Jacksonville named among Top 10 best BBQ cities in the United States, study says

Teresa Stepzinski, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union
·2 min read
Gators BBQ & Catering, 8142 West Beaver St. on the Westside is listed as a "notable BBQ" in Jacksonville in the recently released report, The Best BBQ Cities in America: 2023 Data," by Clever.
Gators BBQ & Catering, 8142 West Beaver St. on the Westside is listed as a "notable BBQ" in Jacksonville in the recently released report, The Best BBQ Cities in America: 2023 Data," by Clever.

Be it brisket, ribs, pulled pork, burnt ends, turkey, chicken or all of above, Jacksonville offers some of the best barbecue in the nation, according to a just-released ranking.

Jacksonville ranks as the No. 9 BBQ city in America — holding the same Top 10 spot for the second consecutive year — in the report, The Best BBQ Cities in America: 2023 Data from Clever, a real estate data company. The analysis looked at the "State of the BBQ Union" in 50 major American cities from coast to coast.

Gators BBQ & Catering and The Bearded Pig, both local award-winning favorites, are listed in the report as "notable BBQ" in Jacksonville.

On the Westside, Gators BBQ & Catering at 8142 West Beaver St., has been serving up barbecue for at least five years. The menu is packed with the sort of stuff you really only find at a good Southern barbecue place — fried green tomatoes, corn nuggets, fried pickles, smoked hamburgers, sweet potato with cinnamon butter, Brunswick stew and banana pudding.

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The brisket sandwich and rib tips are customer favorites at The Bearded Pig barbecue, which has locations at 1808 Kings Ave. in Jacksonville's San Marco neighborhood and at 1700 Third St. South in Jacksonville Beach.
The brisket sandwich and rib tips are customer favorites at The Bearded Pig barbecue, which has locations at 1808 Kings Ave. in Jacksonville's San Marco neighborhood and at 1700 Third St. South in Jacksonville Beach.

With locations at 1808 Kings Ave. in San Marco and 1700 Third St. S. in Jacksonville Beach, The Bearded Pig routinely sells out of brisket, pulled pork, ribs and burnt ends. In addition to those barbecue mainstays, The Bearded Pig is known for its side dishes including Mac-N-Cheese, roasted Brussel Sprouts and smoked corn on the cob.

The Clever data showed Jacksonville topped other Florida cities, including Tampa (No. 15), Orlando (No. 17) and Miami (No. 47).

Jacksonville BBQ data

The Clever report revealed the following BBQ facts about Jacksonville:

  • Jacksonville has 3.36 BBQ restaurants per 100,000 residents compared to Miami, which has the fewest BBQ restaurants at 0.7 per 100,000 residents

  • Jacksonville BBQ restaurants have an average Yelp rating of 3.79 compared to Detroit with 3.32 — the city with the lowest average score in the Clever study

  • Jacksonville barbecue meats cost an average of $5.29 per pound. Cities with the highest cost per pound of $5.86 were Los Angeles, Portland and Denver

For the curious, Austin, Texas, was ranked as the best city for BBQ in the nation. Austin has 4.7 BBQ restaurants per 100,000 people, double the national average of 2.3 per 100,000, the data showed.

The Clever barbecue rankings were determined by Real Estate Witch, which analyzed metrics from Yelp, Google, U.S. Census data, food truck data from Roaming Hunger, and other sources.

Teresa Stepzinski is the dining reporter for the Times-Union. Follow her on Twitter @TeresaStepz or reach her via email at tstepzinski@jacksonville.com.

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This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville ranked among Best BBQ Cities in America