4 Alabama Barbecue Names Football Fans Plan Saturdays Around
Game day in Alabama is about more than the score.
Many fans have a barbecue spot they won’t skip, and where you eat can matter almost as much as where you sit.
Here are the barbecue names fans keep coming back to.
1. Dreamland Bar-B-Que
Dreamland sells its products at Bryant-Denny Stadium, the University of Alabama’s football home, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama.
Its ribs have been popular with University of Alabama students throughout the restaurant’s history.
John Bishop opened the original in Jerusalem Heights in 1958, the same year Bear Bryant started coaching at Alabama, according to a history piece from Birmingham television station WIAT.
As the story goes, Bishop was weighing a mortuary until a dream steered him toward a café.
The Bishops started with hamburgers and fried fish, but the ribs were runaway bestsellers, so the family eventually scrapped everything else.
Ribs, white bread, potato chips.
In Tuscaloosa, you’ll find two Dreamland locations.
Dreamland’s website says it serves one sauce, which is vinegar-based with a little heat.
A Visit Tuscaloosa profile says Dreamland has been a staple on game day since it began.
At the original, you’ll notice license plates, Alabama football memorabilia, dollar bills and pictures on the walls and ceilings.
2. Archibald and Woodrow’s BBQ
Local lore has Alabama football coach Bear Bryant stopping by Archibald’s often for the ribs, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama.
George and Betty Archibald opened the restaurant in Northport in 1962, and you reach it by crossing the Black Warrior River from Tuscaloosa.
Archibald’s pitmasters typically use direct-fire cooking and finish the ribs in about 45 minutes, which the encyclopedia says defies the low-and-slow style of barbecue.
The original served only sliced pork shoulder or slabs of ribs, with white bread and potato chips.
The hickory-cooked, open-pit ribs earned a second-place finish on Good Morning America in 2009 and a sixth-best ranking from USA Today in 2013.
Their grandson, Woodrow Washington III, opened a Tuscaloosa location in 2002.
Visit Tuscaloosa’s game day guide lists Archibald and Woodrow’s among the barbecue places it calls the gold standard for decades.
Psst! How much do you know about Alabama barbecue? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
Quiz
Alabama BBQ Pop Quiz
Answer these questions on Alabama sauces, smokers, and barbecue history. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
Employees at Big Bob Gibson joked that chickens dunked in the white sauce had been what?
3. Full Moon Bar-B-Que
Before he founded Full Moon, Pat James played football at Kentucky and coached at Alabama under Bear Bryant, according to a 2018 Business Alabama profile.
The original, a small shack on Birmingham's Southside, opened in 1986, and sports photos covered its walls, with a heavy emphasis on Alabama and Auburn football.
A massive moon-face mural grinned at passing cars outside the original.
Joe Maluff was a UAB graduate, and the walls include a section of photos of the late UAB coach Gene Bartow, an early supporter and regular.
In 1997, brothers David and Joe Maluff bought it from James.
By March 2018, they had grown Full Moon to 14 locations across Alabama, adding about one every 12 to 18 months.
In Tuscaloosa, you'll find the location at 1434 McFarland Blvd. E. in Visit Tuscaloosa's game day guide.
The Alabama.travel tourism site calls Full Moon famous for its half-moon cookies and chow-chow, and the chow-chow came from a recipe created by James's wife, Eloise.
David Maluff said he had never heard of chow-chow until it came on his sandwich, and then he loved it.
4. Byron's Smokehouse
During football season, Byron's offers tailgating packages, catering and special game day menus, according to Southern Living.
Glen and Stephanie Gulledge founded the smokehouse in 1989, and it sits on Opelika Road, just around the corner from Auburn University's campus.
The smoked meats include chipped, sliced or chopped pork, sausage and ribs, with fried potatoes, mac n' cheese and Brunswick stew among the homemade sides.
Biscuits and sandwiches draw a steady morning crowd every day except Monday.
Auburn-Opelika Tourism's game day trail makes Byron's its first morning stop, for a hearty Southern breakfast.
Later, you can head to Bow & Arrow, the trail's postgame stop and a family-friendly smokehouse that blends barbecue and Tex-Mex flavors.
Chef David Bancroft opened it in Auburn in November 2018, Garden & Gun reported.
Where White Sauce Started
The Encyclopedia of Alabama dates white sauce to 1925 at Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur.
That same year, Robert Gibson worked for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and cooked on weekends in a backyard pit, according to the Southern Foodways Alliance.
The permanent restaurant opened on 6th Avenue in 1952.
After a 1988 fire destroyed the original building, the family rebuilt next door and kept the original neon sign.
The restaurant has had success at barbecue competitions and appearances on nationally televised talk shows, including The Today Show.
The Encyclopedia of Alabama ties white sauce-soaked chicken to the banks of the Tennessee River.
The restaurant's history page says Gibson served barbecue from a makeshift table of oak planks nailed to a sycamore tree in his backyard.
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