IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN
     This year for barbecue cooking contest week, we’re going back to April 14, 1978, and a barbecue sandwich taste-off conducted by The Commercial Appeal. The newspaper solicited reader favorites, and then ate at as many of the restaurants as “time and Di-Gel” allowed. The CA tasters declared their winner, and then commented on and rated (on a scale of four pigs to one pig) the top eight shops in the reader poll.
     For the CA staffers, the winner was an apparent revelation. It was named by just a couple of  readers, “but one was particularly persuasive.” The rest of the story: “But after two weeks of sneaking sauce-stained notebooks in and out of restaurants known for their barbecue, we were just about ready to pick up a hamburger and call it quits. Then we ate lunch at Payne’s… . The unpretentious little restaurant served the best no-fuss, no-frills, honest-to-goodness barbecue we tasted.”
      The scene of this discovery was not the Payne’s location that is known and loved today, at 1762 Lamar, but a bit farther down Lamar, in a converted garage at 1897. The Payne’s business model was pretty much in place then – “There’s no atmosphere, at least not in the contrived sense of coordinated wallpaper and laminated menus. Nine bright orange booths surround a wide expanse of flooring that looks like it’s just been polished for a high school sock hop. Bamboo shades hang over the old garage doors. Clearly, the interest is behind the counter” – and entirely on the pork. There were no side dishes, just a drink machine, a rack of potato chips and a pile of  chocolate marshmallow pies. A sliced shoulder sandwich was $1.40, a chopped shoulder $1.10.

     Here are the readers’ picks, starting with No. 8 – Brady & Lil’s­ — and No. 7 – Rendezvous – which tied in the reader poll. Said the CA:  “Charlie Vergos’ Rendezvous, the well-known beer-and-barbecue-rib place at 52  South Second downtown, received the same number of votes as a tiny little restaurant called Brady & Lil’s at 601 South Parkway East. Since most letters singled out the Rendezvous for outstanding ribs rather than for barbecue sandwiches we decided to try the smaller place of business.”  The tasters said the texture of the meat “is a little strange, and the flavor of the grated onion in the slaw seems to crowd out a true barbecue tang.” A side of barbecue spaghetti was deemed “too greasy to be palatable.” One pig.
      No. 6 – Little Pigs at 671 South Highland, got a three-pig rating, as did No. 5 Leonard’s at 1140 Bellevue,  but the CA tasters found Leonard’s consistently good in all respects – meat, sauce and sides. It also didn’t hurt that a Leonard’s sandwich was the least expensive in the taste test, at 99 cents. Though by this time Leonard’s had three other locations in Memphis, “the voters were very particular to name the first Leonard’s as the best.”
       An interloper finished No. 4 – Bozo’s in Mason, Tenn., which received nine votes: “But those nine voters were adamant: Bozo’s has the best barbecue in the world, they said.” The CA tasters gave the restaurant four pigs, and noted that you might have to wait an hour to get served. Part of Bozo’s attraction was the drive, a peaceful trip out U.S. 70 (now, of course, it’s one speed trap after another). Half the cars in the lot during the CA’s visit had Shelby County plates.
     No. 3 – Bar-B-Q Lodge, 3333 Winchester at Tchulahoma, was the recipient of some suspect ballots, but the CA focused on one ballot by eight guys who said they ate there every Wednesday night. They said they had eaten barbecue all over the Mid-South, and the Lodge had the best. The CA liked it too, and gave it tops for barbecued beans and attractiveness. The Bar-B-Q Lodge was a converted residence, with a country-farmhouse ambience. Three pigs.
     A stack of ballots in the same handwriting helped to put Cozy Corner No. 2.  Still, the CA panel found that the restaurant delivered the goods. The tasters liked everything about the sandwich, but passed on the barbecue spaghetti after the Brady & Lil’s experience. They were glad they followed the suggestion to try the homemade cake: “For 50 cents, it was probably the best purchase of our barbecue tour.” Four pigs.
    The reader poll was topped by Gridley’s Fine Bar-B-Que, at 4101 Summer. The CA  tasters, dining at a packed house for lunch, generally enjoyed the food, but noted a couple of service issues and that it was the most expensive on the tour ($1.60 for a sandwich). Still, the pork barbecue plate ($3.25) brought a lot of food, enough for leftovers.

    So, where are they now? The sad deterioration of Brady & Lil’s has been noted here, but its spirit and recipes live on at the Bar-B-Q Shop in Midtown, No. 1 at our house. The Rendezvous will probably be the last restaurant standing in Memphis. Little Pigs, a place I miss, is a Quiznos ghost pit. The original Leonard’s is gone, replaced by a Walgreen’s. Bozo’s, another favorite of mine, thankfully remains in its time warp in Mason. The Bar-B-Q Lodge (also Smoky Ridge Barbecue in the 1980s), has fallen to development. The Cozy Corner, despite its gritty location, still packs its parking lot at lunch. Gridley’s has been here and there in town and is now out on Stage Road.

IT JUST GETS WORSE
   The decline of the old Brady & Lil’s / Ellen’s Soul Food site at 601 S. Parkway East continues. A few posts back, I noted that window bars had been removed, opening the building to anyone/anything. Since then, a vehicle has crashed into it, causing this damage. If there had been any hope of a business reopening there, it’s likely gone now.
   It’s tempting to go inside, but not without backup.  

OLD TIMES, PART ONE
     I had the occasion for a couple of discussions of barbecue history last week, and at dinner at the Bar-B-Q Shop the question came up about just how early restaurants started showing up around here.
    Of course, there’s Leonard’s in 1922, at Trigg and Latham for 10 years before moving to its famous location on Bellevue. Robert F. Moss’ book “Barbecue / The History of an American Institution,” has a chapter devoted to “The Rise of Barbecue Restaurants,” and notes a couple of other names familiar to the Mid-South: Abe’s in Clarksdale, Miss., 1924, and then moving in 1937 to the building it occupies today; and McClard’s in Hot Springs, Ark., whose owners started cooking and selling barbecue to the guests of their tourist court, and then opening the restaurant at its current location in 1942. 
    I did what little looking around I can do, and found these early purveyors. The Crescent Club is interesting for apparently offering a more interesting evening than could be found four miles to the south. Barbecue stands were common early on (Moss discusses those, too), attached to gas stations to get the business of nation’s new motoring public.
   

APRIL EOM EMG: THE BAR-B-Q SOCK; GHOST PITS HOME EDITION, PART 2; REQUEST FOR INFO; YARD BUZZ
    Time for some spring desktop cleaning.
    Last year, this sock turned up at the bottom of a pile of laundry. Don’t know where the mate is, so it’s a ghost sock of sorts. I took that as a sign it was destined for here. Gold Toe made them.
     The makings of bar-b-q, according to the sock, are hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, cole slaw, potato salad, chips, lemonade, lip smackin’ sauce, one very hot grill and lots of good friends. There is a recipe for the lip smackin’ sauce, stitched into the foot, as follows:

7 green onions, chopped

2 shallots, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp black pepper

Habanero chile peppers

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp brown sugar

½ cup marmalade

½ cup cider vinegar

¼ cup red wine

¼ cup soy sauce

¼ cup vegetable oil

Heat the grill.

    The amount of habaneros isn’t specified, so I guess it’s to your taste, or to substitute or omit. I haven’t tried this, and probably won’t.
    Last year I posted some pics of the barbecue pits that were all over my neighborhood years ago. A neighbor down the street has this neat one, with an insert manufactured by the Outdoor Oven Fireplace Company of Hartford, CT.
    It’s also time for my every-few-months appeal for information about the restaurant franchise companies Little Pigs of America, National Cibo House pizza restaurants, and Blaz’r Steaks (hello, David Barrett, aka Carsonman, I’d like to talk about your father).
    Last, a reminder to take care of the bees this summer. My yard looks awful because I don’t mow my clover patches, but it’s for a good cause. 

4371 SOUTH THIRD, LOEB’S
     The recent post about the Vollintine-Evergreen Loeb’s that didn’t make it past the zoning board included a photo of a Loeb’s center with gasoline pumps, one of three such places in the Loeb’s chain. I checked the three addresses out of curiosity, and had missed this one in previous posts about Loeb’s.
     It’s yet another Loeb’s ghost pit, now the Foundation House of Prayer. The remnants of the original sign are there, too, advertising Big Momma’s Kitchen (it’s in the first bay, where the cleaners was; I couldn’t tell whether Big Momma is still a going concern, but the phone still works).
     This Loeb’s opened in 1967; in one month, I found Loeb’s ads touting six new restaurants in Memphis and the Mid-South.   

    This feature occurred to me last summer, and I thought it might be something to keep in the bank for when things slowed down. With the recent controversy about the Memphis in May Barbecue Cooking Contest poster in the news (what were they thinking, anyway?), it seems like a good time to launch it.
     I have more images related to Leonard’s than any other place, mainly because I got to photograph some of the memorabilia at the old Tommy Leonard’s restaurant a couple of years ago, and Leonard’s was also a consistent display advertiser in the Yellow Pages. The above image is from 1930s-40s business card. Leonard’s was famous for the dapper Mr. Brown (here in images from the 1930s to the 1960s).

   Leonard’s ads also depicted a female pig, Miss White, with Mr. Brown, to tout the restaurant’s famous sandwich options and other menu items (here, 1948, 1961 and 1968, and a menu snip from the 1930s-40s)

    The depictions of Mr. Brown and Miss White were pretty straightforward — no doubt they were pigs. The racial undertone, in the mid-20th Century South, is much more interesting.
   

2705 GETWELL, UNKNOWN
    I sent a big check to Uncle Sam yesterday, and the only good thing to come out of this year’s dealings with the IRS was finding this place, though I don’t know anything about it.
    My tax guy is in a part of town that I pretty much only visit when I’m seeing him. This year I decided to follow a roundabout route to his office by taking Getwell Road, a street that used to be rich with drive-ins and barbecue places. I didn’t notice anything on the way over, but decided to retrace my route home, to see things from a different perspective. At the intersection of American Way and Getwell, I spotted the Rice Bowl.
    As is the case with a lot of these places, it has had many incarnations. A few, from city directories:

    1970-71: no listing (prior to that, probably still outside the city limits)
    1972-73: Old Style Foods Inc. Incorporated in 1972, the “nature” of its business was “the conduct of retail short order food stores corporation to go and perform all acts necessary or incidental to the owning and the operating of said food stores, including the owning and operating of other such places other than the place of its principal office in this state or any other state or country.” The main office was on Summer Avenue (3700 block), and I don’t know how successful the company was.
    1974-75: Kream Haven (owners deceased)
    1976-78; Bertha’s Fried Chicken
    1979: Angie’s Pizza
    1983: Rascal’s Deli
    1992: Rice Bowl (have seen it listed there in 1985; a remarkable run, in any case)

    The only person I was able to talk with about the location was Bertha, of the fried chicken restaurant. She’s well into her 80s and admitted she didn’t remember anything about those years. So the pit is a mystery. The Kream Haven era looks good to me as the time when the pit could have been built, as a lot of mom-and-pop drive-ins touted barbecue on their menus back then.
   

NW CORNER OF JACKSON AND AUBURNDALE — HOW ABOUT A LOEB’S?
    This “pit” is truly a ghost, just a wisp of an idea that got no further than a proposal to the city and county planning commission for a zoning change in April 1971.
    The estate of Lebora Cianciola at 1746 Jackson was seeking to have her property rezoned to commercial to allow the restaurant. The property backed up to a gas station at the corner of Jackson and Evergreen. Opposition came on two fronts — the Vollintine-Evergreen Community Action Association, and Orthodox Jews who lived in the neighborhood, which was home to Baron Hirsch synagogue.
    Elder A.D. Pruett, pastor of three Primitive Baptist churches and who was representing his Jewish neighbors, grabbed the headline and some laughs when he said: “Most of the people who live in the area are Orthodox Jews and don’t want a barbecue pork place … besides, who wants to smell a hog burning?” 
    The decision, however, turned on the argument that the neighborhood was a long-standing residential area that would not benefit in any way from the rezoning, and that the “commercial zoning would lead to strip zoning straight down Jackson Avenue,” in the words of VECAA’s lawyer.
   At the time, the four corners at Jackson and Evergreen were commercially developed, with a couple of gas stations, a grocery and a few other small businesses, and that really hasn’t grown much in the ensuing 40 years. The biggest change has been the new Family Dollar, which wiped out the Firestone store and the old home of Carl’s Bakery. The area has also picked up Cave’s Soul Food and More, which is a repurposed laundromat, and a new gas station is promised for the one that was next to the Cianciola house — which is still standing. 
    In 1967, Loeb’s had barbecue restaurants at 1220 Jackson and 2451 Jackson. By 1971, the 1220 location had been closed, leaving a laundry and dry cleaners, and had opened one at 4038 Jackson. Also, you could get Loeb’s ‘cue at Madison and Evergreen in Midtown  — not quite as bad as Walgreen’s today, but back then you didn’t have to drive too far to find a corner occupied by a Loeb’s restaurant/laundromat/dry cleaners.
    Also in The CA from April 1971 was this Loeb’s ad that touted gas pumps at three of its commercial developments — in Westwood, Southaven and Millington. I’m not sure which one is pictured, but it’s typical of the Loeb’s centers of that time — pretty ugly (if you can’t make it out, the billboard looming in the background is for Loeb’s). An earlier post about Loeb’s has an ad photo taken at Madison and Belvedere, and it may be worse. (Got to love those gas prices — a barbecue sandwich probably cost more.)
    Not to rag on the Loebs. They are doing a good job on Overton Square.   

954 MAURY, REDMOND BAR B Q
    Sometimes, you just need a change of perspective.
    The discovery of a new ghost pit got me back to the library and into the city directories. I still don’t know anything about the new GP, but I did make progress on a couple of others that had been on the list for a year or so.
    I posted a distant shot of this pit, in Vollintine-Evergreen, last year, as an unknown. Looking at it from the east, I had decided it was on the side of a store  that fronted on Vollintine, next to Wild Bill’s, and all my searches were based on a Vollintine location.
    When this entry leaped off the page of the 1977 city directory — “VOLLINTINE AV INTERSECTS  954 Redmond Bar B Q” — it all became clear. This pit is on the back of an east-west storefront that faces Maury. Somehow I had missed it. Yes, I trespassed to get this new picture. It looks like they built the pit where a back door was.
    Still, a lot of mystery remains. The name and address are the only bits of information the city directory provides — nothing about the owner. The 1978 city directory lists no business there. Previously, it had been home to a barber shop, beauty parlor and snack bar.
    While we’re in the VECA neighborhood, a restaurant mainstay, Dino’s Grill, received a great writeup in The Commercial Appeal today, noting the restaurant’s 40th year at its location on North McLean at Tutwiler. It is one of my all-time favorite Memphis dining places. I’ve been eating there for 30-plus years, and I’ll go any time. When Rudy cut back breakfast to weekends only, it was tough for a while not getting a midweek fix, but I’m about over it. The restaurant business is tough even in the best of times, and these past few years have probably been terrifying. Dino’s is one of the places I try to give business to whenever I can, in hopes they survive this bad economy.
    Dino’s is a Midtown treasure. Here’s hoping for many more years of great food and friendly service.  

3007 JOHNSON, TAYLOR & SONS GROCERY
     Not a restaurant, but a ghost pit nonetheless. When the bridge work began on Holmes a couple of years ago, I started taking Tillman sometimes to get to the library. I probably hadn’t been on the street in a couple of decades, but the neighborhood exuded the promise of an old pit somewhere, so it became my main route over to Walnut Grove for several months. Last October, I spotted this place.
     In the 1960s and up to the early 1970s, this little commercial strip was home to Luther M. Welch Grocery and Vic’s Sundries (3013). In 1972, the ownership changed to John and Regina Taylor, who put the pit on the building and sold barbecue from their grocery, doing a few shoulders for the weekends, according to Mrs. Taylor.
     There are at least two groceries in Shelby County that do their own pork — the Canale Brothers, famous for their hams (and subject of a post last year), and Morris Grocery (10601 Macon Road), whose pork barbecue some local ‘cue fans swear by.

MORE ARKANSAS TRAVELING:
TRUMANN LIONS CLUB AND BILL TEAGUE’S MARKET
     On my trip to Trumann, Ark., last month, I was circling Couch’s Bar-B-Q, previously home to the Trumann Little Pigs of America shop, and noticed an amazing collection of portable barbecue cookers in back of the adjacent building. It had the look of cemetery of sorts, but not so.
    Around front, the building is Bill Teague’s Market, advertising “Family Pak Bar-B-Q.” I went inside, and Mr. Teague told me about all the cookers behind his store. Yes, a few are rusted-out hulks someone could haul away, but the rest see annual duty for the fund-raising barbecue sponsored by the Trumann Lions Club the first Saturday in November. 
     The Trumann club has existed for 83 years, and Mr. Teague has been a member for 47. Inspired by a blind girl whose family shopped in his store, he came up with the idea for the barbecue, some 35 years ago, to raise money to help support the Lions Clubs’ fight against blindness. Mr. Teague built nearly all of the cookers you see here.
    Last year, he said, they fired up about a half-dozen of them and cooked 3,000 pounds of meat. The cooking is done in back of the store, and a couple of them are used to transport the meat to the event site. Last year, they cleared $8,000. For his market, Mr. Teague sticks with pork, though years ago he had a chicken restaurant in Trumann. 
          

THEY DON’T MAKE ‘EM LIKE THIS ANYMORE
     I made a Little Pigs of America research roadtrip last month to Trumann, Ark., and was directed to this place, easily the neatest ghost pit I’ve ever run across. Initially, I was told this was an LPOA site, which would date it to 1962, but a return trip to Trumann last week determined its true heritage — the Arkansas Pig.
     I don’t know when it opened, but it is listed in the 1954 Trumann phone book, the oldest one in the public library. The last listing is 1957. A faded sign out front indicates it was a laundromat at some point. A medical supply business is in the building now. It’s really tough to pin down exact locations of old restaurants when the only address given is Highway 63. If you’re lucky, it may indicate north or south. Of course, if you live in a small town, you know where everything is.
     Trumann was home to a Little Pigs, and also a Coleman’s in the 1970s, owned by Porter Moss — lifelong barbecue man, owner of Showboat Barbecue in Memphis, and a valuable source of information for this site. At one time, Moss owned about 20 Coleman’s shops in the Mid-South. There were also a couple of drive-ins that advertised pit barbecue, but they are gone. 
    The phone books through the 1960s and early 1970s also listed barbecue places in nearby small towns — Dodd’s Island Queen and the Porky Dot in Monette, and the Fishermen Inn and the Pig Stand in Manila — fates undetermined. (There was a Pig Stand in Belzoni, Miss., for years, a former LPOA site, demolished five or so years ago).  

BARBECUE TO PIZZA? PIG ‘N’ WHISTLE, NOW BRUNO’S
    As I mentioned in my last 2012 post, the former Pig ‘N’ Whistle barbecue restaurant in Bartlett, closed for a year or so, had reopened as an Italian restaurant, Bruno’s, a name familiar to Midtowners for excellent food and its all-too-brief run on Madison at Cleveland a few years ago.
    That was good news at my house, so we made the trek to Bartlett last Saturday for lunch, and can report that the new Bruno’s is as good as the former place on Madison. I miss the cozier feel and (of course) the proximity of the old location, but it will be worth the drive.
    The interior layout hasn’t changed; outside, a tree and some other plantings have given way to a deck that looks like a place for al fresco dining. The only sign faces Bartlett Road. Just look for the bright yellow building.
    I inquired about the Pig ’N’ Whistle pit. Fencing and building fascias had pretty much hidden everything at the back and sides of the restaurant. Bruno said a gas cooker had been recently hauled away, but the old pit was still intact, and may return to service as a pizza oven. Yeah, that would work.  

THE RETURN OF THE BIRD

     We’ve gotten away from turkey at Christmas lately, getting our fix at Thanksgiving and opting for a pork tenderloin instead. This year, between travel and work, time in the kitchen was going to be at a premium, so my wife, reading the list of holiday food providers in The Commercial Appeal, suggested a turkey – a smoked one from one of our favorite ‘cue shops, Porter Moss’ Showboat Barbecue.

      It brought back a lot of old family memories. We almost always had a houseful of company at Christmas, and my mom would fix a turkey (starting it at about 4 a.m.) and a ham, plus a zillion sides. For a good number of years, we also received a smoked turkey from one of the suppliers my dad did business with. (I think I’ve mentioned this – after I had gotten interested in photography, one of these suppliers came to town on a business trip and brought me a case of 120 film. It was like getting a block of a precious metal. Of course, the first thing I did was go out and try to fake UFO pictures. What an idiot.) These smoked turkeys were always an extra treat, and usually came out Christmas evening or the next day for sandwiches or a turkey leg feast.

      The turkey we got from Showboat wasn’t a feast for the eyes; its goodness was all inside – moist meat with a smokiness that came through without being overpowering. We ate it cold, all of it, and turned the carcass into broth. We chose well.

      The other cooking consisted of maintaining a few holiday meal traditions, including boiled shrimp and potato salad (no time for pizza this season), and the second year for huevos rancheros for Christmas Eve breakfast. I’ve posted the recipe for the potato salad (The Way Potato Salad Should Be Made), and here are a few pictures of it in preparation. My wife made this batch; my daughter says she has her own secrets for it, but it was outstanding, as always. The huevos rancheros and accompanying refried beans are America’s Test Kitchen recipes and techniques. After I made the salsa, I threw in some salsa we brought home from El Mezcal. That helped. My daughter made the beans, and fried some Benton’s bacon she brought home. The shrimp plate is my wife’s; she likes the salsa but not with eggs, so she always does something else.  

SEASONINGS GREETINGS
    Here at the GPC home office, Christmas and related activities have landed full force, so I’ll be back in January. A couple of things are in the pipeline, including a great road trip to Arkansas last week. I’m still trying to pin down some of the information.
    One interesting bit of ghost pit news this week involved the old Pig ‘n’ Whistle in Bartlett, reopening as Bruno’s Italian Restaurant. If barbecue wasn’t a possibility there, Bruno’s cooking is an excellent alternative. His little place on Madison in Midtown a few years back was a favorite around our house, and became a sort of special occasion place (perhaps if we had made it one of our regulars, he might still be there).
    He seemed to be in the right place at the right time, when talk was swirling about a Midtown Target store and other development and renewal projects in the blocks just to the north of his restaurant. It was all likely more talk than anything else, but the recession killed all of those ideas.  
    We tried the Evergreen Grill when Bruno ran that kitchen earlier this year — good, but we made the mistake of going the weekend after the CA reviewed it. Anyway, looks like a $2.50 Bartlett movie and dinner at Bruno’s are in our future.
    So, what’s on the GPC gift list this year? Well, I’m always looking for any type of documents, particularly photographs, relating to old barbecue places, and especially information about the restaurant franchise companies Little Pigs of America, National Cibo House pizza restaurants, and Blaz’r Steaks (hello, David Barrett, aka Carsonman). 
   Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.