Patio Porkers, Rib King bring the barbecue competition to Beale Street. Here's who won.
Downtown Memphis was hazy Saturday afternoon, with a combination of smoke and overcast skies. Just off Beale Street, people walked in and out of Handy Park and popped over to the various tents where contestants in this year's Patio Porkers competition were cooking.
The Patio Porkers division of the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest was dropped this year due to space constraints in the redesigned Tom Lee Park, but that did not stop teams from 15 different tents from competing on the same street where the barbecue competition first began in 1978.
The 2023 edition of Patio Porkers, a sanctioned Kansas City Barbecue Society competition, saw teams face off in a one-day event Saturday in Handy Park to determine the best of the backyard barbecuers, with each team cooking ribs for the judges.