Homegrown and chef-driven. Authentic yet inventive. Intuitive and intentional. Really good and simply real. Rusty’s Bar-B-Q in Leeds is all that, and owner Rusty Tucker will still surprise you.
About 20 minutes from Birmingham and just off I-20 (where he has some official tourist-boosting signage), Rusty’s is ideally located—just up the hill from a huge Bass Pro Shops, a fairly new Buc-Eee’s and the world-renowned Barber Motorsports Park. The restaurant, on the main road into and through Leeds, is in a small building that was many things before Rusty and his wife, Beth, opened Rusty’s Bar-B-Q some 15 years ago.
The place is filled with vintage signs; photos of racecar drivers and Charles Barkley and people eating barbecue; awards for his food and his community spirit (Rusty and his team support UAB, Leed’s High School, Sidewalk Film Festival and more).
It feels good and smells divine.
Rusty says, “We’re just a mom-and-pop barbecue joint in a small town in Alabama that’s serving good family recipes and home cooking.”
I sat down with Rusty for a story for Alabama News Center. You can see that version here and watch a cool video.
Customers come from down the road and—especially on race weekends—from around the world for barbecue cooked for requisite long, long hours in a large brick pit in the middle of the kitchen using hickory bought from a guy named Bill. They start the fire each morning around 4:30. Pulled pork—subtly smoky and tender inside with a nice char on the outside—is the bestseller. But you’ll also find meaty St. Louis-cut ribs, beef brisket, smoked turkey, Conecuh sausage, and pulled chicken; there are sandwiches, plates, meats by the pound. Rusty does a great burger, and, in fact, his cooked-to-order cheeseburger is another bestseller.
Don’t miss the traditional homemade sides: crisp fried okra, fresh deviled eggs, black eyed peas, baked beans (spicy and sweet), coleslaw (vinegar marinated and traditional creamy), potato salad, fries ,and onion rings. There are salads and loaded baked potatoes. Seasonal Brunswick stew brings people in every time.
A few words about Rusty’s collards starting with, get some! They are perfectly tender, simmered for hours with bits of Conecuh sausage and a nice splash of Tabasco. Perhaps the best we’ve ever had, they also were good enough to get a great write-up in Men’s Journal (see the recipe below).
“We have great homemade desserts,” Rusty says. “Don’t ask me to pick a favorite because the peanut butter pie is my wife’s recipe, the banana pudding is my mama’s recipe, and the coconut and chocolate pies are my granddad’s recipes, so I kind of love all of those.”
It’s all available in the restaurant or as a catered gig.
Rusty learned to prepare pit barbecue as a child.
“I’ve been cooking barbecue, just in the backyard with my dad, since I was about 10 years old. I started cooking with my grandfather when I was about 6, making biscuits and learning how to work in a kitchen. I’ve just always had a passion for it.,” he says.
Rusty furthered his culinary education at Johnson & Wales in Charleston, South Carolina, and met his wife there, too. She was studying baking and pastry arts.
Traditional barbecue and classical cooking styles are more alike than not, he says, when it comes to ingredients and techniques.
‘It’s really not that far off from traditional French techniques when we’re doing barbecue,” Rusty says. “We’re slow cooking tough cuts of meat that are ‘peasant food’ essentially, or poor people food. That is a huge tradition here in the South. We would take the tough cuts and make them delicious. You see that in a lot of great ethnic cuisine in different cultures; it’s what they had.”
Think of slow braising collards, he says. “You’re taking something that’s somewhat undesirable and cooking it for a long time and making it delicious.” The same is true of a pork butt or a pork shoulder or brisket, he adds. “That’s a tough cut of meat; it’s not filet mignon. Anyone can make a steak taste delicious.”
Additionally, he says, “I think from a classical … or a fine-dining standpoint, we really try to take some elements of the hospitality side of that and incorporate it into the day-to-day restaurant, to just make it more approachable and still be authentic with what we’re doing.”
A commitment to quality and consistency is also reflective of his formal training. And, incidentally, this is why you’ll find a variety of sauces here. Rusty started with a traditional Alabama-style barbecue sauce—thin, vinegary, a bit of heat, made from tomatoes—that is a variation of his grandfather’s sauce. But you’ll see lots more options on each table. There’s a sweet sauce (nice on onion rings and fries), a spicy sauce (do as Rusty does and mix a little with the sweet to dip your brisket) and an Alabama white sauce that’s perfect for poultry. These extra sauces are the products of a chef-driven kitchen striving for consistency. Rusty created them as bases to make his food prep easy—and easy to follow. Turns out, the spiced mayonnaise-and-vinegar concoction for his coleslaw is an excellent Alabama white sauce; the starting point for his baked beans is a sweet barbecue sauce.
But it’s the commitment to making his customers happy that makes Rusty’s place different. That’s why his is probably the only traditional ‘que joint in the entire state that serves barbecued jackfruit.
This vegetarian option comes from a learned culinary background, but it also comes from a place of inclusiveness.
Rusty has regular customers who have been coming to Barber Motorsports Park—and to Rusty’s Bar-B-Q—every year for years. One of these guys is a vegetarian from New York City who, during the Barber Vintage Festival in October, would visit Rusty’s with his buddies. They would get big plates of pulled pork and ribs and brisket. and John would order a salad—no cheese—and a plain baked potato. “That’s just sad,” Rusty says. “It’s really depressing when everyone else is, ‘Oh my God! This is so amazing!’”
The next time they were in town, Rusty was ready.
He told the guy: “Here’s your salad and baked potato with no cheese on it, but I’ve got something I want you to try.” Rusty handed him some barbecue jackfruit. “I just cooked it up, put some of our barbecue sauce on it … and he loved it! It just absolutely changed the way he felt. … He felt seen and included and a part of it all.”
Not two weeks later, a family came in for a birthday. “There was the teenage daughter in the background,” Rusty says, “and you could tell she was pouty … I said, ‘Are you a vegetarian?’ She said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘I’ve got something for you. I’ve got barbecue jackfruit.’ Her face just lit up. Again, I can’t say it any different, but she felt seen and included. All of a sudden, she got to enjoy the birthday celebration with her family. Obviously, it wasn’t her birthday—she would have picked somewhere different—but whoever’s birthday it was, they wanted to come here and now she felt included. So, ever since then, it’s been on the menu.”
Rusty adds: “It’s not really about the barbecue. It’s about how we make people feel when they’re here. … I want them to say it’s the best barbecue they ever had in their life, obviously, but I also want them to walk away with just the feeling of being welcomed. Getting genuine Southern hospitality while they’re here. Everyone treated them well. They got ‘good vibes,’ as the kids say. … We want everyone to feel welcome.”
Rusty is carving out a place for himself and his brand on the local, regional and national food scenes. Food & Wine called Rusty’s “one of the best BBQ spots in the state.”
https://www.foodandwine.com/travel/restaurants/rustys-bbq-alabama
He just returned from the Charleston Wine + Food festival where he served smoked quail. During the “Smoke Show” portion of the festival, Rusty took Manchester Farms semi-boneless quail, added barbecue rub, smoked them and served them with his Alabama white sauce. “We wanted to tie in a little bit to what we do at the restaurant,” he says, but, at the same time, the quail was a delicious outlier in a field of pulled pork and brisket. The next day, during a tasting event, Rusty served his collard greens with jalapeno cornbread “because it’s such a good bite.”
Rusty says going back to Charleston for the Wine + Food festival was like a reunion of sorts. He and Beth saw friends from school and visited places they used to frequent.
“It was cool because I was actually in school at Johnson & Wales in Charleston when the first Charleston Wine + Food festival happened. It was 18 years ago, I think. I was working as an intern at the Charleston Grill at the time, and this event was happening around me. All these big-name chefs were there. Frank Stitt was there, and I was like, ‘Hey, I know that guy. He’s from my hometown.’ So, it was just like a full-circle moment for me to go from being an intern at the first one to actually being … a chef that was participating in it.
“We represented our brand and our state well,” he says. “I was happy to be there.
Rusty brought flavors from the Year of Alabama Food to the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival several years ago. He was part of the inaugural (and award-winning) Birmingham FOOD + Culture Festival last year and is excited about the next one set for September 13-22. “We did the FOOD + Fire event. It was a beautiful day out at Sloss Furnaces, and we served a lot of people some great barbecue. It was a really good event.”
Rusty and his wife got married in 2008 and opened their restaurant in 2009; they were 23 years old when they signed the lease on their building, so they’ve grown up here together. Others have grown alongside them, and Rusty (while proudest of his young son) is also proud of this.
“I’ve got people working for me now,” he says, “they were 5 when this place opened. I’ve got kids that are working for me that weren’t even alive when this place opened.
“We love being a part of people’s story. I’ve seen so many of the kids that work for us—this is their first job, and they don’t have any life experience—they worked here for a few years and then they’ve gone off to college or they’ve gone and done other things and they’ve been successful in it. They still keep in touch. We’ve been a part of their lives, and it keeps coming back full circle. … Fast forward and we cater their wedding. Fast forward and they’ve got kids now. And we’re still part of their story and they’re still part of the family, even though they’ve gone on to do other things.
“It just makes me so happy to see them succeed in life. I can’t say that I taught them anything life-altering or whatever, but I like to think that they learned something while they were here and that it’s contributed to their success.
“I just like being a part of other people’s story. You don’t always have to be the main character to be part of the story, right?”
7484 Parkway Drive, Leeds, AL
205-699-4766
Hours
Monday – Thursday: 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Friday – Saturday: 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Sunday: Closed
Order ahead online or call 205-699-4766.
Rusty’s Collards
Ingredients
- ½ lb unsalted butter
- ½ cup yellow onion, medium diced
- 2 cloves fresh garlic, crushed
- 1 Tbsp kosher salt
- 1 Tbsp black pepper, ground
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp Tabasco
- 2 bunches (32 oz) of fresh collards, de-stemmed, cut into ½-inch chiffonade (or 2 lbs frozen, chopped collards)
- 1 lb Conecuh smoked sausage, cut into ½-inch rounds
- 3 quarts chicken stock
- ½ cup white vinegar
Mise En Place
Locate and measure all ingredients. Wash and de-stem collard greens. Place leaves on top of one another and roll tightly, then using a sharp chef’s knife slice lengthwise down the middle of the leaves once, then across into ½-inch ribbons (chiffonade). Dice one large yellow onion (¼-inch dice); crush two cloves of fresh garlic; cut Conecuh smoked sausage into ½-inch rondelles. Prepare or purchase 3 quarts of chicken stock.
Assembly
In a large stock pot, melt butter over medium heat. Sweat onions and garlic in the butter over medium-low heat until softened. Add sausage and dried spices into the pot, increase heat to medium-high flame and render sausage until slightly browned. Add chopped collard greens to pot and allow to wilt in the fat, continuously stirring for 2 minutes, then add chicken stock and all remaining ingredients to the pot. Cover pot and bring to a boil. Allow to boil for 5 minutes and then reduce heat and let simmer for approximately two hours, until greens are tender. Enjoy with homemade cornbread.
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