So today's travels took me by a well hyped Atlanta BBQ spot, Rodney Scott's. Been hyped up in the southern press, read that as bowties and monograms press. IYKYK

Well...... where do I start. Thought I'd pull in and see what all the noise was about.

First clue, 3/4 empty parking lot. Well Georgia seems to set up alot of their bbq joints as sit down supper joints not lunch crowd joints so I let it slide and walked in anyway. The place was mostly empty.

I caught the faint, very faint, hint of hickory smoke. Promising as Georgia isn't known for using hickory.

Clue #2, option of two styles of cue, Southern or Carolina. In my cue world a joint lives or dies on doing just one thing right not playing around with styles.

Next, choice of four sauces. See clue #2.

In for a penny so I ordered a sandwich, collards and cornbread. The three holy grails.

I got a nice helping of pulled pork, no sauce, on a toasted potato bun. Toasted fine, should be a plain white burger bun. A bowl of collards that tasted good but were still crunchy. They were cooked with onion and hot pepper. No pepper sauce on the table, wth. The corn cake was just that a heavy chunk of more flour than meal sugared cake.

The meat was good typical wet Georgia pulled cue that I've come to expect among these heathens. Seems Georgia doesn't do the dryer chopped cue I grew up on.

All in all not totally bad but definitely not good cue.

I've given up on finding good cue anywhere inside the perimeter. Got get out away from town to find the good bbq joints.

Now that's what I'm talking about!

…. Don’t care for that drowned in sauce stuff either… pork is naturally moist

And yet theres stinkers in Texas too...worst brisket I ever had was in Texas....but had the best there too.... so.....it depends, lol

and it's pretty hard to screw up pulled pork, but there must be a contest for it cause it happens regularely....

That's a descent write up warrior. I went to a burger joint the awhile back. New place on main street. New sign, new counter, new tv's, flat top grill... and he pulled frozen patties from Walmart out of the freezer flopped them down on the griddle. If I was to open a place (I worked through college waiting tables) id focus on one thing and do it well, you are so right. So many people think you make up for that with quantity and they are going the wrong direction. Its hard to be good at business and art both, usually two diff types of people.

My gold standard of bbq is Courtneys, Clover SC. Vinegar mustard sauce, red slaw.

Good BBQ, and especially brisket, is hard for a restaurant to do. If you look at the better places in TX and elsewhere, the really busy ones, brisket is only sliced when it is ordered. And a busy place serves it about as fast as they can slice it. The reason being as soon as you slice it, it starts drying out and going downhill. So if you are a small or slow place, and you slice your brisket, then heat it when it's ordered, it will never be as good. That seem to apply to most small town joints I can think of. It's mostly the same and not all that good. It's also expensive. Meat is high and smoking it for 12 hours min is labor intensive. Pulled pork and ribs run a little better. None of it compares to what a guy who knows what he is doing can do at home.

His place in SC has some darn good food. seems like the original locations are the ones that get it right.

I think this thread needs a list of the good places for next time I drive that way , which will probably be this winter depending on work schedules

Anyone passing through Memphis should stop at road side BBQ. It's been years since I was there but it's the best I have ever had. Was ran by a couple large size black ladies and had a bunch of kids running around.

Told her to give me her favorite. I wiped out my first order made a 2nd finished it and got 3 more orders to go and put them in the cooler for later on my trip. I need a reason to get back down there. Those girls can cook now or whoever was running the cooker. Had a great accents and speech patterns/words. Absolutely good folks and great family run business. At least at the time I was down there it was.

If your ever in powdery KY the donut shop in front of Buds gun shop is run by Vietnamese guy and has the best donuts I have ever had. Not over loaded with the sweat stuff and nice and crisp. Befor low carb was a thought for me i have made the 2 hr drive to go there and used the gun shop ( used to be uncle lee's) as an excuse..