Reese's Barbecue

I probably ought to apologize; I don't get to update this as often as I'd like to simply because of the logistics of visiting every barbecue restaurant in Memphis. One of the difficult parts of this undertaking is that my fifteen-minute lunch radius is a finite area, and lots of barbecue places in Memphis are only open for lunch owing to unprofitable dinner crowds and less-than-savory neighborhoods.

Not so with Reese's barbecue, which is open until 9 most days (not Sunday), but is fortunately right on the edge of my lunch amoeba--areas accessible by interstate form the pseudopods. Now that I've put "amoeba" and "lunch" in the same sentence (TWICE!) and ruined appetites in the process, let's talk about Reese's.

Reese's boasted a pretty good crowd when I walked into it; a lot of construction workers, a couple of cops. I entered the building with a group of similarly-dressed guys, who ordered the same thing as I did, so the lady behind the counter assumed we were together--which (coupled with a security guard coming in to chit-chat for a few minutes) meant that we all got our food simultaneously, a little slower than I would have liked, but not terrible.

The sandwich isn't smoky; I presume the shoulder is roasted as there was no telltale pinkness in the meat and no noticeable smoke flavor. The sauce is both sweeter and spicier (for a mild sauce) than most. The slaw is ordinary, the bun toasted. All in all it's a good sandwich, but indistinguishable from lots of other good sandwiches in town. Beans looked to be cooked in-house and were tasty, fries were nothing special. The menu boasted a wide variety of other barbecue and non-barbecue options--plate lunches, burgers (which looked very good, incidentally), a variety of other sides. Worth a visit if you're in the neighborhood, or if it's somewhere within the perimeter of your lunch amoeba.

Reese's Bar-BQ
4606 Winchester Rd
Memphis, TN 38118
(901) 366-1497