BBQ IN THE NEWS: Toast of Music City Results

So the results are in for the Tennessean's inaugural "Toast of Music City" awards, and wow...what a trainwreck. I'm sure when the powers that be down at 1100 Broadway dreamed up these awards, they could not have envisioned how laughable the final results would be. Ladies and gentlemen, the winner for best restaurant in Nashville is........Bar-B-Cutie! That's right, Bar-B-Cutie. And keep in mind, this was not just for best barbecue restaurant, but for best restaurant overall, across all categories! Jeremy Barlow, Jason Brumm, Andrew Chadwick: thanks for playing, but you have just been defeated by a third tier barbecue chain. The abominations abound - Las Palmas for best Mexican, Chaffin's Barn for best buffet, Stoney River for best steak, and on and on. But I think my personal favorite is the "Best Hot Chicken" category. 1st place - Bojangles, 2nd place - Popeye's, 3rd place - Otter's Chicken Tenders. LOL!!!!

So I'm trying to figure out if there was some kind of ballot box stuffing that took place, or if the Tennessean's readership really is that devoid of good taste. I think that a lot of intelligent, well-rounded people still do read the newspaper. But as anyone who has cruised the comment sections of online articles knows, the internet readers/commenters are a different breed. There are some frighteningly ignorant people knocking around in there. But I digress.

So anyway, the barbecue top three: 1st - Bar-B-Cutie, 2nd - Famous Dave's, 3rd - Jack's. Given that this was a reader's poll, I am pretty surprised to see Whitt's absent from that list, considering they have topped the Nashville Scene's reader's poll for about 74 years in a row.

Suffice it to say, if the Toast of Nashville is back next year, I think it will be considerably tweaked.