Creating the World's Best Barbecue in Phoenix.

Creating the best barbecue in Phoenix is done by blending the right mixture of herbs and spices and slow-smoking over smoldering hickory for hours. One man in particular has mastered the process and has over 400 awards of excellence to prove it. His name is "Famous" Dave Anderson - here is his story and why Phoenix has the world's greatest BBQ.

The Legend of Famous Dave's Bar-B-Que

The discovery of barbecue as a young boy in Chicago. Dave Anderson, founder of Famous Dave's, lives for barbeque. Growing up in Chicago, home of the Blues, Dave's passion for ribs began as a young boy when his dad would bring ribs home from work in his lunch bucket. His dad, an electrician worked with construction workers, who often returned from their lunch break with the best tasting slow-smoked spare ribs from street corner vendors who used 55 gallon smokers filled with charcoal and smoldering green hickory wood. They were the legendary ribs just like the champion pitmasters used to smoke way down in the deep south.

The passion for barbecue grows and the restaurant dream begins.

Realizing his dream was to one day open his own barbeque restaurant, Dave spent more than 25 years of his adult life searching all over the country for the best barbecue and feasting on a variety of smoked meats available from every barbecue joint he could find. His passion was almost religious in nature-his understanding of the holy trinity is "Smoke, Meat and Sauce". His trips to these most famous bastions of barbecue were like "pilgrimages" to the most "hallowed shrines" of barbecue! and the 'heavenly' aromas wafting from ribs fresh from the smoker, were like answered prayers. And once the ribs were slathered with barbeque sauce - they were "baptized!" During his travels, Dave visited every barbecue restaurant he could find - literally thousands over 25 years. From the neighborhood storefront BBQ shacks in Memphis, Kansas City, and Chicago, to the backwoods smoke-houses found in the Southern foothills of Missouri, Georgia, Tennessee the Carolinas, and finally, to the huge mesquite pits of Texas.

Dave's secret family Barbeque sauce is developed.

With each trip, Dave learned more and more about barbecue sauces too, and would return home to his kitchen for repeated testing and the refining of his taste senses. Trying to understand the intricate workings of natural flavors, fruit juices, black strap molasses, spices and herbs, and how they'd react to each other under various times and temperatures, Dave would spend countless hours crushing, grinding and tasting fresh herbs and spices. He would taste them dry, boil them, saute' them in different oils, and then hold them in his mouth until he truly understood the correct conditions to blend these fresh ingredients.

After more than 25 years and many all-night cooking and tasting sessions, with thousands of batches of sauces, he finally developed and perfected the best barbeque sauce his friends and family had ever tasted. Today, there are eight award winning Famous Dave's sauces representing different regional tastes Dave discovered during his travels throughout America: Rich & Sassy (Dave's original recipe), a Midwest tomato-based sauce; Sweet & Zest, a tasty blend of hand picked herbs, spices and sweet natural flavors; Hot Stuff, a somewhat hotter version of Rich & Sassy; Sassy Chipotle, a sassy chipotle sauce is a festival of flavors; Texas Pit, a spicy southwestern style, almost as popular as Rich & Sassy; Georgia Mustard, a vinegar, brown sugar, mustard based sauce commonly found in the Appalachians and southeastern states; Apricot Bourbon, with sweet apricots with chipotle peppers added for heat and finished with a hint of bourbon flavor.

And finally, Devil's Spit, Dave's For Adults Only XXX Hot barbque sauce straight from Hell's kitchen. Only the hottest peppers stolen from the devil's own backyard were used. This barbeque sauce is so damn tasty it's almost sinful (he claims the devil made him do it!).

These sauces have been likened to the most powerful love potions known to man - please be careful. A generous slathering will make girls prettier and boys stronger, taller and more handsome-or vice versa.

Dave discovers the only way to cook real BBQ ribs.

Dave quickly learned conventional methods of cooking ribs were not good at all. He found parboiling and baking washed all the flavor out of ribs and they had to be drowned in store bought sauce. After 25 years of backyard experiments, Dave has smoked tons of ribs in an old garbage can and cooked up thousands of gallons of sauce perfecting his now famous barbeque. Dave discovered there is no other way to smoke good "cue" than to first hand rub each slab with a blend of southern spices, then slow smoke'm in a pit of smoldering hickory. This was the time-honored way, the traditional way used by champion pitmasters down in the Deep South.

These ribs are so good right out of the smoker-try 'em without the sauce - just leave your bones naked! These were the kind of ribs Dave had grown to love as a boy in Chicago - the kind he knew, along with his barbeque sauce, would someday make his barbeque famous.

In Phoenix, AZ, Famous Dave's has been recognized multiple times in the media as the Best BBQ restaurant in Phoenix and John Erlandson, owner of the Phoenix Metro Famous Dave's, was named 'Franchisee of the Year' by Famous Dave's of America. Year to date, Erlandson and his Famous Dave's restaurants in Phoenix captured BEST BBQ - 2007 in "Phoenix" Magazine's "Best of the Valley" issue, as well as BEST BBQ - 2007 in azcentral.com's first annual readers' poll. Erlandson's first Famous Dave's opened September 2004 in Chandler at 3250 West Frye Road and the second location in Peoria at 16148 North 83 Avenue in September 2005. His third restaurant is located at Mesa Riverview, adjacent to Bass Pro.

To experience the Best Barbecue in Phoenix,
visit a Famous Dave's restaurant near you!

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Famous Dave's of America.

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