Pollard's Bar-B-Que

“Whitehaven family pit, a Restaurant Impossible alum”

Pollard's Bar-B-Que began as a catering business in the mid-1990s and became a Whitehaven dine-in fixture on the Elvis Presley strip in 2011. The room got a national spotlight when Food Network's Restaurant Impossible renovated it, but the family kept its homestyle cooking intact through the makeover. The menu runs authentic South Memphis: pulled pork with a real hickory backbone chopped for the bun, dry-rubbed ribs off the family pit, and Southern plate lunches that lean on the sides as much as the smoke. Fried catfish and slow-cooked collard greens give it a soul-food breadth beyond the barbecue, and the location near Graceland makes it an easy pilgrimage stop. This is a family pit that took a television cash injection and used it to protect the recipes, not replace them, which is why the plates still taste like home.