Let the barbecue wars begin! Memphis will play host to not one, but two (!!), barbecue competitions in May — on the same weekend. Our May barbecue series previews both the new SmokeSlam BBQ Festival and the longtime Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (WCBCC).

Today we’re sharing an overview of Memphis barbecue. Next week, we’ll have competition results and recipes you can make at home.

While barbecue teams at Midtown’s Liberty Park and Downtown’s Tom Lee Park are setting up for their respective competitions, loading in their smokers and grills and coolers (and booze stashes), here’s a broad look at the Memphis barbecue scene.

It’s just in time for National Barbecue Day Thursday, May 16.

 (And if you plan to go to both barbecue events, let me know. I’d love to talk to you.) 

Memphis barbecue is know for pulled pork and a lightly sweet tomato-based sauce, like the sandwich pictured here from local chain Tops Bar-B-Q. (Jim Weber/The Daily Memphian file)

What is Memphis-style barbecue?

Distinguished from the beef of Texas or the white sauce of Alabama, Memphis’ barbecue is all about pork, dry rub and a slightly sweet tomato-based sauce.

Michelle and Brandon O’Guinn are barbecue competitors and judges, and they own Ain’t It The Life catering company. They also serve as the judging chairs for the WCBCC, which means they’re in charge of the logistics of evaluating more than 120 teams with 300 judges in a half-dozen cooking categories. 

I had the chance to interview them for The Daily Memphian’s Sound Bites podcast last week, if you want to learn more about them, their passion for barbecue and the methods of WCBCC judging. 

Michelle, left, and Brandon O’Guinn have volunteered with Memphis in May since 2013 when the couple met. (Holly Whitfield/The Daily Memphian)

“To me, Memphis barbecue is all about a nice tomato-based sauce — some nice, you know, hickory smoke, a nice little smoked flavor,” Brandon O’Guinn said. 

He added Kansas City’s barbecue is quite a bit sweeter and Texas features beef and “a lot of salt and pepper.”

Michelle O’Guinn said to her, Memphis barbecue is uncomplicated, at least in how the meat is prepared for everyday meals.

“(Memphis barbecue) is a good dry rub rib,” she said. “In competition, everybody’s saucing it up and making it sticky. But good, traditional Memphis barbecue … I mean, Tops just does salt and pepper on their pork butts, I believe, and they just get a good, even smoke on it.”

Corky’s BBQ’s full rack of ribs served at their Poplar Avenue location. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)

Clint Cantwell is a Memphis-based food writer, barbecue judge and cooking contest competitor. He’s the president of AmazingRibs.com, which he’s contributed to since 2016 after several years running the official Kingsford barbecue website. AmazingRibs.com claims to be the largest most-visited barbecue website in the world. 

He described Memphis as a pork-centric barbecue city with a sauce that’s sweet, maybe with a bit of vinegar.

“But it’s really the pork focus in my opinion that sets it apart,” he said. “And there’s also some really unique barbecue dishes that are very specific to Memphis and were born out of Memphis, like barbecue spaghetti.”

Memphis barbecue innovation

In true Memphis fashion, we’ve used barbecue in all kinds of nontraditional ways. 

Southern Living’s Robert Moss calls barbecue spaghetti “a Memphis icon,” albeit “unusual.” 

Our own Chris Herrington dug into the origins of the dish with reporting based on Craig David Meek’s book “Memphis Barbecue.” Meek says the dish was invented by 1950s Memphis restaurateur Brady Vincent. Versions of his recipe are served today at The Bar-B-Q Shop and Interstate Barbecue Downtown.

Local favorite barbecue nachos are said to come from Germantown Commissary in the 1980s but blew up in popularity when AutoZone Park and FedExForum started offering them as stadium snacks.

Barbecue nachos served on housemade potato chips, by special request, at Central BBQ’s Summer Avenue location. (Jennifer Biggs/The Daily Memphian file)

“Barbecue nachos were basically created for the Redbirds,” Cantwell said. “And now they’re on every menu in the city.”

And Coletta’s, along with claiming to be the city’s oldest restaurant, also claims to have invented barbecue pizza, which you can now find, well, everywhere.

Overview of restaurants

If you’ve lived in Memphis for any length of time, you’re familiar with the big names and perennial favorites of barbecue restaurants. 

But one thing that strikes me about our scene here is the diversity of style, atmospheres and recipes that all fall under the umbrella of our signature cuisine. There’s a decent stream of relative newcomers to the arena.

A sample of brisket, pork shoulder, sausage, smoked turkey and ribs served at Bain’s Barbecue, a Texas-style barbecue restaurant. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)

Bain Barbecue began as a food truck with long lines for their Texas-style smoked brisket and beef ribs; they opened a permanent location in Cooper Young in 2022.

Smurfey’s Smokehouse also started out as a food truck, a mainstay at the Thursday lunch Court Square food truck gatherings. They opened a storefront Downtown in early 2024.

Ask 10 people their favorite Elwood’s Shack’s menu item, and you’ll get about 10 different answers, but a thread of barbecue runs through most of them: the brisket, the barbecue pizza, a hot dog with barbecue sauce and blue-cheese slaw. They opened a second location on Park Avenue in 2023.

Bala Tounkara, owner of Bala’s Bistro, opened Mande Dibi West African BBQ Grill in Hickory Hill in spring 2024, fusing Memphis and West African barbecue styles.

Mande Dibi owner Bala Tounkara says he plans to enter a Memphis barbecue competition next year. “After I settle here? Oh, we are definitely gonna stand up out there for the Memphis barbecue (contest),” he said. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)

Arnold’s Smokehouse opened in 2023 with barbecued pork rib tips and smoked chicken, along with — gasp! — vegan options, too, like a barbecue-jackfruit flatbread. 

I don’t mean to ignore the tried-and-true classics, several of which have been name-dropped into this story.

There’s also Blues City Cafe on Beale Street with their wet racks of ribs and loaded gumbo fries; One and Only’s ribs, brisket and two kinds of potato salad; pulled pork at Tom’s Barbecue; more sandwiches (and breakfast!) at Three Little Pigs.

A&R Bar-B-Que was No. 11 on Southern Living’s 2023 top 50 restaurants list. Cozy Corner appeared at 25; Rendezvous at 47. Ballhoggerz does a little bit of everything: pulled pork, ribs and a smoked pulled-turkey sandwich.

We really could list Memphis barbecue restaurants all day.

How the WCBCC defines Memphis barbecue 

Cantwell has judged a dozen or so contests, including what he describes as the three biggest in the United States: Memphis in May’s WCBCC, American Royal World Series of Barbecue in Kansas City and the Jack Daniels World Championship Invitational in Lynchburg, Tennessee.

He doesn’t put much stock in the “world championship” name, but he says that does not make Memphis in May any less prestigious. 

Members of the Barbecue Trapp Haus team shake hands on the way to the stage to accept a fourth place trophy in the shoulder category during the last day of the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest in Liberty Park May 14, 2022. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian file)

“It’s a contest that people from around the world respect and come to, to visitor-cook in, and you know, it’s kind of the cornerstone of Memphis barbecue,” he said.

“It’s considered one of the top in the country and one of the biggest,” he said. 

Several of the Mid-South’s restaurants began as competition teams.

Pitmaster Melissa Cookston, who retired from competition last year, is a two-time WCBCC grand champion with five first-place category finishes. She opened Memphis Barbecue Co. in Horn Lake in 2011. 

Melissa Cookston, the “winningest woman in barbecue,” retired from competing after the 2023 Memphis in May WCBCC ended. She will appear as a special guest at SmokeSlam. (Jennifer Biggs/The Daily Memphian file)

Fat Larry’s BBQ in Bartlett is named for Larry Mayes who was the WCBCC grand champion in 1999; his family has run the restaurant since his death in 2020. 

Central BBQ’s founders Craig Blondis and Roger Sapp started out cooking at Memphis in May and other contests; the restaurant opened in 2002 and is now a regional chain with eight locations. They make it to the top of many local lists, especially with their barbecue nachos and even their smoked chicken wings.

The problem with naming the ‘best’ Memphis barbecue restaurant

I moderated a 20,000-plus member Memphis food-themed Facebook group for several years. Without fail, someone asked the group for the city’s “best” or “must-try” barbecue spots several times a week. It’s an impossible question, but one that visitors and newbies yearn to learn.

I’ll offer a few pieces of advice: The first is everyone has their own top spot, so simply pick a starting point and get to eating. My second tip is to learn what to order where.

Rendezvous customers enjoy the restaurant’s world famous barbecue Sept. 28, 2023. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)

“People do (want a definitive answer). And I don’t understand that,” Brandon O’Guinn said. “You go to different restaurants for different things. You go to Gus’s for fried chicken, you go to Payne’s for a sandwich, you go to The Rendezvous for a sausage and cheese plate and the atmosphere.

“Every barbecue restaurant in Memphis that is legendary has something that is the reason why it got famous … it really depends on what you’re in the mood for as a Memphian.”

People do have their favorites, of course. 

“If I did my own list of top Memphis barbecue places, Payne’s would be at the top because it’s just hands down the best pork sandwich that I’ve ever had in my life,” Cantwell said. “It’s cooked over live fire, they chop it up and you get those crunchy bits in there. And then the mustard slaw is very unique, and it just works all together.”

The O’Guinns do both believe Leonard’s BBQ is a good representation of Memphis-style barbecue. 

“I just think that one still held with tradition,” Michelle said. “Leonard’s is my ultimate example of Memphis barbecue to me because ... just their flavor and their sauce is ... that’s what I grew up on.”

Ranking these restaurants is just as difficult as judging competition barbecue, so like the O’Guinns suggest, you’ll just have to take a tour.

The rib plate at Leonard's can come with spaghetti on the side. (Chris Herrington/The Daily Memphian file)

A final word, re: battle of the barbecue

As a matter of housekeeping, there’s been some confusion about which barbecue event is which. Maybe this breakdown by the numbers will help:

Editor’s note: Kevin McEniry — a member of the board of Memphis Fourth Estate, the nonprofit that owns and operates The Daily Memphian — is founder and master producer of the Mempho Festival and Mempho Presents.

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