Alli's » Memphis, TN

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Rendezvous serves as a requisite induction for tourists, a staple for locals and their decidedly discriminating taste buds, and a pit stop for en route celebrities such as Justin Timberlake and Bill Cosby. Years of local and national polls heralding the eatery’s meaty offerings have cinched its place in the restaurant hall of fame. Just paces away from Beale Street, Rendezvous is accessed through a grimy, unassuming alley, foggy with exhaust from the restaurant’s smoker. After braving a line that’s perpetually strung outside the door, you’ll descend the great staircase leading down to the monumental hostess stand. You’re then likely to be led through room after room of people chewing and chatting over checkered tablecloths, their chins smeared with a dark red goo. Everything about Rendezvous is generous: jolly waiters, mounds of mouth-watering barbecue, slabs of dry-rubbed ribs, sloshing pitchers of beer, and dusty shelves of antique memorabilia. As legend has it, in 1948, a man named Charlie Vergos cleaned out the basement of his diner and uncovered a coal chute. Perhaps divinely inspired, he opened a modest barbecue joint, a venture that now draws several thousand people on any given Saturday night. Rendezvous is well liked as much for its irreverent wait staff – burly men with names like Albert, Big Jack and Percy, many of whom have worked in the restaurant for upwards of 40 years – as for its tasty fare. Still run by the Vergos family, Rendezvous feels like coming home.

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