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The most fun part of traveling ... (mini-trip report)
This little road trip is a "wing-it" affair. We have no schedule or deadlines. We did hit the lost luggage place in Scottsboro, AL, but other than that, we're just driving the back roads of Alabama. We have no clue where we're going or where we'll end up. The fun part is stumbling upon little hole-in-the-wall places to eat. Today was no different. We were traveling down some narrow two-lane road and came upon a TINY place called Mary's BBQ. I swear every "local" in the area was there carrying out bags of food. Ok, if it's good enough for the locals ... it should be good enough for us! Lynn wanted ribs ... I'm a sammich eater. We pulled into the small gravel lot and parked under a big ol' shade tree next to a small spring coming down off the hill. They had picnic tables there by the stream and we decided to eat there.
Ok, we walk inside and to a little window to order. Lynn asks for spare ribs and they said they'd sold out already! Huh? They opened at 10:00 and we were there at 11:15. We were then told they'd sold 300 lbs. of spare ribs already and all they had left was "country style" ribs and pulled pork. WTF??? No prob. ... I was after the pulled pork anydamnway, but Lynn likes her spare ribs. She got the country style ribs and they were ... what do youse dufes say? Larrupin!? Here's the joint ....
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Ok, I was curious. I wondered if this place even existed on the web, so I googled it. I ran across a blog by some "food writer" and he explains the place a little better than I could:
Mary's Pit Bar-B-Que
Gurley, Alabama
The building has two doors in the front. Back in 1958, when they opened Mary’s Pit Bar-B-Que in what was then the hamlet of Maysville, you would enter through the right door if the complexion of your skin was pale, and through the left door if it was not so pale. Since then, the left door has been blocked, so everybody uses the right door now, independently of their tan lines, but not much more seems to have changed there in over fifty years.
The actual “restaurant”, and I use this term rather loosely again, is a teeny room with a window in the back where you order and receive your meal, a small narrow counter next to it with six round, worn down bar-stools on metal poles (one of the seats is missing, though), the menu on a pin-board at the opposite wall, a white board with the daily specials on the small wall of the room, a pink trash can in one corner and a very low ceiling with lots of scribblings, cartoons and what I would call “country-graffiti”, on it.
Most of the folks who get their food here do it as take-out fare. And everybody seems to know each other, judging from the conversations I overheard when I was there – it seemed to me as if this place is the “original facebook”, where people from the neighborhood come together and just chat a little with each other face to face, while waiting for their pork sandwiches.
All in all it is a very homey atmosphere, but certainly you would not find “outsiders” like me and my wife there too often. They don’t have a web site, there is no sign on the nearest Highway, US 72, which is about four miles to the west, there is only word of mouth and the locals just simply know that Mary’s is there. So if you don’t have a friend from that area who tells you were to go, you certainly would just drive by the right exit on the Highway ignorantly on your way to or from Huntsville. This would be a real shame, because apart from the genuine and cozy atmosphere, you would miss out on great food.
The blog went on to describe the food they ate, so I'll skip that part. The whole time we were there, people were coming in and taking a bag of food home. I guess 99% of their business is "called in" and picked up as a "to-go" order. I guess that's how all the spare ribs sold out so early. We chatted with Mary (?) for a bit and I commented on the short hours she's open (according to the sign, 11:00 - 7:00 Thur - Sat ... and 11:00 - 4:00 on Sunday). She said the hours are simply "estimates" and that they normally close once they run out of food! Ha! Anyway, it's places like this that make traveling fun.
Here's Lynn washing her hands (after we ate) in the little stream that runs beside the place. When I told her to "smile", she pretended to be "drinking" instead of washing ... but it was refreshing. After we washed the BBQ sauce off our hands, we continued on down the road for a little more exploration. We're still not sure when we'll be heading home.
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