One thing Kendrick and I both had on our shortlist of Must-Dos: eat Memphis BBQ. I googled and consulted my Road Trip America book and Twitter-sourced, and what we ultimately decided on was the chicken and ribs at Interstate BBQ.
The place is not pretty. It looks kind of like a run-down fast-food joint, and is located right off of (like, basically on top of) the interstate (hence the name). The plates could have come straight out of a 1980s cafeteria, and the service, while friendly, is very much in the “whaddya want?” vein.
But OH MY FOOD. We made our picks based on Yelp reviews, and ended up with pork ribs, a half chicken, potato salad, beans, coleslaw, a side of BBQ spaghetti (which is what it sounds like: spaghetti tossed with slow-cooked pork and BBQ sauce), and fountain sodas the size of basketballs. And we ate (and drank) it all, and our son said “MMM THIS IS DELICIOUS!” over and over and over. (Weirdly, you want to know what my favorite part was? The coleslaw. And I don’t particularly like coleslaw, so this both makes no sense and speaks to some kind of weird sorcery happening with however they make their coleslaw in this place.)
Memphis BBQ, check and check.
