These are California's top BBQ spots, according to Yelp

Alexa Mae Asperin
·2 min read

LOS ANGELES - Whether you prefer some tender brisket or succulent pulled pork - who doesn't love a good melt-in-your-mouth piece of barbecue?

Yelp just released its list of the top 100 Barbecue Spots of 2024 and California is home to 11 restaurants on the list!

To get these rankings, analysts at Yelp identified businesses in the "Barbecue" category with a large concentration of reviews mentioning "barbecue," then ranked those spots using a number of factors like total volume and ratings of reviews mentioning those keywords.

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Topping the California restaurants that made the list is Calhoun's Texas Barbecue in Murrieta. It's the second year in a row Calhoun's beat out all the other California restaurants to take the top spot.

The BBQ restaurant is owned by the family of slain Riverside County Sheriff's Deputy Darnell Calhoun, who was killed in the line of duty in Jan. 2023.

Following Calhoun's death, the restaurant closed and became a gathering place for the community. Flowers, cards, and balloons surrounded the restaurant in a show of support.

But on Feb. 1, Calhoun’s mother Renee, dad Lonnie, and their surviving children reopened the restaurant. Inside there is a plaque dedicated to their late son, with the date of his passing, and the initials EOW "End of Watch."

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The restaurant has 4.7 stars on Yelp with over 1,200 reviews, many of which mention the Calhoun family's kindness and hospitality a major selling point.

Here are the other California restaurants that made the cut:

Wright’s Barbecue in Johnson, Arkansas ranked first overall as having the best barbecue in the U.S.

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