That low red brick building with a clay tile roof caught my attention the moment I spotted it in a small Missouri town. It looked like a train might still pull up any minute, and honestly, part of me hoped one would.
Built in the late 1920s as a railway depot, the building later housed a dairy and a printing company before being transformed into a barbecue restaurant in the late 1990s. Inside, the smell of cherry wood smoke hit me before I even reached the hostess stand, and the old terrazzo floor clicked under my shoes like it had for travelers for nearly a century.
That room, with its tall plastered ceiling and heavy brackets, used to be where people sat with suitcases waiting for the train. Now it holds tables full of ribs, burnt ends, and baskets of fried mushrooms the size of your hand…