1/1/2004 - Best Barbecue
Nothing brings out your inner carnivore like a meal of saucy, 50 napkin barbecue. The chance to throw away the knife and fork—and maybe a few manners, too—never seems as much fun and rewarding as it does our reader’s favorites.

#1. Lucille’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Que
You’ll fee like you’re at home in a Southern plantation, but you can leave the accent at home. Just bring your appetite.

Guests can’t get enough of Lucille’s hearty entrees, in which all the meats are smoked in a Southern-style smoker over real hickory wood and topped with Lucille’s signature barbecue sauce.

Meals are complemented by an addicting array of side dishes: homemade buttermilk biscuits, and choice of roasted garlic mashed potatoes, shoestring fries, a baked potato, mashed sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, creamy cheese grits, baked beans, Southern braised greens, honey-roasted peanut slaw, flame-roasted sweet corn, a vegetable medley or potato salad.

Whew. It’s hard not to get full just thinking about all the food. But the authentic Southern hospitality may draw as many guests as the food.

“We are excited to be voted the No. 1 barbecue restaurant and are thankful to everyone who voted for us,” said Mike Kern, general manager. “We love serving great barbecue with the finest Southern hospitality.”

Part of that hospitality means you can be comfortable—eat heartily, bring the kids, be boisterous and have a good time.

“It’s definitely loud here, with lots of music,” Kern said. “A place to bring the family.”

Executive Chef Chris Ferrell creates a variety of specials that rotate every two or three months; recent examples include a St. Louis-rib-tips appetizer and seafood stew, which is made with andouille sausage, tiger shrimp and blackened catfish over steamed rice.

While the restaurant has been themed on an old Southern woman named Lucille, who supposedly built the business around recipes she learned as a young girl, you should know that she doesn’t exist. But you can imagine that if she did, she’d be smiling at all the satisfied diners leaving her restaurant every day.