Dan Barrett, owner of D & R BBQ, always has had a love for cooking and trying different things.  He came by it naturally because his father was a cook with the Merchant Marines for some twenty years.  Dan picked up on some of his special dishes and went on to create new ones of his own. That's how the creation of his secret BBQ sauce and methods of cooking the BBQ meat came to be. The main reason his bbq meat is so good is because of the way he smokes the meat. Most everyone uses oak, or hickory wood, but not Dan.  The reason why is that his wife couldn't tolerate the heavy smoke from these kinds of wood, so he searched until he found a wood that left the meat with an even greater flavor without all the smoke.

When Dan first started cooking for the public it was for fundraisers that the school band booster club held. People who tried his food wanted to know where his restaurant was, but he would tell them that he didn't have one and they would always suggest that he open one somewhere. His fellow employees at O’Neal Steel found out about his ability to cook and they started in on him to open a restaurant so finally after being bugged so much he opened one up at locust fork. We all made new acquaintances and many friends at the first establishment of D & R BBQ. Business was going great and we were in the process of opening up all week long serving a full day of business. Then all of the sudden we got a notice a week before we planned to initiate our weekly plan, the landlord wanted to sell the building he was leasing and the restaurant was forced to vacate within a week. Dan told his customers that he would be back and he wouldn’t let them down.

Well he's back now, back with the same great food but just at a different place, and invites all of his old and dear customers along with new ones to stop by and enjoy some good home cooking and Alabama’s best BBQ.