Pigs Fly Over Broadway in Nashville, Tennessee: Courtesy of Jack’s Bar-B-Cue

You know how, when it comes to food, certain people are experts on certain things?  The reason’s obvious – they have their favorite foods and drinks again and again and again – until they can’t help but be an absolute expert.  For me, I count the following amongst my areas of expertise:

• Coffee - Favorites: Starbucks, Cracker Barrel, Denny’s, Kentucky State Parks
• Iced Tea -  Favorites: Ninki’s in Owensboro, Pangea in Owensboro, Applebee’s, Cracker Barrel, O’Charley’s,
• Catfish – Favorites:  Willow Pond, The Feed Mill Restaurant in Morganfield, Kentucky ( worth the trip from anywhere)
• Onion Rings - Favorites: Docker’s Bayside Grill at the Green Turtle Bay Resort & Marina in Grand Rivers, Kentucky
  
• Bar-B-Que – Favorites: Ole South and Moonlite (Owensboro, Kentucky), Hickory Heaven in Marion, Kentucky
• Spinach Artichoke Dip – (I swear on a stack of Bibles that my own is the best. The secrets? The best cheese at the market, chopped fresh garlic, and ground pepper.)
• Hush Puppies -  Don’t even try to beat Willow Pond’s – You’ll just embarrass yourself.
• Bread – Favorites: My own homemade bread and buttermilk biscuits (thank you very much), Montana Grille’s Firebread in Bowling Green, O’Charley’s rolls
• Sides such as Baked Beans, Coleslaw, potatoes, green beans, etc. - I LOVE sides and hate to see a restaurant rest on the laurels of its meat.  Give me great sides as well!  I’m all about Applebee’s and Montana Grille’s Garlic Mashed potatoes.  Montana Grille’s Mashed Sweet potatoes will make you sing at your table. The Kentucky State Park lodges serve outstanding beans and the potatoes at Lake Barkley and Barren River Lake State Resort Park.
• Pico De Gallo, Salsa, Cheese Dip – Favorites: Real Hacienda in Owensboro
• Friendly servers, hosts, and hostesses – Don’t they make all the difference in the world?!  Give me someone who’s happy to see their guests, smiles at them, and actually has a personality.  Favorites: John at Montana Grille in Bowling Green, Kathy and Renai at Kenlake Lodge’s Aurora Landing, Paco (and everyone for that matter) at the Real Hacienda’s in Owensboro, the entire staff at Owensboro’s Ole South and Frederica Waffle House, Justin, Codie, and David at the Kroger Starbucks in Owensboro, every worker in Aurora’s Willow Pond Restaurant.   We’ve recently added a favorite server to our beloved list:  Margaret at the Lake Barkley Lodge Restaurant.  She, Renai, and Kathy are the friendliest Kentucky State Park workers we’ve ever encountered – and they’re all centered around Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley.

New Kid Out of Town

The good news is I’ve found a new restaurant that has become a favorite in several of the categories above!  The not-so-good news is that it’s a foreigner…. shhhh, it’s in Tennessee.  What the heck, though, it’s within driving distance, Nashville is gorgeous (love their soundtrack), and the food will curl your toes.  Let’s run with it.

Jack’s Bar-B-Que in Nahsville, Tennessee is so freaking fantastic that it should be ashamed of itself.  My family loves its barbecue. My family knows its barbecue. In fact, we blew it when we named our youngest daughter – her middle name shouldn’t be Kristin, it should be Barbecue.  Stephany Barbecue – it doesn’t look as pretty as Stephany Kristin, but it is more to the point.

After the first bite into her barbecue sandwich, my barbecue conissuer said, “This is the best barbecue I’ve ever had.”  Strong statement since she has eaten barbecue from here to Kingdom Come.  Hmmm, in fact, I’m pretty sure the only things the girl eats are barbecue pork sandwiches and chicken strips. She repeated the statement on the way back to Owensboro, that night before bed, and the following day when telling our oldest daughter about the amazing food she’d missed out on.

My husband ordered Bar-B-Que ribs and I guarantee I’ve never seen anything disappear so fast.  Then again, I was pretty wrapped up in my own pulled pork, outstanding baked beans (have mercy!), and cornbread.  The potato salad?  Um, I don’t really want to think about it anymore.  My word for it was “horrid,” Steph said it tasted like “old people.”  I didn’t touch that one, I just went back to the Heavenly, Heavenly barbecue, bread, and baked beans.

I also got a taste of my husband’s coleslaw (seriously, the best coleslaw I’ve ever eaten) and my daughter’s green beans (tasted like green beans should taste – like they’d been canned fresh from a gorgeous garden, seasoned, and cooked with love).

You’ll have incredible sauces available to put on your meat – in fact, they were so amazing I was dipping cornbread, pork, fingers, napkins, and anything I could get my hands on in the sauces.  (Whoa, that’s what I should have done with the potato salad… now I think of it!)

I’m not going to say, “Next time you’re in Nashville, go to Jack’s…”  I’m going to say, Make a special trip to Nashville, Tennessee and eat at Jack’s.  It doesn’t matter if you shop at one of Nashville’s A-plus malls, take in an Opry show, tour the Country Music Hall of Fame, or all of the above – the main focus of your trip has to be Jack’s.  If you can get into the downtown Jack’s, you really should.  It’s small, but the ambiance is so incredible – it really adds to the total experience.  The downtown restaurant is at 416 Broadway.  It has upstairs and downstairs dining with a patio overlooking the Ryman Auditorium.  As you sit there eating some of the best food known to man, you can’t help but imagine all of the country singers, Hollywood stars, and athletes that have sat at the very table you are – oohing and awwing over the bar-b-cue and beans, scarfing up all of the coleslaw and cornbread – and perhaps wondering what went wrong with the potato salad!  (In all fairness, there are many, many items to choose from – you needn’t worry about the potato salad.)

I didn’t catch his name, but the gentleman working the register was extremely friendly – with a smile that lit up the place.

Go to their website – Jack’s Bar-B-Cue in Nashville, Tennessee – for directions, the history (you have to read their history), and even some super cool gifts.  You’ll want to buy their sauces.  Check out this delicious deal: If you buy 4 sauces, you get a free hand rub…. all for under $20!  Click the image below for more info and to place your order before they change their mind!

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