South's Best Barbecue Joints - Southern Partisan Online

Each year in our South’s Best poll, we ask our readers to name their picks for the South’s Best barbecue joint in each state. The results have been fairly consistent in recent few years, with a familiar cast of old favorites tending to bubble to the top. There are always a few surprises in the mix, though, and the top picks for 2025 are quite reflective of the current state of barbecue in the South. For starters, there’s a blend of old and new. Roughly half the joints in this year’s list are more than 50 years old, and the other half were founded in the 21st century. Only one opened during the fallow years of the 1980s and ’90s.

Texas-style brisket continues to spread across the South, winning over fans from Charleston to Little Rock. At the same time, old-school icons that helped define the styles of their regions are still going strong, including a few that edged out much younger competitors to claim a spot on the list. Roll it all together, and you have a tasty tour of the many flavors and styles that characterize Southern barbecue in 2025.

Alabama: Big Bob Gibson’s

Decatur

The oldest restaurant on this list, Big Bob Gibson, celebrates its 100th birthday this year. It started out as a backyard operation, with Robert “Big Bob” Gibson cooking pork shoulders and chickens to sell to friends and neighbors. From there he graduated to a series of barbecue stands and eventually an air-conditioned restaurant on Highway 31 just south of Decatur. In 1987, his family moved into the current building, where fifth-generation pitmaster Chris Lilly and his crew still cook on wood-fired brick pits. They’re still using the founder’s sauce recipes, too, including the now-iconic Alabama-style white barbecue sauce that Big Bob created to dress his smoked chicken.

bigbobgibson.com; 1715 6th Ave SE (US Highway 31), Decatur, AL 35601; 256-350-6969

Arkansas Wright’s Barbecue

Various

Wright’s Barbecue is a noteworthy practitioner of the Texas-inspired craft style that is taking the South by storm, and barbecue fans in Arkansas are eating it up. At the original location just outside Fayetteville in Johnson, a row of Moberg offset smokers under canopy tents turn out an impressive version of the Texas Trinity—thick-sliced brisket, tender pepper-spiked ribs, and juicy sausage links—plus notable extras like bacon burnt ends and gooey banana pudding. It’s proven so popular that owner Jordan Wright has added locations in Bentonville, Rogers, and Little Rock.

wrightsbbq.com for locations

Florida: Big John’s Alabama BBQ

Big Johnâs Alabama Barbecue — Robert Moss

Tampa

As Florida boomed as a tourist destination in the decades after World War II, migrating entrepreneurs brought barbecue styes from around the South down to the Sunshine State. Among them was the Rev. John A. Stephens, who moved to East Tampa from Eufaula, Alabama, and opened Big John’s in 1968. Today the restaurant is run by Stephens’s grandchildren, and it still features outstanding chicken, sausage, and ribs cooked hot and fast over blazing wood on an Alabama-style open brick pit.

bigjohnsalabamabbq.com; 5707 N 40th St, Tampa, FL 33610; 813-623-3600

Georgia: Southern Soul Barbeque

Southern Soul Barbeque in Georgia — Wynn Myers

St. Simons Island

In 2006, Harrison Sapp and Griffin Buffkin transformed an old St. Simons service station into an island barbecue oasis, and this year it reclaimed the crown as the best joint in Georgia. Southern Soul was among the early wave of new-school restaurants that opened just after the turn of the 21st century, giving contemporary twists to old Southern classics. Smoky pulled pork and savory Brunswick stew are served alongside Sapp’s unique brown sugar and honey-glazed ribs, and they’re accompanied by creative specials like pit-cooked meatloaf or pastrami sandwiches and smoked chicken tortilla soup.

southernsoulbbq.com; 2020 Demere Rd, St Simons Island, GA 31522; 912-638-7685

Kentucky: Moonlite Bar-B-Que Inn

Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn — Hector Manuel Sanchez

Owensboro

Kentucky is known for its barbecued mutton, and Moonlite is the best-known purveyor of it in the state. You can order it chopped or sliced, and you can finish it with Moonlite’s signature tangy orange sauce or with Kentucky’s distinct Worcestershire-laced “dip.” The long-all-you-can-eat buffets offer plenty of barbecue beef, pork, ribs, and chicken, too, alongside a range of Southern-style veggies and desserts. Don’t skip over the burgoo: it’s a splendidly peppery version of Kentucky’s classic barbecue stew.

moonlite.com; 2840 W Parrish Ave, Owensboro, KY 42301; 270-684-8143

Louisiana: The Joint

New Orleans

Half restaurant, half bar hangout, the Joint is a prime example of a modern neighborhood barbecue joint, and Southern Living’s readers have once again declared it the best Louisiana. Brisket, ribs, pork, and sausage are cooked low-and-slow on big metal pits and served on paper-lined platters or piled atop locally-baked Gendusa French bread buns. They’re joined by rotating specials like pastrami sandwiches and barbecue tacos on housemade flour tortillas.

alwayssmokin.com; 701 Mazant St, New Orleans, LA 70117; 504-949-3232

Maryland: Blue Pit BBQ & Whiskey Bar

Baltimore

Two storied Southern traditions—slow-aged whiskey and slow-smoked meats—converge at Blue Pit BBQ & Whiskey Bar in Baltimore. There aren’t many frills to setting—folding metal chairs and mismatched tables inside, picnic tables with blue umbrellas on the deck out back—but the lineup of spirits and barbecue is over the top. The whiskey list spans hundreds of labels. Metal platters brim with thick slices of coffee-rubbed brisket and slabs of bourbon-glazed ribs. Sandwiches are piled high with pulled pork or chicken, and they’re accompanied by amped-up versions of classic sides, like red chili mayo slaw and loaded potato salad laced with Benton’s bacon.

bluepitbbq.com; 1601 Union Ave, Baltimore, MD 21211; 443-948-5590

Mississippi: The Shed BBQ Joint

Pork sandwich — The Shed BBQ and Blues Joint

Ocean Springs

What started out in 2001 as a 300 square foot barbecue shack has grown over the years into a sprawling compound of wooden sheds and outdoor picnic tables. Loyal “ShedHeds” return year after year for heaping platters of pecan-smoked baby backs, pulled pork, brisket and chicken served in a splendidly funky setting at the edge of a Mississippi bayou.

theshedbbq.com; 7501 MS-57, Ocean Springs, MS 39565; 228-875-9590

Missouri: Arthur Bryant’s BBQ

Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque — Hector Manuel Sanchez

Kansas City

Kansas City’s barbecue landscape has shifted in recent years thanks to a parade of aspiring pitmasters bringing the styles of Texas and elsewhere to this storied smoked meat capital. Our readers, however, are sticking a local icon: Arthur Bryant’s. The counter men carve tender folds of smoked beef, pork, turkey, and ham on stainless steel slicers then pile it atop slices of white bread on paper-line trays. Bryant’s orange spice-laced sauce is unique, and superb hand-cut fries round out a barbecue meal you can find only in Kansas City.

arthurbryantsbbq.com; 1727 Brooklyn Ave, Kansas City, MO 64127; 816-231-1123

North Carolina: Lexington Barbecue

Lexington

It’s not quite accurate to say that nothing has changed at Lexington Barbecue since Wayne Monk founded it in 1962. The building has been expanded several times over the decades, and they do take credit cards now. The barbecue, though, is still prepared the way Monk learned it from his mentor Warner Stamey, North Carolina’s pioneering barbecue restaurateur. Pork shoulders are cooked directly over oak and hickory coals in closed brick pits, then chopped, sliced, or “coarse chopped” (cut into chunks). It’s dressed in a tangy, slightly-spicy “dip” (vinegar and tomato sauce) and served with crisp-golden brown hushpuppies and finely-minced vinegar slaw tinged red with ketchup—an essential example of the classic Piedmont North Carolina style.

lexbbq.com; 100 Smokehouse Ln, Lexington, NC 27295; 336-249-9814

Oklahoma: Oklahoma Joe’s Bar-B-Cue

Various

Oklahoma Joe’s emerged out of the rapidly-growing barbecue competition scene in the 1980s. Joe Don Davidson began manufacturing Oklahoma Joe’s offset smokers in 1987, and he used his pits to win dozens of competitions around the South before opening the first Oklahoma Joe’s restaurant in Stillwater in 1996. The offering blends competition styles—thin-sliced brisket, neatly-trimmed ribs—with a few Oklahoma specialties like smoked bologna and hot links. The signature “BarbeQulossal” sandwiches pile sliced brisket or burnt ends along with smoked provolone, onion rings, and tangy brown sauce inside a soft Kaiser roll.

okjoes.com for locations

South Carolina: Lewis Barbecue

Lewis Barbecue in South Carolina — Andrew Cebulka

Charleston & Greenville

Call it a sign of the times, for the joint our readers named the best in South Carolina features slow smoked beef instead of mustard-sauced pork. John Lewis moved east from Austin in 2016 to open a Texas-style barbecue joint in the heart of downtown Charleston, and in 2022 he added a second location in Greenville. The prime brisket is as good as any in the South, and so are the spicy hot guts sausages and meaty spareribs. Hatch chile corn pudding and green Hatch chile barbecue sauce add a few accents from Lewis’s hometown of El Paso.

lewisbarbecue.com for locations

Tennessee: Charlie Vergos’ Rendezvous

Memphis

This year, the city of Memphis wrested the South’s Best award away from Nashville, for our readers declared Charlie Vergos’ Rendezvous the tops in Tennessee. Founded in 1948, the Rendezvous is the originator of the now-iconic Memphis-style dry rubbed ribs, which are cooked hot and fast on a charcoal-fired pit and finished with a thick layer of red spices. They’re served on foil-lined platters with cups of slaw of beans and glasses of cold draft beer to wash it all down.

hogsfly.com; 52 S 2nd St, Memphis, TN 38103; 901-523-2746

Texas: Franklin Barbecue

Austin

In 2009, Aaron Franklin helped launch the craft barbecue movement from a small Aristocrat Lo-Liner camper trailer parked near I-35 in downtown Austin. Flawless prime-grade brisket, tender pork ribs, and snappy jalapeño cheddar sausage—plus a dose of nascent social media—rocketed him to Internet celebrity. Franklin Barbecue moved into its current blue and white building on East 11th Street in 2011, and barbecue fans from around the globe have been lining up for hours to experience it.

franklinbbq.com; 900 E 11th St, Austin, TX 78702; 512-653-1187

Virginia: Pierce’s Pitt Bar-B-Que

Williamsburg

With bright orange and yellow tables and a counter-service format, Pierce’s Pitt looks like a modern fast-food restaurant. Out back in the metal-walled cookhouse, though, they’re still cooking ribs, chicken, and beef on cinderblock pits just like Julius “Doc” Pierce did when he began selling barbecue sandwiches from a roadside stand in 1971. They’re still dressing the pork in Doc’s original sauce, too, a sweet and tangy blend of tomato and vinegar.

pierces.com; 447 E Rochambeau Dr, Williamsburg, VA 23188; 757-565-2955

West Virginia: Rollin’ Smoke BBQ

Charleston

In the 2010s, a wave of aspiring restaurateurs started out with mobile pits and roving barbecue trailers before settling into permanent locations. That was the exact trajectory for Carl and Marsha Aplin, who in 2012 parked their smoker truck alongside the Elk River and built a barbecue restaurant around it. The Aplins have since sold the business, but the smoked meats still include thin-sliced brisket, pulled pork, and meaty spareribs. They’re joined by a slate of barbecue-topped nachos and mac and cheese bowls, and guests can still enjoy it all on the big airy decks overlooking the peaceful river below.

facebook.com/rollinsmokewv; 4008 Crede Dr, Charleston, WV 25302; 304-965-0808

–southernliving.com

South’s Best Barbecue Joints