RE: Ridgewood Update
Sun, 12/28/03 4:56 AM
(
permalink)
Here is a letter I wrote a fellow barbeque lover about Ridgewood Barbecue in July 1999:
Dear _____,
Since there isn't a 12 Step Program for “we, who what” love barbeque, I suppose we’re doomed to continue supporting each other's addiction. This is your lucky day, as I don't often visit this newsgroup. When I saw the subject line of your bbq missive and followed the thread, I found someone answered "Bluff City, TN, near Johnson City". Well, that discerning person may not have had more detail available. But I do!
The name of the Bluff City place is Ridgewood Barbecue (owned and operated since 1948 by Grace Proffitt and now her son, Terry Proffitt). The address and phone number is: 900 Elizabethton Hwy. (Old 19E), Bluff City, TN 37618, Tel. # 423-538-7543
I first ate there in the fall of 1984. In the last 3 years I’ve been returning more often. My sweetie and I left with the help one Sat. night at the end of last July.
Author, John Egerton, describes the que this way in his fine 1987 book, Southern Food: At Home, On the Road, in History.
"Ridgewood starts with fresh hams, not shoulders. The meat cooks and smokes for about 10 hours over hickory coals. Then it is chilled in a cooler, sliced cold, and reheated on a frying grill at high temperature. While it sizzles it is doused generously with a spicy-sweet and mildly hot tomato-based sauce. The mound of moist and piping hot meat is then troweled onto a large toasted bun and served with slaw and French fries, both freshly made and of the highest quality. They have been doing it that way (for over 50 years), and customers eagerly wait in line every day for the Ridgewood to open."
Nothing has changed.
There is a long chapter in Egerton’s book on barbeque restaurants throughout the South, many of which are still in business, continuing their excellent traditions. The chapter is titled, "On the Barbecue Circuit".
Ridgewood is one of the places celebrated in Jane and Michael Sterns' Eat Your Way Across America: 500 Diners, Farmland Buffets, Lobster Shacks, Pie Palaces, and Other All America Eateries.
Here’s what the Sterns wrote about Ridgewood in their frequently updated dining guide:
“At the insistence of a reporter who needed a headline, we once declared the Ridgewood to be the best barbeque in America. We weren’t lying, but it did seem crazy to choose just one restaurant out of the several dozen supreme BBQs from Chicago’s South Side to the Texas Hill Country and from Kentucky mutton parlors to the Basque smoke wagons of the Rockies’ western slopes.
Still, we do adore dining at the Ridgewood; if it isn’t the single best barbecue, it surely is in the uppermost echelon of America’s pork palaces. The meat itself is sensationally tasty—tender, sweet pork, sliced thick and piled high, then doused with a suave red sauce that is tangy and not painfully hot. It is heaped into a bun or on a plate with superb, meaty barbecue beans and fine French fries on the side. Adding to the pleasure of the food is the well-known ambiance of this fifty-year-old country restaurant.”
My own review would be similar to John Egerton’s. It might read:
“If you are a pilgrim in search of smoke house greatness, Ridgewood is close to a religious experience.
Ridgewood slow cooks their hams (only hams are used here) over hardwood hickory coals, producing a moist and tender meat with a fine smoked flavor. The red sauce particularly suits my taste--spicy and a little sweet, but not too hot. Ridgewood’s portions are considerable and the prices low. The big mound of hot, hand-cut French-fries (a rarity nowadays) are a knockout, and the homemade baked beans may be the best you’ll find anywhere. Slaw is served on the sandwich, unless you want it on the side, which I prefer. It makes a full serving.
So here are four food items perfectly prepared every time. I don't order the meat as a dinner and almost no one else does as Ridgewood puts just as much pork on an oversized bun, and the sandwich platter costs less. A glass of sweet tea and you’re in Barbeque Heaven. I’ve never eaten any of the other foods served there in about two-dozen visits over 15 years.”
Ridgewood has a tradition of locking the doors precisely on time. If you arrive one minute late, you’re out of luck. They close Mondays. On weekends they close part of the afternoon between lunch and dinner. I have visited twice and not gotten in, because I’d forgotten the hours of operation.
Current hours (as of January 6, 2004):
Sunday...................Closed
Monday-Thursday.....11:00 a.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Friday-Saturday.......11:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. & 4:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
DIRECTIONS: Finding Ridgewood can present a challenge, which is why their business cards (I carry them in the car) and carryout menus are printed with a map. The State of Tennessee won’t allow signs along the right-of-way to help customers find it.
From I-81: Exit the Interstate at Bristol, Va. or Johnson City, Tn. Then get on Hwy 11-E which connects the two cities. Go to the junction (where there is a traffic signal) with New 19-E (to Elizabethton). Turn onto New 19-E and go approx. 1½ miles to Old 19-E, aka Old Elizabethton Highway (there’s a service station on the left side of New 19 E about where you turn onto Old 19 E and there will be a very small highway sign with the road's name). Turn right and proceed a half-mile. Ridgewood is on the right; you can't miss it. As it is a significant detour from the interstate, I would try not to cut it too close with the serving hours.
Some maps do not include Old 19E or the road isn’t labeled. The business card includes Bluff City in the address, but Ridgewood is out in the country, some distance from the town.
I've been handing out Ridgewood business cards and menus for years. Friends and acquaintances that visit cannot say enough good things about the experience. And they always look forward to return visits.
Sincerely,
Jim
Your friend in barbeque.
