound pulled pork plate, plus smoked chicken and ribeye steak, as well as half and whole pit-cooked hogs. Rosie died in 2020, and Ella Jane succumbed late last year. The place closed temporarily in her honor but will reopen May 15, 2024.

• Location: Ayden, North Carolina

This venerable Greenville-area barbecue spot was founded by Pete Jones in 1947, and members of his family still operate it today. (Pete's grandson Sam was honored as one of the top ten pitmasters in the South by Southern Living magazine.) Whole-hog cookery is the specialty, and in fact, the only meats offered are "pig" and "yardbird" (chicken), and the only sides are coleslaw, potato salad, baked beans, potato skins, and cornbread. (If yardbird is your thing, you'll want to know the best spot to get chicken wings in every state.)