There are restaurants, and then there are institutions. A restaurant is a place you go to eat. An institution is a place you grew up going to, a place your parents took you before you could read the menu, a place so woven into the fabric of a region that the smell of the smoke alone is enough to take you back to some specific Saturday afternoon you have not thought about in years. LawLers Barbecue, which has been serving the Tennessee Valley since 1978, is the second kind.
On a recent episode of Unexpected Adventures in North Alabama, I sat down with Scott Black, president of LawLers Barbecue, to talk about what it takes to keep a legacy brand alive, why 22 hours is the only acceptable amount of time to smoke a pork butt, and what a stuffed potato the size of a small watermelon has to do with the Alabama 100 Dishes to Eat list.
The Smoke Starts in Ardmore
Most people think of LawLers as the restaurant they walk into. What they do not think about is the 40,000-square-foot USDA-regulated commissary in Ardmore where everything actually begins…