DECATUR, Ala. (WHNT) — Big Bob Gibson Barbecue in Decatur is packed with history and awards within its four walls.
“That’s my grandad, this is me, that’s my brother, my uncle, and my dad,” said Andrew Lilly as he pointed to a family picture hanging in the restaurant.
Perhaps the biggest award of them all came just last week.
“Big Bob Gibson himself was inducted as one of the legendary awards…a barbecue legend is what they call it,” said Lilly.
A barbecue legend who is now in the national “American Royal Barbecue Hall of Fame.”
Big Bob’s great-grandson, Andrew Lilly, told me the story behind the smoker started decades ago.
“He was working for the and railroads, and he would just have people come around, hang out of this house,” he said. “He’d cook chickens in a dugout pit in his yard, and he would serve it with his white sauce,” said Lilly.
That special sauce turned into a barbecue staple: The Alabama white sauce.
“Every chicken that goes through this restaurant gets a bath in this white sauce,” said Lilly as he dipped a chicken breast into the white BBQ sauce.
It’s been a tradition ever since Big Bob started selling barbecue back in 1925.
“We’re serving a lot of the same recipes that have been been here this whole time,” he said. “That goes back to some of our sides that we’ve sold at the original store, and the white sauce recipe has not changed a bit in 100 years,” he said.
Lilly said protecting that legacy is his top priority.
“There’s not many family-owned restaurants or businesses that have lasted as long as we have, so I just think it’s a testament to just generation after generation putting in the hard work to keep it going,” he said.
He accepted the award on behalf of his great-grandfather and the 4 generations that made it possible.
