Big Bob Gibson BBQ

Bob Gibson (1888-1972) established Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur, Morgan County, in 1925. Since its founding, family members have taken over the business, modernized and expanded it, and settled into two permanent Decatur locations. The Gibson family continues to own and operate Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q. Today, the business is widely recognized for its unique white barbecue sauce and its renowned award-winning competition barbecue team.

In the early twentieth century, most barbecue restaurateurs did not operate full-service restaurants but instead sold barbecue cooked on makeshift pits out of their homes or out of impermanent structures in urban centers. Some gas station managers sold barbecue in this same manner. On major roads, they fed travelers. In urban centers, they served blue collar workers, who were mostly men.

In the early 1920s, railroad worker Bob Gibson began a side business selling barbecued chickens on the weekends from a makeshift shack in his backyard off Danville Road in Decatur. Gibson, who stood six-feet four-inches tall and weighed more than 300 pounds, was popularly known by the nickname “Big Bob” Gibson. After leaving his job on the railroad, Gibson and his brother-in-law, Sam Woodall, opened a restaurant on Moulton Road in Decatur called Gib-All’s. Soon, Woodall left the partnership to join his brother in business, and Gibson continued the operation under the now-famous name Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q.

Don McLemore

Gibson’s restaurant gained regional and national recognition for his original white sauce recipe. Gibson crafted a white sauce of mayonnaise, vinegar, and black pepper to smother his smoked chickens. Gibson split his chickens, seasoned them, roasted them over hickory wood smoke for three hours, and then dunked them in the concoction. In 1952, Gibson relocated the restaurant to an existing building on Sixth Avenue in Decatur and turned the business over to his daughter, Catherine McLemore (1919-2004), who offered to take over the day-to-day operations of the restaurant in exchange for half the business. Gibson, an avid fisherman, agreed out of a desire to spend more time in the outdoors.

After Gibson’s death in 1972, his five grandchildren, including Don McLemore (1941-2026), and their spouses took over the business. Led by McLemore, Big Bob Gibson’s Bar-B-Q relocated one more time. In 1987, they built a larger restaurant on Sixth Avenue because their previous landlords would not let them remodel and expand the existing structure. In 1992, they opened a second location on Danville Road. As of the mid 2020s, these two locations remain open for business.

When Gibson opened his first restaurant, he served pork shoulders, chickens, coleslaw, and potato chips, but the menu has broadened since then. In the late 1980s, the menu expanded to include meats like beef brisket and turkey, as well as more modern dishes like barbecue-stuffed potatoes and barbecue-topped salads, served to an increasingly national and transient audience. Barbecue cooks, often known as “pitmasters,” smoke pork shoulders and beef brisket overnight, and each sandwich and plate is carved to order. Big Bob only seasoned his pork with salt, but, in recent years, pitmasters use a blended dry rub and smoke whole pork shoulders, including the picnic and the pork butt, for 17 hours. Like other Alabama barbecue restaurants, Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q uses seasoned hickory wood to build their fires.

Big Bob Gibson's White Sauce

Throughout the years, Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q has left a favorable impression on the Alabama barbecue scene. Recently, Big Bob Gibson has attained international fame for its success at barbecue competitions and its appearances on nationally televised talk shows, including numerous appearances on NBC’s The Today Show, and other programs, like Live with Regis and Kelly, The Martha Stewart Show, and various programs related to college football. Under the direction of veteran pitmaster Chris Lilly, the restaurant has led the crew to victory at numerous international barbecue competitions. A native of Florence, Lauderdale County, Lilly joined the business in 1992 after he met and married Big Bob’s great-granddaughter Amy McLemore, and he became part of the Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q family.

For more than 40 years, the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest has attracted the best barbecue competitors from around the world to Memphis, Tennessee. In 1997, the Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q team won a trophy in their first-ever trip to the competition when they won the category for best tomato-based sauce for their now-named Championship Red Sauce. They have won the grand championship at this famous competition five times: 2000, 2003, 2011, 2014, and 2017. In addition to these grand championship titles, they have also won the pork shoulder category 12 times: from 1999 to 2004 and in 2011, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2024, and 2025. In 2021, the team took home first place in the smoked wings category. In all, they have a record-breaking 13 first-place categorical finishes and five grand championship finishes. In 2025, the restaurant celebrated its 100th anniversary. Its white and red sauces are sold at retail stores and online.