Bob Sykes BarB-Q
1927 9th Avenue, Bessemer
Like Andrew’s and Johnny Ray’s, Bob Sykes is a old-timer in the Barbecue business in Birmingham. The first Bob Sykes location opened in the Central Park neighborhood of Birmingham in 1957. By 1977, there were 14 locations all around Birmingham. That is how I came to know about Bob Sykes: there was a location near us in Center Point, and it was some good stuff. However, Mr. Sykes suffered a stroke in 1970, leaving his wife Maxine to run all those restaurants, so in 1977 she closed all of the branch locations and kept only the Bessemer location open. The restaurant is now run by Van Sykes, Bob and Maxine’s son.
In addition to the regular menu items, Bob Sykes is also well known for their family dinners to go: lots o’ good barbecue for not a lot o’ money. And, like so many B’ham barbecue places, they have really good pies: chocolate, pecan, coconut, and lemon.
Bob Sykes has still got it goin’ on!
4 responses so far ↓
1 Vrouw_Jonker // May 25, 2006 at 20:59
Pah!!!!!!
Mr. J: Lemon
Calvin: Pecan
Frits: Chocolate
Rosie: Lemon Merin-gwee
Arie: Chocolate
Vrouw: Lemon
That’s all the J’s that are willing to vote at 9:59 pm.
2 RevJATB // May 26, 2006 at 7:36
No votes for coconut? I love coconut cream pie. I make a pretty good one too. Banana cream too. I learned how by watching Gilligan’s Island. The tricky part is getting someone to pedal that bicycle to run the mixer.
3 Vrouw_Jonker // May 27, 2006 at 7:21
Nyuk, nyuk!
The children at our house were watching the season finale (I think) of “Lost” the other evening, and, knowing nothing about it, I asked, “Is that sort of like Gilligan’s Island?”
Then I got a lot of outraged indignation.
4 RevJATB // May 27, 2006 at 8:35
They were indignant because you’d struck a chord. When the show first premiered, I said much the same thing.
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