![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() “My mom would cook banana pudding on Sunday. “The menu basically came from my childhood,” Scott, the 2018 James Beard Award winner for best chef in the Southeast, says. The Rodney Scott’s menu features slow-smoked whole hog barbecue, ribs and chicken served with Scott’s vinegar-based sauce, as well as such sides as collard greens, hush puppies, coleslaw, baked beans, potato salad and banana pudding for dessert. So, we’re claiming him - and his barbecue. But ever since he partnered with Birmingham restaurateur Nick Pihakis of Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q fame and opened the second location of his Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ in the Magic City in 2019, he spends as much time in Alabama as he does in the Palmetto State. Yes, Rodney Scott grew up in South Carolina, where he learned and perfected the fine art of smoking whole-hog barbecue from his father, Roosevelt Scott. Leo and Susie have since died, as has Richard, but Tony Headrick, Richard’s son, carries on the family tradition. “The first one was marrying me, and then the next one was buying the Green Top.” Leo & Susie’s Famous Green Top Bar-B-Que, as the Headricks started calling their place, soon became renowned for miles around for its pit barbecue and spicy, vinegar-tomato sauce, which their son Richard Headrick made from scratch on top of the stove. “My husband made two good decisions in his life,” she told Southern Foodways Alliance oral historian Amy Evans in 2006. At the time, Susie Headrick thought her husband had lost his mind. Then, in 1973, coal miner Leo Headrick and his wife, Susie, bought the Green Top for $25,000. So it was better known as a beer joint than a barbecue place. Strategically located in western Jefferson County near the Walker County line, the concrete-block building was one of the last places along the highway that sold beer, as Walker and the counties west to Mississippi were dry back in those days. In 1951, the Green Top Cafe was one of the first businesses to open along what was then known as “the new” U.S. “When we are going good, it’s a beautiful thing.” “If you’re paying attention, you can actually hear them call out your order, and you can look and see everybody moving to put it together,” managing partner Sammy Derzis says. ![]() Part of the charm of eating at Golden Rule is the open kitchen with the glazed brick pit, all of which is in full view of the guests. Matsos died in 2012, but his son, Charles Matsos, continues to run the business. 78 into a new building strategically positioned near the Irondale exit ramp. Decades later, Birmingham restaurateur Michael Matsos of Michael’s Sirloin Room bought Golden Rule around 1970, and when I-20 was being built, Matsos moved the restaurant across U.S. The original building was along a dirt road, and in addition to serving barbecue, they sold beer and cigarettes and even did occasional car repairs. No barbecue restaurant in Alabama has a longer history than Golden Rule Bar-B-Q, which goes all the way back to 1891, when the Williams family opened the first Golden Rule not far from its current location in Irondale. It’s so good it’ll make you forget you’re not eating pork. That said, our go-to meal is the sliced smoked turkey sandwich with chow-chow and a side of that marinated coleslaw, which we pile on top of the turkey. From the hickory-fired ribs to the sliced pork, the luscious carrot cake to those delectable “Half Moon” cookies, we love everything on the menu. At lunchtime, you’ll typically find Joe Maluff taking care of business on his cell phone or his laptop at a table along the back wall. And while the Maluff brothers have grown the Full Moon brand to include 16 locations throughout Alabama, we always love going back to the original spot - a cozy, little cinder block building with the Full Moon logo painted on the outside and probably a couple hundred Alabama, Auburn and UAB sports photos covering the inside walls. Brothers Joe and David Maluff bought the original Full Moon Bar-B-Q on Birmingham’s Southside from Pat James, who coached football under Paul “Bear” Bryant, and his wife, Eloise, in 1986. ![]()
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