National Geographic
recently ranked the "ten best BBQ joints in America." Four of the top ten places for great BBQ were
in the two cities synonymous with that fall-off-the-bone goodness: Kansas City
and Memphis. According to the NatGeo
rankings, the best BBQ in the country is at Corky’s in Memphis (three locations
to choose from just in Memphis with more in surrounding states).
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| Beale Street, Memphis |
The
SBT visited the Corky’s website and clicked on the dinners portion of the
online menu. One word describes what we
read: unbelievable. For under $10 diners
can enjoy a variety of meals. And we
mean meals. When we underline
something that means we’re serious. Corky’s makes their own
rubs, seasonings, sauces and even batters for their deep friend selections. It’s a proprietary secret but you don’t need
to know how to build a clock to tell time and we don’t know what is in the
secret ingredients but the result is flavor.
That’s
good cooking. Corky’s opened in 1984 and since that time has been voted the number-one
BBQ joint in Memphis an amazing 22 times. In baseball terms that is like
batting 22 for 29—a .758 batting average.
This is in a town that has over 100 BBQ restaurants. They are hitting the cover off the ball.
What could possibly be a better meal than a $9.99 BBQ beef
brisket dinner that is “slow-cooked and perfectly seasoned, sliced thick and
covered in sauce.” Now the SBT
understands the competing forces that lock horns over dry rub versus wet sauce.
We appreciate the fact that Corky’s
calls it a tie and gives hungry people both.
Forget about a bike ride to the place, we may crawl on our hands and
knees. Everything BBQ at Corky's is slow-cooked over hickory wood and/or charcoal.
If you can fit some takeout somewhere on your bike do
it. Try taking home an onion loaf. It is a meal of deep fried sweet onions
formed into a loaf of bread and served with special sauce (and the sauce isn’t
just repackaged Thousand Island dressing).
Let’s pause the taste buds for a second. Before we reach for the handi-wipes, we, as
good bike riders need to explore Memphis a bit.
One of the fastest growing cities, not just in the south, but in the
United States, Memphis is home to Elvis, the Blues, and FedEx.
Let’s start our bike ride in Tom Lee Park (pictured). The sprawling Mississippi Riverbank park
memorializes the brave Tom Lee, an African American waterman who personally rescued
scores of people from a capsized riverboat
in 1925. Each May the park hosts Memphis
in May, a month of activities that includes the Beale Street Music Fest,
International Week, the Sunset Symphony, and the World Championship BBQ
Contest, the largest cooking competition in the world.
A bike ride should leave Lee Park bound for Corky’s Poplar
Street location. From the center of Lee
Park head upstream along Riverside Drive to Beale Street of course. No trip to Memphis should miss Beale. Turn onto South Main Street at the Elvis
statue and proceed down to the Lorriane Hotel.
The second floor of the Lorraine was the location of the Martin Luther
King Jr. assassination. Today the hotel
is part of the National Civil Rights Museum and should not be missed. At
this point the ride is only at two miles.
If you would like to ride in traffic take Poplar Street to Corky’s, it
is about 11 miles. We suggest avoiding
traffic and from the museum head to Florida Street. Take Florida south to E. McLemore which
becomes Southern Avenue. Southern is a straight
line ride to the Memphis Botanic Garden.
Go around all the pretty plants to Park Avenue. Park leads to White Station Road which takes
you to Poplar. Take a right, Corky’s is
on the right. It’s about a 15 miles
ride. Call a cab for the trip back to Lee
Park, you’ll be too stuffed to ride.
The Marc Cohn song “Walking in Memphis” captures the essence
of the city, we have it on our website, www.stickybottleteam.net.
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