Moonlite BBQ Owensboro

2840 West Parrish Avenue
Owensboro, KY 42301
(270) 684-8143



Featured in Gourmet Magazine, on The Food Network, in Money magazine, and in USA Today, Moonlite is not just small time bbq restaurant. It's also not just the best Owensboro bbq restaurant. It's got serious press! As I mentioned in a previous post, I have vivid memories of going to Moonlite with my family, growing up in Kentucky. The food was and is the best around. Now living in Texas, I know good barbeque! Don't just take my word for it, listen (okay, you can read it) what Gourmet Magazine has to say about the best barbecue in Owensboro:

“You all goin’ buffet?” the waitress asks as she sets down suites of silverware (each wrapped in a paper napkin) and a pair of sauce pitchers on the table of our booth.

In the tradition of an old-time southern pig­pickin’, the buffet at the Moonlite Bar-B-Q in Owensboro, Kentucky, is spectacular. It occupies its own dedicated room, with meats and vegetables on one side, salads and desserts on the other. Never have we dipped a plate when there wasn’t an employee replenishing ribs or dabbing drips of ham-cabbage hash off the counter.

What’s special about a Western Kentucky bar­becue buffet is the variety of meats Most of America’s serious barbecue scenes specialize in just one kind: beef sausages in East Texas, pork shoulder in South Carolina, ribs in Chicago. In Owensboro, they’ve got it all, and at Moonlite, it is all good. There are chicken and ribs and pulled pork, even a pan of non barbecued sliced country ham that is firm and salty and fits so well into Moonlite’s buttery dinner rolls, with maybe a dab of sor­ghum. (Beyond meats, we’ll just mention the im­pressive deployment of “vegetables,” including cheesy broccoli casserole, macaroni and cheese, creamed corn niblets, ham and beans, and butter-drizzled mashed potatoes, plus the western Kentucky soup/stew known as burgoo.)

The beef brisket is sensational. It is sliced a half- inch thick and has a chewy crust blackened by hours in the pit. But the interior is butter-soft, with some quivery veins that appear to be meat but that are so infused with long-cooked fat that they literally melt on the tongue in a torrent of pure, noncorporeal meat-smoke flavor.

Mutton puts Owensboro barbecue in a class by itself. Cooked until pot-roast tender, it is set out on the Moonlite buffet two ways: chopped or pulled. Neither has sauce on it; you apply your -own at the table from the pitchers the waitress brings.

One is a dark-orange emulsion with gentle vinegar-tomato zest; the other is called “mutton dip,” an unctuous gravy that is used to baste the mutton as it cooks. For those who need heat, Moon­lite also supplies bottles of “Very Hot Sauce,” -which is brilliantly peppered and will set your lips and tongue aglow. But we recommend sampling -this meat sauceless. The chopped mutton is pul­verized to nothing but flavor: tangy lamb and wood smoke in a bold hash duet. The pulled ver­sion is a textural amusement park—rugged and chunky with aIot of hard outside crust among soft, juicy chunks of interior meat that fall into shreds so supple they make us want to abandon all utensils and eat like happy cave dwellers.

Want to know a key as to why Moonlite has the best BBQ around? It's in the MEAT! We will have a new blog post about mutton, but for now take a look at this awesome informational video compliments of Moonlite BBQ Owensboro, and Youtube:

Locations

I will try not to be too biased in my opinions here in regards to Moonlight, so here are several other options for Owensboro bbq restaurants. I will review each one in later blog posts or pages specifically, but for now, here is a short list of Restaurants with location and phone numbers:

Owensboro BBB Restaurants

Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn
2840 West Parrish Avenue
Owensboro, KY. 42301
(270)-684-8143
1-800-684-8143

Old Hickory Pit Bar-B-Q
338 Washington Avenue,
Owensboro, KY 42301-5450
(270) 926-9000

Ole South Barbeque
3523 Highway 54 E,
Owensboro, KY 42303
(270) 926-6464

Henry's Boogalou BBQ
2600 Duke Drive,
Owensboro, KY 42301-5418
(270) 302-0923

International BBQ Festival
221 Saint Ann Street,
Owensboro, KY 42303
(270) 926-6938

Be sure to read our first post on Owensboro bbq and future posts and pages on things to do in Owensboro, as well as a few scattered memories of my childhood! Should make for exciting reading!

Owensboro Memories

I vividly recall memories of eating Owensboro bbq as a child. It was a staple in our family from the very beginning. It was a staple for folks far and wide too, folks living way outside of Davis county, which at the time, I thought was the outer realm of the universe! Owensboro bbq is the best in the world. I know this because I have lived to the only 2 places in the world where barbeque even matters: Owensboro, Ky. and Texas! I lived in Owensboro until I was 8 years old and each Saturday Dad would drive us down for the some world famous Owensboro bbq. Moonlite BBQ it was, which has been an Owensboro favorite since 1963. I recall my sister and I discussing how good it would taste and what we would have as a side order. She liked slaw or potato salad. As a younger child of only 5 or 6, you can imagine that even the word "Slaw" would turn my stomach! French fries were always my favorite, alongside a nice bbq sandwhich. If you are visiting this blog for the first time, you may have just realized that the blog is dedicated to Owensboro barbeque. You will also find links and resources to other bbq websites, as well as Restaurants, Malls, Music, Churches, and other Things To do in Owensboro.

Truth be told, this blog is about memories of my childhood. The city of Owensboro has grown so quickly and changed so much, that it doesn’t even resemble the same place I grew up in. Saty tuned for tear jerking memories, revelations of my inner child, for now, more on Owensboro bbq!

I thought even then, as a child, that Moonlite had the best barbeque. As an adult I learn that there version of Owensboro bbq, made with slow cooked Mutton, was the only real barbeque around. Living in Texas for the last 30 years, I have sampled barbeque from around the world. Yes, the world. Folks come from far and wide to the Houston livestock show and rodeo bbq cookoff. They get pretty creative, believe me, but the bbq from my home town ranks at the top of my list. I get questions too. People who have only heard of Owensboro because of the barbeque, will comment “Owensboro, hmmmm. Don’t they make good bbq?” I did an internet search and sure enough, there are hundreds of people each month searching the term. I have so many relatives in Kentucky, who also remember “way back when,” that I decided to create this blog. As people seek out Owensboro barbeque, why not give them a little glimpse into the lives of people who not only remember the 1970’s, but remember eating in Owensboro in the ‘70s!