Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q
Decatur, USA
Bob Gibson started this in Decatur with hickory, brick pits, and a mayonnaise-based sauce nobody else was using. The chickens get split, seasoned, smoked for three hours, then dunked. Pork shoulders smoke overnight — seventeen hours, dry rub, carved to order. It's Alabama barbecue done the way it was done, and the family hasn't seen a reason to change it.
Chris Lilly runs the pits now — great-grandson-in-law, head pitmaster, and the man behind five Memphis in May Grand Championships and enough trophies to fill a shed. The white sauce still goes on chicken. The red sauce exists for people who need convincing. Both ship nationwide, along with the rubs, because some things travel.
They're open six days, closed Sundays. There's a drive-thru if you're in a hurry and pies if you're not. Chocolate, pecan, lemon icebox — made in-house, same as the Brunswick stew. A hundred years in, they're still smoking meat the slow way and selling it by the pound. It works.
Alabama
