Why New Bedford Was Ranked the Worst BBQ City in America

Recently, we published a story proclaiming that New Bedford has the absolute worst BBQ in America. With all of the great restaurants we have in the city, how can this be true? Let's cut to the bone of it and figure out why we got burned.

How a Survey Ranked U.S. Cities for BBQ

The ranking was according to a survey from LawnStarter, which is apparently a website offering lawn care services. It’s one of those sites that creates crazy lists of the “best” or “worst” something or other in order to garner clicks and generate traffic.

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I guess I can see the correlation between a lawn care service and BBQ; people with nice yards tend to be outdoor grillers. However, I never put any stock in these rankings, since it usually comes from sites that know nothing about the topic it is ranking.

After all, New Bedford finished dead last in a 21-way tie for worst BBQ in the country. Three other Massachusetts cities – Brockton, Lawrence and Quincy – were part of that tie.

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Why New Bedford May Have Ranked So Low

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized: New Bedford probably finished last because we don’t have any traditional BBQ restaurants.

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BBQ Options Around New Bedford

Sure, you’ve got places in surrounding towns like Cask & Pig (Dartmouth), Profile Tavern (East Freetown), Bootleg BBQ (Westport), Kinfolks BBQ (Taunton) and even the Cobb’s Southern BBQ food truck (Fairhaven), just to name a few. None, however, are within the city limits of New Bedford.

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A few restaurants may have BBQ dishes on the menu, but they’re not considered BBQ joints.

What New Bedford Does Offer: Churrascarias

What we do have, though, are churrascarias, which are essentially Portuguese BBQ restaurants. As anyone who has had chicken, ribs or anything else from one of these churrascarias can tell you, it’s vastly different from Southern-style or even St. Louis-style BBQ. There’s no slathered sauce or spice rub with a churrasco. It’s also cooked differently as well.

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Could Southern-style BBQ work in New Bedford? It works in Fall River, with multiple options. Other SouthCoast cities and towns have it too, so why has nobody tried it in New Bedford?

Could Real BBQ Work in New Bedford?

New Bedford does every other type of cuisine and does it well – Portuguese, of course, but also Italian, Jamaican, Guatemalan, even sushi. It’s a mis-steak to think that it couldn’t do great BBQ as well. Someone needs to open up our next great “meating” place.