Name: The Original Ridgewood Barbecue
Date: 12/2/23
Address: 900 Elizabethton Hwy, Bluff City, TN 37618
Order: BBQ pork sandwich with fries and blue cheese appetizer (link to menu)
Pricing: $

Monk: I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog, but the parents and brothers of Monk have all relocated to Northeast Tennessee within the past few years so I’ve found myself in a part of the country just a few hours away from where I grew up that I had spent no time in my previous 40 years. It was only recently that I put together that The Original Ridgewood Barbecue, a joint I first read about on Marie, Let’s Eat!, was about 15 minutes north of my family’s houses on a mountain road which leads to Bristol Motor Speedway. One of my brothers had recently become a fan, so the extended Monk family arrived right at 11am on a Saturday to try and get in before the rush. And apparently there’s always a rush.

Before we got to the barbecue, the extended Monk family promptly ordered the blue cheese bowl appetizer. Its a house made blue cheese that is served overflowing in a bowl with packets of saltine crackers for dipping. It’s a little thinner than a traditional blue cheese, but its now a must order for me anytime I visit in the future. The blue cheese also works really well with their awesome hand cut potato fries if you can hold off finishing it until you get your fries with your meal.

Ridgewood’s barbecue is famously just the hams of a hog that are smoked over hickory (cut from the nearby family farm) for 8 hours before being chilled overnight with spices. The next day, the barbecue that is served from the hams is thinly sliced, warmed on a flat top grill, and dressed with their famous, sweet sauce and a mayo-based slaw. It’s unique for the area and the state, but its a good kind of unique.

While I didn’t have a full serving, I also tried some of the barbecue beef from my brother’s sandwich. The beef is taken from top round and sliced and prepared in much the same way as the pork barbecue, and I found it to hold the smokiness from the hickory smoke a little better than the hams. I might be tempted to go for that next time I visit.

After my visit, I grew to appreciate the family and the restaurant even more after reading “The Proffitts of Ridgewood: An Appalachian Family’s Life in Barbecue” about the Proffitt family which now has its third generation working at the restaurant. While it may be a completely unique style of barbecue unlike what I normally eat, The Original Ridgewood Barbecue is certainly worth seeking out. Its a northeast Tennessee institution that has been open for over 75 years.

For more on The Original Ridgewood Barbecue:
Serious Eats (2020)
Marie, Let’s Eat! (2014)
Southern Foodways Alliance (2009)

Ratings:
Atmosphere – 4 hogs
Pork – 4 hogs
Sides – 4 hogs
Overall – 4 hogs