Gibson's Bar-b-que

Elkmont, Alabama

Weather: low 52 degrees, high 75 degrees, clear skies

It was another beautiful day in the Tennessee Valley, the kind that a chamber of commerce loves to tout as being typical. It sure is a nice change from the cold weather of the winter.

Lori and her family left bright and early for Texas this morning. It was a nice change for us in having them here for the second time in three weeks. We enjoyed having them here, and they seemed to have a good time. As they were leaving, they said they would see us in June. All right!!

At lunch time, we decided to try a bar-b-que restaurant that we hadn't been to before. We're getting leery of the bar-b-que up here, but are game to keep trying to find a restaurant that we'll like. So, today it was the turn of Big Bob Gibson's Bar-B-Que.

Gibson's has been in Decatur for over 75 years, and we figured if they lasted that long, they must be doing something right. Plus, in watching bar-b-que cook-offs on television, we noticed that they seemed to do well against teams from all over the country.

The first thing we noticed when we drove in to the parking lot about 1230 was that the parking lot was almost full. The second thing we noticed was that their sign by the street was welcoming The Food Network. Hmmmm, must be pretty good.

When we walked inside, only a couple of tables were empty. We were seated and the server took our orders. Both of us ordered the regular pork plate. The sides for Carolyn were potato salad and baked beans. The sides for me were cole slaw and a bag of potato chips. Why did we get those sides? because that's all the sides they had. No garlic toast or french fries, or anything else.

The pork was not pulled, but chopped in to coarse pieces. There was no seasoning on it that we could tell, and both of us agreed that it tasted as though it had been boiled, instead of cooked over a fire. The beans tasted as though they came out of a can.

The service was efficient, but I wouldn't call it friendly at all. Carolyn's take on that was that the servers had been trained to get people in and out as quickly as possible, especially at lunch time.

Would we go back to Gibson's? We wouldn't go to get the pork, and with the limited number of sides, I'm not sure we'll go back at all. In watching the television shows that Gibson's team competed on in bar-b-que cook-offs, we got the impression that the pork was their claim to fame. If so, either a lot of people have no idea what good bar-b-que tastes like, or they have the wrong idea of what it should taste like.

Why is it so hard to find good bar-b-que outside Texas? And Mexican food?

More later, be safe.

Today's Town - Decatur, Alabama: Home Of Meow Mix

Not all who wander are lost.