So, what qualifies me to rave about this place?
I lived in the south for a long time, and have had BBQ of every variety- East Carolina, the several variants of Georgia and Florida styles, Texas, Memphis, Cincinnati, St Louis, Arkansas, and KC style BBQ; at places reknown and obscure, including the lamb barbeque served at Moonlite BBQ of Ownesboro, KY. I don't think there's a genuine BBQ place up and down I-75/85/95 whose food I haven't sampled, having been married to a Southerner who insisted on trying them all.
I've eaten it off of china, paper and styro plates, out of to go boxes, in red and white checked paper boats or plastic baskets lined with wax paper and even served on a tray with compartments reminiscent of a prisoner's chow line in Fayetteville, Georgia where it came standard with white bread, brunswick stew, bread and butter pickles, and nary a vegetable. I have eaten BBQ smoked on an open trailer pulled by a truck and sold only "to go," and on a roadside picnic table next to an enclosed trailer with a smoker out back on an undeveloped lot. On weekend nights, I have bought my BBQ curbside from someone smoking meat on the street in front of their house in a neighborhood of Daytona known as The Bottoms; a place where white folks like myself didn't go without a friend who was a local riding alongside me.
At least a hundred different BBQ joints tried out over a span of ten plus years, and that was only after "prescreening" the places for authenticity. When I left the south, I thought I left real bbq for the rest of my life. Not so any more.
The meat here is sublime, cooked to perfection, and brimming with the flavor that only slow smoking and tender oversight can produce. The side dishes are the real deal- where else you going to get greens and mac and cheese from scratch?People whose idea of BBQ is Damon's, Tony Roma's, Chili's, and other chains won't get it, but true devotees always will. If you want the genuine article, go to Memphis Best.
Obviously Memphis Best offers something that no one else is putting out in the Valley. Goodyear might not be the gastronomic epicenter of the Phoenix metro area, but it's worth the drive out to taste this food. So, drive out to Goodyear, support your BBQ habit, support local business people, support a veteran who served his country and most of all support your soul with authentic down home food in Maricopa County.